Sunday, August 9, 2009

Not Back-to-School Blog Hop: School Room Week


School room, school house, converted space or at the dining room table… the world of academics takes place in all sorts of interesting places. Please show us where you do school, and check out how others make it work.

NBTSbloghop
Welcome to our school room!!
It is located downstairs, along with the laundry room and a bedroom/play room.
It is very crowded full of books and supplies, but I am so thankful for this space. It allows me to keep the school-related stuff in one space (usually!).

First of all, we have books:And more books:
And even more books (also puzzles and games!):

And a shelf full of educational videos (luckily we still have a VCR/DVD player in one). There is a large filing cabinet under this which is full of art supplies and paper.
Then we have another shelf unit. The top shelf is for teacher manuals for the current year. The middle shelf has the kids' notebooks for each subject's work. The lower shelf has a bin for each of their workbooks and a white basket for the books we're reading this week. I move them from the bookshelf to this bin so that they are easier to keep track of . We also have a TV mounted to the wall so that he kids can watch TV down here.
I love the art carts (as we call them). I picked them up at Costco years back, but I think that they are available at JoAnn (but they are much more expensive there). They are full of drawers, which I have filled with art supplies. When the kids want to color, they pull out the crayon drawer, etc. It makes clean up much easier!

And another set of shelves, full of manipulatives, rock collections, puzzles, and miscellaneous stuff.


And one of the best garage sale buys I've ever made. An old dining room table. It is now covered in paint and stickers and tape. And I'm very thankful that my real dining room table isn't!! It also has 2 leaves that I could add if the rooms weren't so cramped.
I also have a humongous desk with my desktop computer and printer and a very large filing cabinet, which I keep all of my genealogy in. Like I said, the room is cramped - and not very decorated. :( I wish that it were a bit more cheery :) In the winter, it can get pretty dark down here in the basement. I have just recently bought a lamp that simulates the sunlight which I placed on the table. I'm hoping that this helps out a bit.

Next to our school room is the playroom (which now also has a toddler bed in it). I put the baby gate up and I let Tori and Nick play in there while we are hard at work.
That's it! We're moving to Savannah, Georgia next spring, and I'm hoping that we are able to find a house that has some extra space for all of our homeschooling stuff. It will be interesting getting it all moved and set up again.

Thanks for stopping by! I can't wait to tour everyone else's homeschool rooms.

22 comments:

Lori C., Texas said...

Love it!! So organized. I wish we still had a VCR!:)

Sisterlisa said...

Love the castle! Your calendar looks interesting. i am looking at getting one for my kiddles. Can we see a close up of that? Did you make it?

Rana said...

Your book shelves look like ours full of books and supplies. I love your play room. Hope you get what your looking for in Georgia.

Karin Katherine said...

This is incredible! I love the organization!

Jessica S. said...

WOW!!! I think you have more books than my local library!! LOL! We are a military family too! Living in Germany right now. You have an awesome space for homeschooling. Very organized, but I guess you'd have to be with such wonderful collection!! Have a wonderful ^Not BACK TO SCHOOL YEAR!! Much luck with your upcoming PCS.

Kiva, Farmstead Lady said...

Love the areas that you use and you can never have enough crayons! :)

Stefanie said...

I don't know what I like more...your school room or your play room. Both are fabulous!

Debbie Phillips said...

Great post, looks like you have a fun area for play and an organized area for school. You may have almost as many books as I do.

Happy schooling

Tracy said...

Wow! Nice room and I hope you find something comparable in GA too!

theProvidentWoman said...

That's an awesome home school set up. I really want to homeschool my kids but I'm afraid I wont teach as well. Even though I don't have great faith in public schools.

Robin E. said...

I love your bookshelves. They made me smile with all the books going this way and then that. Thanks for sharing on Blog Hop.

Lisa said...

I have just found your blog in the last week or so and have been blog stalking since :O). Love the organization and all the bookcases. I wish I had ours all in one room instead I think we have a bookcase in almost everyroom :O{ Makes it hard to find things sometimes!! Take Care and God Bless!!!

Jennifer said...

We actually have even more bookshelves than are shown here!! 5 more single bookshelves in each of the bedrooms filled with picture books, chapter books and literature. The movers are going to hate us!! I just hope that we aren't over our weight allowance. :)

Beth said...

I love your school room! I have a passion for books as well. We need to get together!
I love your "art carts". What a fabulous idea. I am going to keep an eye out for some of those.

Bobbi said...

I love so much about your space. But share with me some of those video titles! I did blow up the picture so I could get some of them :D Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Wow! I love it! Thanks for sharing!

Wendy said...

W-O-W!! And I thought we had a lot of books!!!
I love your art carts, pull-out drawers, and the book-lover's dream shelves. Your kids are blessed to have so many fantastic resources!

The playroom is fantastic, too! Our playroom/ boy's room (converted garage, so it's also wife open like this) is in the middle of a remodel right now. I want to have "touchables" down low, along with small-people seating, like you have. It's adjacent to the area where we school. You've given me some great ideas!!

Thanks so much for posting!

Darcy @ m3b said...

Wow, so organized and color coded! I love that idea.

Good luck with your move. I hope you can have an awesome space like this...

Thanks for joining in on the NBTS Blog Hop!

Elizabeth said...

Very nice! I love it. A question. Are the notebooks color coded for each kid?

Jennifer said...

The notebooks are color coded for each kid. This is the first year that I did that and it's making them much easier to keep track of!

I will post a list of the educational videos we have later this week :)

Dan and Alicia Marlowe said...

You are my hero! What you are doing, not many women could do. 5 kids. No hubby present. Wow! Tell him and youself, "thank you" for his sacrifice for our country! I homeschool on the Kenai peninsula with IDEA. Three kids. One is three and doing preschool with a neighbor friend this year. Still, I can't imagine ... 5! Way to go Mom!

Ashley K said...

Just stumbled upon your blog via the hop. Your space looks great! And a big ol' welcome from a homeschooling momma in Savannah, GA!