It’s the day before school starts!
Not going to lie, I’m a little excited LOL.
I’m still working today on our school room and getting everything ready, but since this is probably as clean as it’s going to look for a while I wanted to share our homeschool room with you even though it’s not finished.
*Background*
We live in a three bedroom house – we only need to sleep in two of those rooms. So, a few years back Chris and I moved out of the master bedroom and into the “guest room” on the other side of the house – the main reason, the back bedroom is at least 10 degrees cooler on any given day than the master suite is. That left us this HUGE space (not even kidding, the room measures approximately 17ft by 11ft and is nearly 1/3 the floor space of our entire house when you include the bathroom and closet parts of the suite). Until about a month ago, this room was the “multi-purpose room”, it held my office space, our homeschool space, an exercise machine (collecting dust) or two at any given time, and all my craft and sewing stuff. It was often messy and cluttered.
Our homeschool space at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year.
I worked out a corner of the room to hold our supplies and do school in last year.
Fast forward to May and the decision to work hard toward selling the house. I/we did A LOT of purging in this space (still ongoing but mostly done). Countless trash bags full tossed away, boxes and boxes of fabric and craft supplies donated and thats just some of what we got rid of.
Then the real work started. We spent well over two weeks scraping popcorn off the ceiling, painting, cleaning, rearranging furniture, and organizing.
Technically the room isn’t done. The ceiling needs a second coat of paint, we will be ripping out the carpet and replacing it with flooring, and we also need to replace the baseboards and curtains, but school is about to start and I needed a functioning space, so those projects will all have to wait.
In the mean time, I want to show you the amazing transformation of this room.
First let me give you an overview of our main school space.
Like I said, it’s not 100% ready yet, but it’s pretty close.
Inara and I have separate desks this year, which are in an L Shape. Her’s is my grandmother’s wooden desk and I have a five foot folding table. You can also see our we chose virtues posters hanging on the wall (I used tape so as not to put holes in the walls) still trying to figure out what to do with the cork board since again I don’t want to put huge screws int he walls to hold it. The 7ft tall bookshelf holds what feels like the whole world. It’s got all our curriculum, manipulatives, some chapter books to use for read aloud time, and still has extra space. Next to it I have a rolling file cart that holds extra file folders and paper, the top drawer holds extra supplies and the middle extra manipulatives. On top of that is a paper sorter for our colored paper (I’m super excited by that little gem). You can also see Inara’s new neon pink wiggle seat, I’m excited to add this tool to our classroom this year. For those unfamiliar it’s a 14 inch round disk inflated to about 3 inches high, but not firm. It’s got two different textures on the top and bottom. It allows for sensory input/simulation, noise free wiggling, core strengthening as they attempt to balance on it, and extra bonus it’s fun to sit on (yes I’ve tried it) or play with.
This is a more detailed view of our bookshelf and supply area. I’m going to try something different this year with our AAR and AAS (all about reading and all about spelling) letter tiles and store them on a magnetic board separately and use a small white board rather than the big wall mounted board. In part because, again, I don’t want to put holes in the walls to hang the big board, and also because I found the large board more awkward to use last year. It’s not far away so we can still use it, maybe sitting on the floor, for other things or at certain times, but not daily. (and yes, I love my label maker and my boxes from Container Store)
On the back wall of our space I have an awesome school mailbox that a friend gave me, it will function as our workboxes this year. On top I have a small display of flags (purchased from Smallflags.com) which will be used to say the school pledges, which are printed and laminated next to them. I also have our US map hanging (I did use push pins for this – sorry Chris) since we will be studying US geography this year.
On the wall opposite our school area is the new family computer area. Chris and I both have our computers set up sharing an 8ft folding table. Chris is working to implement networked logons, so any of the three of us can log on to either computer and find all our appropriate files and settings. Chris just finished setting all this up on Monday afternoon while I was at co-teacher training.
Next to the computer area is our new reading area. I’m more than a little excited about this cozy spot, even if it does still have computer cables and parts stacked on it from Chris’ work in the space on Monday. I love that Inara and I will have somewhere else to sit during school to read together, and somewhere for me to retreat to at other parts of the day where I can curl up with a book or do my quiet times.
Not pictured is the fourth wall of the room, which will be our movement area. We have an exercise bike, and will also be putting Inara’s trampoline in that area. It’ll be a place for her to get some energy out during school. We often do memory work (poetry recitation, bible verses etc) while she jumps on the trampoline, or I’ll have her bounce and count to 20 or 100 for math practice. She also enjoys using the bike to get some energy out and some movement going in her legs.
Well, there you have it, (most) of our school area.
I’ll be sharing this post here: 
Our Ongoing Adventures 