School Room

How do you set up a schoolroom?  I thought about this long and hard this summer.  I needed  a bigger space for our schoolroom.  The area I was using was a not big enough to keep it  in order or organized.  I needed better classroom management.  We have a room that was added on across the back of our house.  It is huge.  We had been using it strictly for a playroom. 

I decided to split the room with furniture and cabinets in order to create our school space.  Walking into the room from the house is the playroom side.  On the other side of the cabinets and dresser is the schoolroom.

Looking in I have a puzzle dresser (holds puzzles and hands on items like lacing cards and beads) with two totes on top that hold my teacher guides.  I also have a book basket, globe, interactive atlas and our handmade dino eggs on this desk (museum item.) 

     

Next to it is two art cabinets.  The art cabinets lock (so little hands won't get messy) and are full of all sorts of supplies.  We have paint, glitter, oils, chalks, water colors, water color pencils, water color paper, drawing paper, tracing paper, construction paper, tissue paper, Manila paper, writing paper, card stock, playdoh, clay, crayola magic clay, felt, foam, feathers, beads, sequins, buttons, yarn, fabric, pipe cleaners, wikki sticks, wiggly eyes, wooden dowels,  pom poms, craft sticks and MORE.

Next to the art cabinets turning the corner is Abigail's art easel.  She loves to draw on the chalkboard while we are having school.  I also house our paint smocks here. 

Looking into our art, media and museum area.

Looking into our class work area. 

 This is a long look at the room from both sides.  See on the balloons on the wall in picture one?  That is our Solar System we made. 

Next to the wall and under our air unit is an art table with rolling paper, coloring books, craft paper, scrap paper and stickers.  There are also art books and how to draw books.   In that blue bin I have books on artists  that the kids can read and enjoy at leisure.  We will be adding a small sewing machine into this area soon.  I am waiting on the kids to respect it more before I put it at their level. 

Next to the art table (in the corner) is our media center with TV/DVD/VHS.  I got this set free from our church and it has come in handy.  On the long wall next to the TV Cabinet is our "museum".  We display art work on the wall and sculpture on the workbox.  Currently I have a bin with recycle materials on top of our work box so that we can get to it quickly when doing crafts.  Next to our workbox is a book shelf with our resource books (encyclopedia's, dictionary and other). 

What is in the workbox you ask?  Normally I put the kids assignments in number order inside the workbox.  Then they work them in order.  I put cards on them telling them when to come to me for help with the assignment.  This helps me teach one child at a time while allowing some independent work.  I put readers/file folder games/play with toys and other cards in their boxes too.   The workbox also has a space for holding Abigail's "Schoolwork".  It has matching pages, watercolor books, sticker books, chalk board, dry erase board and other things to keep her busy.

Above the resource shelf and workbox is the wall part of our museum.  The museum is where we display the artwork for us to enjoy. Anything that is not flat is displayed around the room for us to look at.  Once a week or two we take time to go around and look at the museum pieces.  I try to switch out the art work often so that they have new things to look at.  I honestly do not like art and am not crafty.  My kids though love it so I try everything I can do to reinforce that love. 

The back of our art supply cabinets face into the schoolroom.  Since I did not want any space to go unused I have hung some Science posters and Phonics posters.  Matthew is starting to get past the phonics learning phase so I will probably swap these out soon.

Next to our bookshelf there is my teaching cabinet that locks.  This holds our daily school supplies (crayons, markers, glue, scissors) and anything else that I may need daily but don't want little hands to get into when I am not right there.  I also lock the kids laptop computer in this cabinet at night.  Mike was given it free from a friend and we use it for our art lessons, Spanish lessons and some online learning games.  This laptop is OLD so it moves kind of slow and can only hold so much information.  It is perfect for school. 

In the center of the school area are three tables.  One is an school desk for Shelby.  Next to that is a table for Matthew and he has a basket to hold his binders and supplies.  Next to this table is our art table and where Abigail likes to work.  We move to the Art table frequently when working with large pieces of paper or studying science since our science posters are on the back of the art cabinets facing into the room

Next to this shelf is our school wall.  I covered one of our long windows with a folding tri board and made a wall.  I then hung a dry erase board that I use daily on it.  We learn do our calendar activities on this wall.  We also have posters that we need to review often.  I have our Bible work, special things we are learning and phonics rule cards on this wall next to the white board.

We also have our class rules hung.  Yes even as a home school we have rules.  The kids made them up and I typed them out.  Our favorite one is "I can do ANYTHING".  I refer to this every time I hear "I can't do that" or "I don't get it". 

Turning the corner to the far wall is a shelf holding our daily books/assignments.  The top shelf has bins to turn in assignments.  The next shelf is holding teaching books that I use daily.  The third shelf holds learning center items.  One basket has books on tape and a tape player and the other has file folder games and other games I have made.  The bottom shelf has two bins holding folders with assignments for the whole year.  That is right I have already put every assignment for the year in a weekly folder and typed out lesson plans.  Each week I pull the folder and place the assignments in a weekly folder for each child.  They have Mon-Fri tabs that they go behind.  We then work through it daily.

Sorry they are messy ... I need to regroup and organize them.

Next to this shelf is a bookshelf holding our "library".  These are living books, readers and fun books.  I pull a few each week and put them in a book basket.  Once they read these they can choose any book off the bottom two shelves to read.  The top two shelves are books we will be reading over the year. 
The only thing missing from our room are some more maps.  We have two globes but I really want some maps.  I want to either hang some over our puzzle desk or put them on the art table with clear vinyl over it.

Above our Library I have another line to hold book reviews (when the kids read a book they fill out a mini review card and hang it)and a map of areas of the USA we have "visited" in our books.  I also have wall space that I hang posters and Language Arts type work that the kids do. 

On the other side of this space is the kids playroom.  They have yet another desk with a desktop computer and an All in one Laser Printer for me.   There is also a bookshelf that holds games. This shelf holds our manipulative's , fun games and learning board games.  I also have a built in shelf system that holds their toys.  On the top shelf of this I have our microscope, telescope, Snap Circuits, Tag Maps, paper maker, crayon maker, flip charts and other learning items that the kids need to not touch.  We do not use these items weekly so I keep them put away high until I need them.   I have a music table that holds play instruments, our keyboard and an old guitar that is only good to learn chords. 

The key to our home school room is organization and that everything has a place.  We are able to quickly move through many subjects a day and lots of hands on activities due to the organization and planning ahead of time.