Homeschool School Room

Sometimes I am asked what our homeschool room is like.  The whole world is our school house.  We go on field trips and learn from a wide variety of teachers.  We watch spiders hatch in our back yard & study ecosystems at the beach.

You can find my children reading all over the house.  Ballerina prefers her bed.  Princess & Little Red like to  curl up on the couch.  Farmer girl reads everywhere including in her garden.  We have books stashed in most rooms.  I try to sneak a variety of educational books in, and I never comment when I catch the kids reading them.

But, that's not really what people want to know.  They want to know where we do our book work.  So, here are some pictures of our "school room."   And, yes, it usually does look this messy or worse.

Ta Da!  On the left you can see one of three desks lined up on that wall.  Baby Boy has a red and blue "tool bench" in front of the sliding doors,   On the right behind the table is one more desk and shelves.  The blue covered chair in the right front is mine.  It's on rollers so that I can zoom around the room to help each child.  

Each girl has her own desk with space to store her books and other assorted junk. Farmer Girl's desk, on the left, is graced with a paper mache dragon head right now. It's a model of a dragon from the book she is writing. Ballerina painted her desk a bright and very pretty pink, which doesn't go with anything else in the room, unfortunately. But, she likes it, and that's what matters. Princess has the desk on the right.

Little Red uses this desk. She doesn't really need a desk yet, but she likes to have her own space just like the older girls. The rest of the unit holds assorted books, paper, paint, crayons, other supplies and rewards (aka bribes.)

Despite the fact that each child has her own desk, the dining room table is everyone's favorite place to do work.  

My desk and computer are in the background.  I'm not known to share either very often.  




Since I am stingy with my computer, we have a family
computer station set up in the living room.  The internet is locked on this computer, so the kids only have access to pre-approved sites.  I unlock access when they need to be able to view a broader range of material.

We used to keep this computer in the dining room on the shelf next to Little Red's desk.  The noise level in the dining room made it hard for Farmer Girl to work on her on-line Latin class.  So far having the computer in the living room is working well.

Those are the "official" school  spaces.  We spend a couple of hours every day using these areas.  The rest of the time is spent actively involved in hands-on learning.  But, if you ask my kids, they'll say it's just play.