We will be turning our playroom into our school room this summer. I’m hoping to stick to a tight budget of $500 to get everything set up and looking pretty. We plan on removing the closet to give us an extra 3 feet worth of space. I have been spending as much time on designing the space as I have on curriculum.
Having a child with ADHD I know I need to keep it organized and calm. 
Wish me luck, Ha!
We do school on our kitchen table. I have a Truvia storage unit from Ikea that holds our school supplies and work. I have the calendar in our kitchen, too. I would love to have an extra room, but for right now this works for us.
We actually have an entire finished basement we used as our school room for a few years, but I felt like I couldn’t get a whole lot done during the day being the basement…if I would run up stairs to throw in some laundry, the kids would end up playing around until I got back. Mainly, I just really wanted our school space to be more centrally located in our house. The basement is the only room we have that can be dedicated solely to a school room, so we not have to use our dining room as dual dining room/school room. When we are not doing school, I absolutely do not want my dining room looking like a school room. It’s also the first thing you see when you walk in our front door. We have a very large armoire we used as a coat closet. I took everything out of the armoire and turned it into a school cabinet…work boxes and all. When school isn’t being done, I shut the doors and you would never know its full of homeschool stuff. For extra space, I also use the hutch in our dining room for school stuff, but it’s mostly in the armoire. The kids grab what they need from their workboxes, and work at the kitchen table, dining table, couch, etc.
We live a small apartment. We just kind of do school wherever we can. Mainly our kitchen table or the living room floor. I have a bookshelf with all our books on it. My dream is to have a dedicated school area!
I once saw a blog post from Art of Heart and home, where she made everything fit into places had no idea would hold all that she has for her children’s school stuff. It’s right in her dining room which is adjacent to her other rooms and it looks fantastic! This is one of the posts with the end result, but there is another in which she shows all that is in there. http://artofheartandhome.com/2013/06/practical-pretty-small-space-homeschool-organization.html
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We use a corner of our living room - set apart by the big wooden toy box - to make it a separate space about 6 feet wide by 9 feet long. The boys have desks that are the old fashioned wooden type with the slanted, lift-up lid and pencil tray. The desks are big enough to hold all their books for the year. Art is pinned to cork boards above each boy’s desk. The pre-existing wall lamp divides the wall above their desks into a side for each boy and posters about math and penmanship are scotch taped to the wall. The furniture style of the room, which we have tried to continue with the classroom space, is Shaker, Mission - warm woods - to make the spaces flow together.
We have an old fashioned chalk board that is in the corner - used a lot, as it is viewable by both boys. The world globe is a visual and decorative touch in a corner of the dining room.
My teachers’ guides, some references and the copy paper are in the book shelf that also contains my husband’s amateur radios. This shelf is close to the computer and printer desk which has three drawers - grade books, extra pencil lead, scotch tape and other necessities get two of those drawers.
In another part of the living room, we have a book shelf with assorted reference-type books that the boys love to look through. Their magazines and music folders are corralled in a Shaker style woven basket near the book shelf.
Extra supplies - I buy two copies of everything because I don’t want to chase down books and workbooks that go out of print -are stored in a plastic tote on the floor of the boys’ bedroom closet.
Okay, a silly question from this first time homeschool mama preparing to starting LOTW this fall. My question is, do you keep all of their completed work? As a proud mama, I want to show off his work but the reality of living in a small apartment space is making me wonder if this is possible. I love all the storage and organization suggestions in this post (as well as Erica’s LOTW organization post on the blog) for work yet to be completed but do any of you put finished work back into the folders/binders/etc? If not, what are you doing with the empty folders/binders once all the work in them is complete? Thanks in advance for your feedback!
I like to display their art work by hanging it up on the kitchen cabinets. When it gets full or I want to change things I take down the old work and keep the “extra special” ones. I do sneak a lot of stuff in the garbage otherwise it would be overflowing out of our house:). I do have the hopes of buying a Rubbermaid container to place the special projects in for keepsakes. Hope that helps to answer your question!
I have only kept special projects or art work up to this point. I have a large Rubbermaid container for the things we keep. For next year (3rd) I plan to use a large 3-ring binder for him to file his work in daily. Last year I filed his work in a binder and when I decided not to keep it I just reused the binder.
We display artwork for some time - varies. Then we take pictures of artwork and store it “digitally” to call up any time a child wants to revisit the work. We discussed it with them each time, until they started asking us to do it. We explained that it’ll always be safe - not ruined, wrinkled, destroyed by another sibling, etc… Now I don’t have mommy guilt not keeping everything they’ve worked so hard on. LOL I’m hoping to make a photo book for them at graduation of their school years.
@Beccaj143, This is the best homeschool organization idea I’ve ever seen! I love the fact that you can easily store these. Just curious where did you purchase your posters? You have a lot of great ones! Thanks for sharing your idea with us. 