homeschool room

Our Homeschool Room – Our Dining Room

We currently have our house on the market, have for over a year now, which in our area is not very long sadly. That being said, without an actual homeschool room, I like to keep the house looking, well, not like we homeschool here.

Our Homeschool Dining Room

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Do not let the appearance of our dining room fool you. I have gotten good at hiding our homeschool stuff, really good at hiding stuff. Mostly because when your house is listed for sale, you need to give a clean, open appearance.

Creating Homeschool Room Storage

Under this hutch, is cube box full of coloring books, and notebooks. And another of crayons, markers and such. I didn’t realize you can’t see it walking into the dining room, but that works for me.

Junk. This is stuff my kids have made at after school programs, and on their own else where.

World, Human Body, and Earth kits.

Paper for crafts.

STEM kits.

Oh LOOK, more junk.

Printer paper and other paper I have no idea why we own.

Printer ink. Because no homeschooler can be without backup printer ink.

Hole punch, paper cutter, and a handy take along bag.

Tablets. and tablet stuff like mouse pads, computer mice, headphones and tablet chargers.

Our Bookshelf/Cubby Storage:

Books about Canada.

Other stuff… including hubby’s tablet?

Math manipulatives.

Pattern blocks, magnetic letters.

Flashcards.

Puzzles.

Tablet pillows/stands.

Small hutch for everyday things:

French workbooks, math based books, language art helper from BS.

Our binders – kids work binders, my homeschool binder.

History books – including Time Traveler

My crochet hooks, my camera.

Spelling Words – Write It, Draw It, Use It. – Language Arts – ELA

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Having a Dedicated School Room

While we don’t have a dedicated homeschool room here, I do dream that our forever home will have a library/homeschool room. It would be nice to not have to jam and shove everything into hutches.

It would be nice to have one space for all our books instead of them being spread here there and everywhere, including some packed away in totes.

The best part of homeschooling is that you don’t need to have a space just for homeschooling. You get to do school at home, learn anywhere in your home that works for you. In fact, I bought some lap trays so we have a little more freedom to work from the couch, or the truck, or wherever else we land.

Edited to Add: We have now had a dedicated homeschool room. We used it for about one week. We are too relaxed in our lessons for a dedicated room. We ended back at the dining room and in the living room using our lap desks. Why change what works right?

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Organizing Your Home for A New Homeschool Year

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

The homeschool year is coming to an end. Whether it is coming faster than you want or not fast enough. I always find that the second half of the school year goes faster than the first. It seems to fly by when we have a deadline for the end of the year reporting or for summer vacation plans. One of my favorite things about the year coming to an end is the tidy up and organizing. I love getting ready for a new homeschool year.

Organizing Your Home for A New Homeschool Year

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Let Go for a New Homeschool Year

Now that the school year is coming to an end, look at what you have and let go of the stuff that you don’t use. The books that you bought a year ago and haven’t opened yet because you have a well loved book on the same topic? Donate, sell, or give it to a friend. There are Facebook groups that are specifically for buying, selling and trading curriculum, and there may be one in your area for you.

Same goes for curriculum. If there is something that you haven’t used for your first two children because you don’t like it, chances are you won’t like it for your next homeschooled child. Make room for different curriculum or books that you’ll enjoy using.

Assess for a New Homeschool Year

Now that you have set aside the books, curriculum, etc. that you want to re-home, before you buy new curriculum for the coming year, take time to look at what is working for you and your kids, and what isn’t. Now is the time to see if your child needs a little more work in one area, or are ready to move ahead a little faster in another. Sometimes your child is going to outgrow a curriculum’s style and need something different.

Organize for a New Homeschool Year

Clean up everything you have in your homeschool space. Tidy up your books, and binders and papers. If you keep a portfolio of your children’s school year, now is the time to go through their work and keep the pieces you want to save.

Repair anything you want/need to save that needs repairing, or in list in your husband to do so as I do.

Order homeschool supplies to have them when the school year starts, I’m talking things like pencils and erasers which seem to have legs and walk away everyday. Buy more laminator sheets for “posters” you want to make for the coming year.

Homeschooling When There’s No Homeschool Room

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Homeschooling takes storage. That is something that I didn’t really think about when I decided to fall down the rabbit trail into homeschooling. curriculum takes space. Even if you don’t have full curriculum as we didn’t the first few years, it still takes space, and you a homeschool room isn’t always practical or even wanted. So how do you homeschool without a homeschool room?

Homeschooling When There’s No Homeschool Room

*This post is a sponsored post, I received BookShark products in return for sharing them with readers, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

We do not have a homeschool room, no dedicated learning space in our home, or outside our home. There are a number of reasons to not have one, a lack of room would be the best reason! If I wanted, I could have one, it would just take a little work, a little rearranging in our a basement but I like not having a homeschool room.

Reason to Not Have a Homeschool Room

Learning occurs everywhere! Why limit you and your children to only “learning” in a specific room of your home. Math is fun in the kitchen cooking and baking for example.

Teaching them around my kitchen island changes things up, plus I can easily walk around the island helping them and not have to bend over the table.

Our dining room table is big enough that we can spread out all of our BookShark books and still see everything.

Get out of the house all together. Head to the park or library and do some school there. Grab a backpack, toss some books, pencils and erasers and learn where ever you go.

How to Not Have a Homeschool Room

I have been a book lover since I was a teen, and that requires bookshelves, which is important as a homeschooler too.

If you don’t want you home to look like a school room, which was my goal, you just need to be a bit creative. I wanted our home to be a home, and as we plan to sell someday not have to worry about it when the time comes to list.

Storage

When we bought our house, it came with an old dining room “hutch” as we call it, which houses our board games. It’s directly behind our dining room table which is the perfect place to play board games.

We have two 6 Cube Storage Organizers, and a small book shelf in our open concept dining room/living room. The bookshelf is FULL of children’s books, their leveled reading books, our Berenstain Bear books and more.

One of our cube storage is used for library books, coloring books, and crayon/colored pencil/etc. storage.

The other is for the rest of our homeschool curriculum – BookShark Reading with History and Science books and science kits (two of the cubes). We have one cube with a box in it filled with math manipulatives. Another cube with a box houses our pattern blocks, magnifying glasses, and such. And if you kept count that is only five, shhhh, I have one box empty and just waiting for more homeschool stuff.

I love red, and hubby one day saw this two door cabinet in red on clearance and brought it home for me. I love it! Do you know what I have in it currently? Homeschool stuff! We keep our BookShark binders in here, along with our other curriculum.

5 Things You Don’t Need to Homeschool

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Don’t think you have to have everything to get started in homeschooling. There are things that you just don’t need to homeschool no matter what you might read else where, no matter what someone else might tell you. Just take a minute and think about these 5 things that I am saying you don’t need. Just think about it.

I know because after two years of homeschooling, we don’t have these things.

5 Things You Don’t Need to Homeschool

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Homeschool Room

The great thing about homeschooling is that you don’t have to replicate a school room. You are going to need a place to put things, but a hutch or bookcase works wonders. My children often do their worksheets at our dining room table, occasionally at our kitchen island.

Unlimited Budget

Wow, if I wanted to use a full boxed curriculum, I wouldn’t be able to afford it, not for both of my girls, and in all honestly, not for one of them.

Also, head to your local library, grab a library card, and get started on homeschooling within a small budget getting all the books you need/want for free.

Belong to a Co-op or Group

I don’t belong to any groups. Not that we haven’t tried, but secular in very religious areas makes it a bit harder, but with friends (for both my children and I), we don’t feel like we’re missing anything. We also don’t have to worry about comparisons between homeschooling families.

Use the BEST Curriculum

You don’t have to use the curriculum that gets the best ratings, or the one your friends recommend, instead, think about your year end goals and think about what you need to get there. We use workbooks, being Canadian we use The Complete Canadian Curriculum ones. Not Canadian? No problem, we’ve used the Comprehensive Curriculum workbooks too when we first started out.

Be Involved in a lot of Activities

Too many activities is going to burn you and your child out. Pick one, maybe two. Pick something your child is honestly interested in. My girls are in gymnastics, and that is that. Austin is hoping to start guitar lessons shortly but I’m not pushing it.

homeschool room

Our Homeschool Room – Our Dining Room

Our Homeschool Dining Room