Homeschool
Rooms
Dateline: 12/30/05
By Ann Zeise
Is it time to convert your preschooler's playroom into a space
for an older child to have all their educational resources handy
in one space? Yes, many still will use the whole house, yard,
neighborhood and town for home education, but sometimes it is
is neat, if you can afford it, to have one room where you know
you can always let the kids make a mess and hang out. Here are
suggestions from our Yahoo
Group members.
Kim started the thread with this
query:
I am wondering if any of you have a homeschool room. My husband
just finished the garage and I am getting ready to paint and
decorate and was wondering if any of you had any ideas or pictures
of your area that you school in. Or even a website. I have done
some searching on the web for ideas and I either can't word it
right or whatever, but I am getting nothing. So let me know.
I am going to go buy the paint in the next day or so, so let
me know. Thanks!
Kathleen wrote:
We have found that since we have a very small house,the best
room for us to use for Home-Schooling is our Dining-Room. We
have an oblong table which is very efficient for our children
to do their work on. I purchased a bamboo china closet. Guess
what? No china is in there, but instead half of it is used to
place all text books or videos that pertain to each subject on
one side for the youngest and the oldest one uses the right side
of the china closet.
Kerry Kantor pointed out that white laminate can make a huge
white board:
We did have a homeschool room when we first started homeschooling
about 17 years ago and it quickly grew until it took over the
whole house. :) But the most valuable thing I had was a HUGE
blackboard and lots of chalk. Today we have a HUGE white board
and stock in Expo CO. Our white board only cost me 10 dollars.
We went to the local home improvement store and bought a 4' x8'
sheet of white laminate paneling.
Nicole wants more book shelves!
I think one wall of just shelves would be great! And a one
wall that was a chalk board or white board so everyone could
write and draw on it. Home
Depot sells sheets of the chalk and white board. Plus a low
table (for little kids) or just a table.
You might find some ideas by looking at playrooms. I love
the Pottery
Barn kids.
Or look at scrapbook or craft rooms they always have great
organization ideas. Try the Scrapbooking
site.
Rebecca piped in:
I have an idea! How about a big round table that is covered
in the dry-erase like material so that you can take notes right
on the table or draw pictures right on the table! Maybe chalkboard
material for the table top would look better? But I wouldn't
want the dust by the electrical thingees.
Aloettemom2 has big dreams:
Since I only have an only child, I would just use a big rectangle
or square table. Hmm, now we could make it to where there are
different sections in the table (without any real inconvence
or notice of them) to where one just lifts up the top layer (the
dry erase) and flips it over to a regular table materials. There
could be drawers in them to where one can put their drawing materials
in; a big drawer on one side for laptop storage, cd storage,
books, paper, and library bag storage, and then something for
cords. For the laptop, I say just have it wireless with the big
router in another room with the parents PC. Now, if one knew
that they would never move the table to a different area, once
could design the room (before being built) to where it has little
slots within the floor to put the cables. These slots would have
covers that could be removed/opened as needed.
The TV would be on the laptops and a nice, big, flat panel
TV on a main wall. There would be couch for everyone to sit and
enjoy the shows. For taking notes, one would take out their portable
laptop desk for note taking. Yes, these portable desks would
have a drawer for paper and writing and art utensils (excluding
paint, since we don't want to get pain on the couch).
Oh, I think, I am starting to go overboard into dreamland,
since there is no way I could afford that. Buy, hey, we can all
dream, right?!?!
Now for something that doesn't cost a fortune. Go to Office
Depot file's section. Look for a plastic, hanging file folder
that has 10 sections within it. They come in 4 colors, I believe.
They cost about $10 in SC. It saves space in a file drawer as
compared to the regular file folders and is enclosed on all sides,
so nothing falls out. I asked for lots of them for Xmas presents,
but did not get any. It saves you on space restraints.
Roslynn points out:
Sorry, we don't do a "room" in the house, makes
me feel like I am saying we only learn here... YKWIM?
But if you would like a spot set aside, have you thought about
what brings out the inspiration in your kids? If they like geography
you can do a big globe mural around the room, or if it's the
Africa area just that(insert other spots). How about for little
math whizzes writing a bunch of free floating math problems w/o
the answers. For your budding writer you can write some writing
topics, they can use them for journal prompts. :)
Since you have 4 children you can do one wall for each child.
Back when my boys were toddlers we painted each wall a primary
color, and threw in a green wall. :) Remember, it's only paint,
you can always do it over again when they grow out of it.
Rebecca has really started dreaming now!
I wish I had a BIG round table-desk with a hole in the middle
of the table cut out for cords and wires. I would put the kid's
computers on the table, their keyboard (which is on the floor),
their tape recorder, DVD player. These things would be plugged
in at all times. I would like this table to have storage under
it and to be lower than most tables. Storage for their books,
crayons, and cassette tapes; storage for all of the items that
are ON the table. This would be like a media - discovery - creative
center with easy access.
Right now we have an extra living room with no furniture that
serves as a KID room, but I really really wish my husband could
build me a table like I described above! That way, they could
sit at whatever item they wanted to use - if they wanted to use
the keyboard it would always be plugged in ready to go. If they
wanted to play a computer game they could select a CD-rom and
move to the side of the table with the computer..
One thing we have in our dining room are some pretty square
baskets that books fit in perfectly and can stand as if they
are on a shelf. These baskets hold our every day books and look
nice. We have a dry erase board in our dining room which always
has the date or our Greek or Latin root of the week. When the
kids want to do math, we take the dry erase board down and let
them work out some math problems. The younger kids like to do
this because they have seen my son and I use the dry erase board
to work out algebra problems.
I like the idea of a kid's camcorder! The kids could make
movies - how creative!! Maybe I could have a TV - VCR and they
could put their movies on VCR tapes. All this on my fantasy BIG
round table. I'm talking a table MUCH bigger and lower than a
regular table.
Wouldn't it be cool to paint one wall in the chalk paint or
to have a room hat you could pain a HUGE replica of the solar
system?? I would LOVE to do something like that. Maybe you could
paint the walls like a jungle and have some zebra, leopard, lion,
or monkey plush toys.
My aunt has a room like that. She calls it the 'jungle room'
and it has all of the kids' toys, books, games. It is painted
like a jungle, has furniture than can't be destroyed, and even
has lights around the ceiling! It's just a FUN room to be in!
What a great place to go WILD with learning!
Dana suggests:
If you have the $$, you can probably get this kind of table
from a school supply service.
Of course, I had to pipe up:
And if you don't, maybe you can find someone recycling one
of those gigantic spools that utility wiring is shipped on. I've
seen them cut in half to make tables that look like huge spools...
hole in the middle, too!
Shannon makes a point to plan ahead:
My "office" is a total mess!! My suggestion by default
is that you plan all your electrical outlets and natural lighting,(for
art purposes), artificial lighting( for rainy days and night
work), phone jacks etc. around your furniture placement plan,
if I had it to do again i would definitely plan my wiring better!!
We have 4 desks SHOVED into a small extra bedroom, we usually
have our interests material spread all over our house, but when
it is time to tidy up, we put it all back in this one location,
it does really keep me sane. otherwise it is EVERYWHERE!! I loved
the chalkboard idea, I also have dry erase and a floor to ceiling
bookshelf that spans 6 feet wide, make sure to fasten it to the
studs in the wall for little climbers. I must say I am envious,
enjoy your children's ideas as well. Maybe look for decorator
magazines and see what the kids say- if nothing else that will
keep it fun. My children would probably want some sword master
or something wild like that, which would end up distracting!!
But at least they would keep me laughing:-) Good Luck to you.
Kathleen like Rebecca's ideas:
Dear Rebecca, I thought the erasable round table was a great
idea. You could even make an oblong or library table as well.
Math problems would be great to do on the table as well as spelling
words. Children could really learn on this table in a fun way
using different colored markers. I also thought of table art
using the children's or teenagers' free expression of art. Take
a picture of the art when they are done and frame it. Great idea.
Kristi has already create a dream room:
Our room that we use for our homeschool room was my daughters
playroom before. I painted the entire room like an giant aquarium,
from the ceiling to the floor. They have all kinds of giant fish
and turtles all over the wall and the bottom of the wall is sand.
We love the room! Come see the photos!
Rebecca found she didn't need to run out and buy any special
table:
Yesterday we caught Christian drawing on the dining room table
with markers! At first I got mad and said, "Christian, what
are you doing??" We use these markers for our dry-erase
board - not the table!
"It's ok, it comes off," he assured me. He erased
the green scribble with his fingers and sure enough it came off!
I never thought of using our dining room table as a big dry-erase
board! It's glass, after all.
I told a friend about how the kids were drawing on our glass
dining room table with dry-erase markers. She told me that she
knew of someone who would slide a workbook behind a plexi-glass
book holder and let her child fill in the answers using crayons
or dry erase markers! The worksheets could be filled out without
any marks ever being made in the book! I thought that if we taped
a picture under the glass table that the image could be traced
- an image from a coloring book.
So today as Matthan works out Algebra problems with a black
dry erase marker on the dining room table, Christian draws pictures
and makes us guess what they are. Kelsey is making up some math
problems and solving them on her own. When Matthan needs help
with Algebra I can grab a dry erase marker and work out a problem
right there on the dining room table with him!
So we use our dining room table for school...
Isn't that fun? I never thought of using the dining room table
this way! I guess we could do math on windows too! Just so the
marker doesn't slip and hit the wall!
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