Now that our family has decided to home school this coming school year I am having a ton of "opinions" thrown at me from family members about doing away with my kids playroom and making it the classroom. But I don't know if that is what I am wanting to do or if I want to just designate an area for school stuff and then do our work at the table where they do homework now. Everyone is wanting to tell me how to do this when noone in our family has ever done it, get what I am saying Do you all have a designated classroom in your house or just an area where you keep your things?
We have a formal dining room that we did not use so we made it our computer room a long time ago. I did not want the computers in the living room. So when I started to home school this was the logical place for use to store all our school stuff. I have a white board in here now and my son's desk and we do most of our school in this room. It has a slider to our back yard so the light is great and he can watch the birds at our feeder ( sometime too much!lol) OUr house is an open concept so it is not like he is stuck off in a room all the time. So to answer your question, we do have a school room for the most part but if he wanted to do his workbook somewhere else that would be fine with me too, as long as everything gets put away when he is done. We do most of our book reading on the couch in the living room.
I bought a stack of plastic drawers and kept their school supplies organized in there, next to the dining room table - which, BTW, is also next to our computer! The dining room worked out just fine. We had easy access to everything we needed, and when our school was done we just packed everything neatly away. Any science projects in progress could just remain in the center of the table and be a topic of conversation at dinner. I used the walls for timelines and such - more dinner conversation! Oh, and read alouds were done on the couch in the living room, just a few steps away.
We started with a "school room" in our basement, but it just wasn't working even though we already spent alot of time in our basement so it wasn't that out of the way...it was just too far away from stuff I needed to do. Now, we have one kitchen cabinet with books we are actively using (everything else stays in the basement until we need it.) Our reading is done on the couch and the kids work at the kitchen table, the kitchen island or take things up to their rooms if they need to concentrate. It helps me to have the center of our day be the kitchen. The laundry room is right there too, so I'm not wasting time climbing the stairs all day - although it probably was a pretty good calorie burner. Best wishes!
My office is our room,but we are known to move all around the house. Sometimes we are schooling in bed!
We have no schoolroom, don't want one don't need one. There are bookshelves in my living room, dinning room and each of the kids rooms, the computer is in it's own room.. which is supposed to be the breakfast nook..lol, we work at the dinning room table or the coffee table or outside or on the sofa or on the floor or a bed or where ever we seem to be. I would feel too confined if we spent the day in a room.
we don't have a room, they read in the living room, watch videos in their brothers room, listen to audio cd in their room, and do most book work in the dining room. If the weather is nice they go out on the patio to work. Sometimes if I have errands to run, they go to their grandmas house to work. We're mobile! We have a book case in the dining room where we keep all the stuff stored. I hung a curtain over it to cover it up when we are done for the day.
We use most of the house and yard for school. Just depends on the mood we are in. We have bookcases everywhere. I thought we would use one room but that changed over time. Whatever works is okay with me.
Like you I am starting next year. I don't think we'll use it MUCH but I am going to convert my "craft studio" (which I haven't even unpacked since we moved in Oct '08!!!) into the "classroom" I have a 3 year old, so I figure the 6 year old will need quite place without distraction to concentrate at times when doing formal/structured lessons that require worksheets and such. Plus it will keep the play-doh, paint and glue off my kitchen and dinging room tables and I'm going to sell off my craft supplies and use my drawers/cabinets for organizing homeschool stuff. Here's what I have to work with. http://www.flickr.com/photos/simplysonita/sets/72157623247209845/ It's gonna be a LOT of work LOL
Have had one, don't now. Had to give it up as a bedroom for my sister when she moved in. Pros: It was really nice to have a spot where we could just hang ANYthing on the walls ANYwhere we wanted. Maps, art posters, finished work...It was nice to be able to walk away from a project (mine or a child's) in the middle, leave it, close the door (so I didn't have to see it or worry about a sibling getting into it) and return later. It was nice to have a space where the kids really turned their focus and attention to schoolwork, just because that's the only time we spent in there. Cons: First, after losing that space, I realized how much STUFF I accumulated because I had a place to put it. STUFF I don't use much, often, or at all (but, you know, it's nice to have. 'cause maybe we'll use it...pbbt.) Now, I can fit the stuff we use daily in a briefcase (we did switch to an eReader, so that helps). Overall it was great, but while I miss having a space I don't mind getting messy, the kids don't (they don't care what they get messy LOL). And we're doing fine without it.
Although we just started, we do not have a specific school room. We are pretty mobile and will do things anywhere in the house. It works for us because that is our personalities Dashawn is constantly moving around and can start doing something in one room and then end up in another. But as long as he gets the work done (which isn't much because we are still deschooling) then I am happy!
I want to add, now I haven't STARTED homeschooling yet, but this is the plan and I know plans sometimes change, but I do PLAN on being mobile, having lessons outside, in the kitchen cooking or doing a science experiment, ect, but I do think my oldest needs a designated quite place for the formal schoolwork. He's very easily distracted and I have a very active 3 year old running around or watch TV it's not going to be easy to get him to do his schoolwork at the dining room or kitchen table. We have this problem now with his public school homework. So I just think we NEED that option of having a 'classroom' for some things. But I doubt we use it much, maybe for one-two worksheets a day or so...
we started with a designated area it helped my kids keep thier stuff together, and me to keep organised when I was early on in my homeschooling. I think that it will work best for you if you have the books, if you can do a whiteboard on the wall we totally used ours it was fun and helped when the kids saw little house on the prairie kids soing black board work for them to be able to go up to the wall and do the working out of math problems also I would write spelling words on it for them to copy. I think it was good for eye hand thought process myself. Anyway back to your question I would use your play room as class room at least for supplys, put your books, lessons coming up, worksheets whatever you have that you will use, science display areas are great too! Our family room became school for the school year then we changed it back to Family Room for summers lol. We had a den that would be homeschool room but for all the books and shelf storage we had in there for too many years. we had a science zone in FR and an art area, I found old school desks at garage sales and private schools when they wanted to have desks "like real school" thier words not mine Lol. TV shows desks so they wanted them. It helped keep thier stuff under or inside desks for the month, then as they used new books we could get the old stuff out and new stuff in. Just a few ideas there! Have fun! Make it how the kids wil enjoy it! if you go out and work in the kitchen at the table thats okay too, but its good to ahve a space to call school, so when you want to forget school for a while ( and you will at times) you can close the door.
We live in a fairly small minihome (trailer), so there's absolutely no room for a designated school area. There's barely room for all of us as it is LOL We do 95% of our schooling at the kitchen table, and we have one of those littlr old fashioned schooldesks (desk & chair attached) in the hallway where Josh works sometimes when he wants more quiet or privacy from the younger kids. The hall is visible from the kitchen, but blocked off by a baby gate.
I used to have a classroom in our old place, and we used it for the first maybe month after I set it up, after that we were all over the house doing stuff. Now in our new place there isn't really room for me to have a classroom and it's ok because we still don't sit in one place and work. Though I do have a desk and chair in my bedroom for days when things are just "off" and I can't get a child to concentrate they can sit in there where it's quiet and there are no distractions.
We have an "office" room where the computer is and filing cabnets and such. The TV and the fold out couch is in there as well. I have the plastic bins storage tower that I use to keep all the kids art/school supplies in. But we do school at the kitchen table. Usually ds does what he can on his own while I finish up the breakfast dishes
get the oldest a desk in his room. It's better than having a space designated for a couple hours of use a day.
We do not have a set school area. We school all over the place; outside, in the car, at somebody elses home if necessary, on the floor, in the garage, in the kitchen, under the trees, at the park, at the library, on the computer, etc...
We don't have a separate room for school. School is done on the sofa and the dining room table. I put all the current books in an old apple crate and have that handy. All the other school books fill two large bookcases and miscellaneous supplies are shoved under the bed.
We school throughout our house, but my kids tend to gravitate towards the dining room when they have their workbooks. I used to have a bedroom downstairs that was our schoolroom but the way the house is laid out made it awkward for a school room. The kids didn't even want to be in there. So we moved all supplies and books to the dining room and it has been that way ever since. My kids have taken turns having desks in their rooms but it never ends up working out because they would rather be near everyone while they are working.
