How is your home set up for homeschooling?

[Ceres]

Just a point of interest I guess. I went to visit another homeschooling family recently and although they are unschoolers they had a room set up with desks and shelves full of their resouces for kids to choose activities from. I really loved it - it was so organised that you could see at a glance what was on the shelf and find what you were looking for. My house is nothing like that really although all the puzzles are together and all the board games are together etc. I am buying DS a bedroom set with a desk so he'll have a horizontal surface to work on if so desired. I like the idea of everything being set up for easy access but I've run out of rooms here ;) maybe one day I'll build on and have the room to do something like that.

[Mama_Kaz]

We're nowhere near that organised :lol Maybe in the future it might be a helpful thing but atm it doesnt seem to be a problem. We might have to set up a swanky area when it comes time to being assessed as homeschoolers...if we ever get there :lol

[Sarasvati]

We have nothing set up, we're SO disorganised and organising is on my to-do list. It comes after getting a vege patch sorted though!

[Blossomtime]

We have a kids room (Audrey sleeps there sometimes too). It has toys and books, musical instruments and dressups. The games and puzzles are in the lounge room, and there's a toy/kitchen corner there too. In the dining room we have our art/craft cupboard (because most art/craft is done on the dining table) and the seasonal table is next to that with some seasonal books. We have another room that is more of an adult playspace - musical/recording instruments, sewing supplies and a desk to work on. We find it works because we can move through the house and around each other while we go about our various activities. There's also usually somewhere to escape to if you need some space ;)

[Ceres]

Sounds like a pretty big house Blossomtime. I am really constrained by the lack of space here. Will keep fantasising about the additional room I need!

[Blossomtime]

Hehe. Its an average sized 3br house. The diningroom and loungeroom are open plan (since we removed the doors). I'm sure it will be too small soon enough :lol

[Ceres]

I think part of the problem here is the 2 L shaped living areas which pretty much gives you no useable space.

[Hush]

Could you section off some space with bookcases as dividers? We've got nothing set up at the moment as O is 2, but I'd loving to have a study type room for all of us - me for crafting, DH for working, and babes for quiet work, whatever that may be.

[GreenGully]

We don't have anything special. The lounge room does have a little desk that J likes to work at and the veranda has a table with all the craft supplies in it. We are moving in a couple of months though so it will all change. It will probably be a much smaller place so it will probably be the kitchen table that J works at mostly. He is inheriting this computer in a few weeks too, so he can use this study area more (I am getting a laptop).I imagine as J gets older I will get him a desk for his room.

[~*heket*~]

Our lounge room is set up for it because we have all our edumacational books in a shelf in there, but we do stuff at the computer or on the kitchen table not in there.

I room with a good desk would be nice, but I have bigger fish to fry than that - or maybe I just have low priorities :lol

[Jasmine]

Lovely to read the different ideas here.

We are planning an extension on our house and am thinking of all the things we 'need'.

I like Amanda Blake-soule's ideas too- like the wardrobe fitted out as a craft storage unit near the dining table and the dress up stuff hung up at child height.

[bella]

We have a room! And we almost always have. Even if it's meant kids' sharing rooms 2-3 to a room, or them sleeping in the 2nd living area (more space for beds) and the 'school stuff' in a bedroom... I just found it so much easier to have everything in a room I could shut the door on, or put a baby gate on. Otherwise the babies just destroyed the kids' things (with oodles of love, excitement and drool of course!)

So now we have a large room with 3 bookshelves (2 big and 1 huge), craft cupboard, 3 desks (1 huge that 2 girls share) and a little table for Lily (6). One of those carpet car mats for playing cars, lego, blocks, etc. A long desk with 2 desktop computers on it, the box of baby doll stuff, the box of Barbie stuff, the boxes of lego, all the tea set and farm set type toys... Blah, blah. It's pretty crowded.

All we have out here are dvds, seasonal table, some books (loungeroom and bedroom), some toys (bedrooms), the internet-connected computers (my office alcove off dining area)... Musical instruments are in one corner of the entrance area - guitars, violins, percussion basket, hand drums, didj's, music stand... It's like "welcome to our home, expect NOISE!"

Oh, in my office alcove are 2 calico bags Lily and Heath decorated. They have their 'school books' in them. We sit at the dining table to do their 'work'. Bryce joins us sometimes (he has a desk in the 'school room' though), and Abby comes most days too. Brit comes with her 'hard maths' but Immi prefers the peace of the 'school room' unless she is really stuck on something.

I very rarely go into the 'school room' 'cos it's messy. :p My sewing room is right through an open door to it and it's equally messy, LOL. But I can go there.

We built our room onto this house - under the existing roof so just needed the concrete slab, block walls, new window, 2nd hand door (freecycle), paint (my Dad), floor paint (my Dad), lights and power points (hubby electrician, had stock), mats and furniture (we had it all)... Still, it cost us about $4k to get the room done. Worth every cent to have all the STUFF out of the living areas though. And for the kids to have somewhere I won't disrupt their messes. :)

[esp]

We have a sleepout room that is our craft room. the kids have a large sort of boardroom sized table in there and access to lots of arty stuff. A lot of creation goes on there and mostly unsupervised. If I want to do messy stuff with them that's where I go. I also have a computer set up out there and my sewing machine and shelves full of stuff. My dream is for it to be a darn site more sorted out there but with a 2 year old on the loose I realise I'll have to wait a little longer.
I have more stuff inside in a cupborad - things like work books, scrap books and a set of good lyra pencils so that when I want to sit with the children and do something then I know where to locate what I need. I also have chalk pastils and water paints and some special papers and things there. They have significantly more at their disposal in the craft/art room, but I like to share my good things with them and still keep them in a respectable state too (yes I am quite anal and the kids have really made me come down to earth!).
Anything formal that we choose to do is usually done inside. Board games on the table etc (again - 2 year old).
I love that my kids can go wild and make a mess - it is only now 7 years on that I can keep some level of sanity in my home. Prior to now the mess has been quite special at times.

[jikki]

We're renting at the moment, so we are a little limited - we're not allowed to put ANYTHING on the walls (how sterile!!). But I've just moved all the puzzles, boardgames and workbooks into the 'study' - it has a long dining table up against a wall like a huge desk, with both computers on it, and room leftover for bookwork, colouring, drawing and the like. Most of the fiddly craft stuff is in drawers in this room too. I sew on this table too...the monitor is a flat screen, the peripherals are wireless, and one computer is a laptop - so it's easy to stack it to one side when we want the whole table. The junk box (cardboard boxes etc) is a large chest out in the loungeroom. The paints are in a drawer in the garage (we don't paint that often). DD9 also has a small-ish desk in her bedroom so that she has some quiet space when she wants to be alone. We also do work on the kitchen table when we feel like it.

I bought two of those stainless steel document trolley thingy's on wheels a while back - they have about 10 shallow white drawers each. They've been the best things! :eager They hold pencils, paper, beads, hot glue gun, workbooks, sticky tape, stamps, stickers etc. They are usually parked here in the study, but I love that they can be wheeled around to wherever the action is happening! :lol

[Beatrice]

Our new place has an extension which is two bedrooms opening off a huge workroom with a built-in desk. Pretty much heaven :lol We're still waiting to bring over our bookshelves and books and games and the craft cupboard so it's a bit bare in there at the moment (mostly stuff in boxes), but we're looking forward to having a dedicated space which is separate from the main living areas so that the mess can be (theoretically :lol) contained down there. If they want a bit of privacy they have tiny little built in desks and shelves above in their rooms.

My MIL did heaps and heaps of sewing so when they remodelled the kitchen she put in built-in benches and drawers for sewing machines and notions against one wall. It's heaven :lol

[Ayla]

I have to say that Bugboy's house is really awesome! She has an area in the family room that's full of craft boxes, toys, artwork is pegged up on a huge piece of string that's on the wall. It's really a child's paradise :D

[asimplelife]

We've got a fairly small house but decent areas of space if that makes sense?

In my lounge (which is long and large 7mx4m) I have a corner set up for the kids for their joint play. It has the dollshouse, nature table, basket of lego, library book basket, reference book basket and a couple of small shelving units for all the board games.*

The main lounge area where our entertainment unit is has a couple of drawers for all their bits and pieces - cuisenaire rods, jigsaw puzzles, lacing cards, geo shapes, card games etc.

In my hallway there is a large scotch chest that has all the kids craft materials. I keep the large paint bottles seprate coz they don't fit in here and also I need to really set them up for them since they are too large for them to handle without getting paint everywhere so these are stored in a cupboard in the laundry.

Each of the kids has their own room and the rest of their toys in there such as ds's magnetic kit, brain box, magic kit, binoculars, magnifying glass, ropes, tool bag etc and a bookcase each. Recently my ds got a bed with desk underneath, so for now that is where all their paper and pens are and both kids use it. There is also a drawer unit in ds's room which stores their activity/work books that they both enjoy at times.

* we used to have a large low table in the lounge for all their crafting and drawing but decided they'd grown a bit big for using it comfortably hence relocating the craft materials to the hallway (next to the dining table for using them on) and ds's room.

[Ceres]

That sounds fantastic!

[GreenGully]

I am very excited about setting up our new place when we move. We did such a big cull we will be able to start fresh :)

[neek]

Love reading how others have their homes set up. Please keep sharing! It's making unschooling seem to much more possible!

[Ceres]

We've ended up with a bit of a mixture of work areas, DS has a desk under his loft bed, and the computer ended up at the dining table (which is never used as a dining table!) :lol I've just decided on a bit of a re-jig of the floorplan in my house which involves blocking off a door to my kitchen (it has 2) to make a study area. Unfortunately as it also involves a new kitchen ($$) it may have to wait a year or so.

[Beatrice]

I'm really looking forward to being able to concentrate on organising everything in the new playroom. We've had heaps of our stuff in boxes for 9 months (since before the floor renos) so there will be exciting surprises to unpack!

So far we're trying to work out how to fit in all our shelves and put up wall shelving as efficiently as possible...

Maybe this should be a related thread, but how do your organise stuff so it can be found? I know I have heaps of resources on different topics but I don't have them grouped together at the moment so half the time when K or B is interested in something I can't FIND whatever it is I'm sure I've got in there somewhere...

[asimplelife]

I don't really hae resoures yet (aside from what is out for playing with or books for reading), so not sure what I'll do if/when the time omes.

[Ceres]

Maybe this should be a related thread, but how do your organise stuff so it can be found? I know I have heaps of resources on different topics but I don't have them grouped together at the moment so half the time when K or B is interested in something I can't FIND whatever it is I'm sure I've got in there somewhere...
You have no idea how excited this makes me :lol the inner organising nerd in me just wants to come and sort out your shelving!

[GreenGully]

:rofl I am SO going to put you to work when it comes to unpacking my stuff Ceres!

[Ceres]

Just revisiting this thread as we've had a recent change in our set up. I recently put a wall across one of the entrances to the kitchen (because in a tiny house you REALLY need the kitchen to have 2 doors :rolleyes ) which has given us a much better study nook in the L shaped loungeroom. All the ikea toy shelves and the craft have gone in there along with a kid-sized desk. I really like that it's part of the loungeroom because ultimately the kids always want to be where the adults are anyway, and we are still in communication when I'm on the couch and he's in the play area. It's not exactly schooly but I think it works well.

[GreenGully]

DS now has an old school desk in the loungeroom. He sometimes works at that and also eats at it. Most work is done on the couch or on the floor. He has some storage shelves with craft supplies next to the desk and toys and books in a bookshelf on the other side of the room. He has his lego and play kitchen in his room under his loft bed. He likes to be in the same room as me most of the time which is why it is all set up out in the lounge room. It is pretty squishy!

[Belinda]

We have a great big table in the dining room and a change table re-purposed as an art shelf. That is probably our main work area. It is in the middle ofg a semiopen plan area with the lounge and kitchen. I wish my children would use their rooms more, especially for giant projects they don't want to share with each other, but that isn't going to happen much just yet.

I am currently planning for the building we will eventually do. That will be built with home education in mind, and I'm really looking forward to that. We are planning an atelier - a combination studio and lab - but "Atelier" sounds fancier on plans and is probably easier to get planning permission on than "studio/laboratory" :D , hopefully with it's own wet area and a outdoor area too.

[Beatrice]

Love this thread :lol

This house is shite - teeny tiny rooms and only enough space for us if we leave half our stuff in boxes in the shed :lol Currently the space we use most often for projects is the dining room table (open plan kitchen/dining through to living room with a teeny hall in between). We have the craft cupboard set up in the dining room - we sacrificed the spot for our fridge for it ;).

Then just on the other side of the little dividing wall between dining and living (so right next to the craft cupboard) is one of the bookshelves which is set up with education/parenting books on the bottom for me, then kids books and a space for library books on the next shelf up, and the top three shelves for display. The middle shelf and second shelf down are for our current seasonal display - one shelf as the nature table and the one under it for seasonally-themed books. Then the top shelf is for our current, long-running unit study on Africa. I love having books set facing out, with space for projects to be displayed too.

That bookshelf is facing the front door, and just near it there is an internal wall facing inwards (the other side of the wall of the teeny hallway) which has been blank up until we pulled the bookshelf out for the gnome home. So now we have some extra shelves for baskets of rocks and seashells and more seasonal books, as well as the gnome home itself.

I like having all the resources very close together, makes it easier to keep organised. But I'm looking forward to our new house, where there is a nook behind the living room (the original farm kitchen) which we will turn into the homeschool area. It's technically an open plan space, but there is enough of a sense of partition between the spaces because the roof of the old kitchen is much lower and there is a beam between them.

But of course our main homeschooling area will be ten acres of bush and paddock and a creek ;)

[bella]

Bush, paddocks and creeks are ideal learning spaces. ;)

You asked about organising resources. What I do is use a 6' bookcase and have a shelf for each subject area. It makes sense to me, and if dh wants to find something, it might make sense to him too. So anything to do with English language (not novels and stuff, more like dictionaries, thesaurus, and word games etc) is on one shelf, Maths (rods, MABs, dice, number games, a few maths text books, fact books and 'living books' and such), Science (Horrible Science books, microscope, magnifying glasses, science experiment books etc), History (Horrible History books, lotsa other books), Italian (books, workbooks, dictionaries, phrase book, CDs, CD roms, jigsaw puzzle, games, etc)... The little kids don't really use it, but Bryce is 11 and he's getting in to using these resources, and the older girls all seem to understand where to go for reference books etc. We have another shelf with more general reference books on an adjacent bookcase, and then the other shelves in the room hold novels and play books and games and puzzles etc and are accessed by all the kids all the time. We have a cupboard with a lock (the key's on top) for art/craft stuff that's not spread around the house. ;)

[zenifa]

Ah! This thread is very inspiring. Our place isn't really 'set up' for homeschooling. We have a smallish backyard, and the girls are free to explore and play, there is enough to do out there for their young ages. We have craft/art supplies set up inside and outside, plus lots of books (including workbooks), and other educational type toys.
The bookstuff (reading, writing etc) happens on our large dining room table, as our study has the computer, speakers, modem, telephone, printer etc on it, so no space for anything else. The study has a bookshelf and the lowest shelf is all kids books. The study also stores most of the toys, aside from a little in the lounge (box of toys/games they play with for the week that gets rotated) and bedroom (stuffed toys).