Our Homeschool Hub

This week the topic of the “Not Back to School Hop” is the school room.  I know I’ll be salivating later as I look at other homeschool classrooms, I’m sure you will be too.  So for now, consider this to be a little appetizer.

Our classroom is currently crammed in a corner of our basement.  Once my mother moves out, we’ll be able to move our bedroom back upstairs and make a more appealing, less cramped space.  But for now, here’s what we have.

Not so impressive, is it?  To the left of the room are the girls desks.  Behind the desks are two small bookshelves that house our current readers, our upcoming projects and our encyclopedias, dictionary and thesaurus, and our CD players.

Coming along the wall to the right is a storage area for larger craft kits, coloring books and musical instruments.  Then there is my computer desk, and printer station/craft supply cart.  The shelf above my desk holds the girls notebooks for the year, where I keep samples of their school work.  My record book is also kept there.

In front of my desk is our work table. This is where we, in theory, work on crafts, and I scrapbook.  Realistically, it’s where my lesson plan book lives, and it’s a catch all for things that haven’t found a home yet.

Beneath the table are the girls workboxes.  I don’t “do” the workboxes like everyone else.  Rather each girl has a box that houses her teacher guides for her curriculum, and then on top of that is a tote with her readers, memory work, notebook paper etc.  There is also a tote for the teacher manuals for our together subjects.

At the end of the table, facing the girls desks, are their personalized storage areas.  This is where they keep manipulatives, electives and busy work (Mad Libs, Critical Thinking) to fill in gaps of time when I’m working individually with the other child.

At the far end of the room is the door to our laundry room.  I use this door for our math posters, flag information and the occasional art work.   Lastly, here’s a photo from the opposite end of the classroom, for the sake of perspective.

It’s not grand, huge or expensive.  It is what we’ve been blessed with, and we do our best with it.  Realistically, we end up in the dining room a great deal of the time.  Especially in the winter when the basement gets REALLY cold.

Now go look at all the fancier rooms linked up at the Not Back To School Blog Hope – School Room Week.