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.

Unveiling the Girls' Dormitory

After months of work, we have moved the girls into the Hogwarts style girls' dormitory.  Our goal was to use limited space efficiently to create private and shared spaces that girls can use to rest and to play.  We've done most of the work ourselves, but have had **lots** of advice and instruction.  Here are some pics.

Before:  small, leaky window, no heat, active wasp nest, dusty, stinky, full of spiderwebs and dust.

 Nearly ready for move in:  new sheetrock, insulation, window, flooring, lighting, heating.

We still  need to build the door for the access hole on the left.  The storage space is also insulated and provides some needed room to put things like the Christmas tree.

After move in: still some work to do. 

Each of the four girls has her own corner of the room.   Each girl has two can lights in the ceiling, one over the head of her bed and one over the dresser.  She has her own switch to control her lights.  She also has two outlets.  We wired plenty of circuits to make sure that multiple hair dryers can be used at once.    

A different perspective to show a room divider mounted from the ceiling. 

There is a wooden wall divider mounted on the left and the right side of the room.  Where the dressers are now will have freestanding closets added.  The dressers will be scooted over toward the walls, in front of the room dividers.  Each girl will have a ceiling-to-floor curtain hung in the "doorway" of her space, so that she can have complete privacy and the ability to escape into her own personal world.

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The other side of the room.

The girls chose their own wall colors.  Kathleen has a bright cheery yellow.  Constance chose a lovely shade of lavender.  The two little girls went with a soothing shade of blue.  The ceiling and trim are white.  My mom says they are "Easter Egg" colors.

The flooring is the cheapest laminate from Lowes.  It was chosen to blend with the rustic hardwood in the rest of the upstairs.  There is one step up to get into this bedroom, so while the flooring doesn't match exactly, it goes well enough to blend nicely.

We still need to add legs to the beds (which my dad made.)  We will also add underbed storage bins to hold the girls' assorted stuff.  

Across the hall is the room that they have been sleeping in. It has a full height ceiling and will be used as a play room.  We call the two upstairs rooms the "children's suite."