A Peek Inside Our Homeschool Classroom
We learn fractions as we bake in the kitchen, read books curled up on the couch in the living room, watch DVDs together in the family room, finish math on a blanket under the pine trees in the neighborhood park, and do phonics amongst our favorite books at the library, but every now in then, we need a specific space in our home to sit and do schoolwork: handwriting, spelling, or mathematics (in the cold, snowy months).
Our homeschool classroom has undergone a number of moves and renovations since we moved to Virginia. Four years later, we are still trying to find just the right spot for our school’s homebase, where we do our table work and hands-on projects and store our books and folders.
We started out with a little kindergarten space in our third bedroom, a room we declared too small for a bed, much less a bed and a little boys’ belongings. We brought in shelves for books and games, a desk, and a gliding rocking chair. In that 8 x 8 space, we had everything we needed for a perfect little library/school space for a time. BUT, having the boys share a bedroom just didn’t work out. No one was getting the sleep they needed, Mom and Dad included.
After much discussion, and with a full-night’s sleep in our sights, we cleared out the shelves, the desk, and the gliding rocking chair and moved in a toddler bed (because it’s smaller than a regular bed and our light-weight 5-year-old told us, “Beans (Connor’s nickname) don’t need much sleep; they need space to play!”), a 2×3 book/toy cubby, and a small fish aquarium.
Connor moved into his new bedroom and school moved to took over the kitchen. The table was constantly covered with half-completed projects, the counters were piled with books and assignments, and dinner was relegated to “picnic style” on the floor more nights than I care to admit. Patrick and I both agreed, the kitchen just couldn’t be homebase for our homeschool and for our family. The classroom had to move.
From here, school moved to the basement laundry room. We carried a small work table into the space between the washer and dryer, the storage cabinets, the air handler, and the hot water heater. And while this space, too, worked for a while, we soon found we were delaying heading to the “school room” longer and longer each morning. The one unfinished room in the house, our laundry room/school room just wasn’t cozy: the fluorescent lights flickered, it was cold in the winter, and it was noisy all the time as the heater and air handler turned on and off at will.
So, this year, we are moving our school room into the family room.
The space is not large, and it’s definitely not ready to start school, but we’re working on it, and it will be! Once it is, I have a feeling it may just be the best school space we’ve had since moving to Virginia. I’ll be sure to let you know.
This post is linked to the Not Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week at Heart of the Matter On-line. Hop on over and take a peek at some totally incredible homeschool classrooms… the ones I’m trying very hard Not to be envious of.
