Our Homeschool Room Evolution

Today I wanted to go over the evolution of our homeschool room. As I previously wrote about why we decided to homeschool here and the choice of our curriculum here, I now feel that the next step in this whole process of home education is the setting of the place and space in the home to achieve this big job ahead.

When we first received our curriculum in the mail, we began to prepare with the basics: some notebooks, pencils, crayons etc, we also assigned the dining room table as our work place.  Our beginnings were simple, but it was all we needed at the moment. This was back when I only had the two girls and my oldest was my only grade to teach, so it worked perfectly for the kindergartner years!. As she moved into First grade, we began to accumulate many projects and written material,  so, I got us a little 3 drawer tower to hold and classify all our papers. We added some file folders, a hole puncher, a stapler, copy paper, printer... you get the idea! we began to stock up on office supplies. 

Later on, as we added kids and grades we began to buy more reference books, a shelf here a cabinet for supplies there... we began to grow in number and in resources. Now, with more than one kid, the dining table did not work for us, as it used to. The kids began to get distracted and it seemed to me that there was a considerable amount of clutter and not much of a storage or filing solutions to keep us focused. At that time, we moved from our apartment into a large house, and there the possibilities of expanding our school room were granted! We found a very good deal on desks and we went right for it, also we acquired a couple of big bookshelves. I started to concentrate on getting filing and storage solutions, more supplies and educational resources that could enrich our experience even further.

 We continue to improve our organization and storage as we go, but I feel that now we are in a good place where everything flows as it should! 

I think that for anybody that begins to  homeschool the first step is to be aware that there are going to be adjustments in the home as it progresses. Most of the families begin in the dining table and have maybe a bookcase or containers to store books and supplies, it is all good! own it! be excited about this part of the process, to me, it is the most fun of all. I love to decorate! so start with what you have and be creative, later as needs arise adjust little by little, you don't have to get everything at once, it takes time, I know it gets hard when you search for ideas and all you see are this gorgeous spaces that many of us, well... just cannot afford!  Remember never compare your journey in life or homeschool with any one else's, receive the ideas and give your own twist! All we want at the end is to make homeschooling a great experience and environment for our kids to learn and at the same time for you to teach and guide!  

Now, let me share the results of the evolution that has taken place during all these years, from one kid learning at the kitchen table to three now with more of an individual workspace. We flow our activities between different environments in our home, I've learned to be flexible and allow more than one place to do their work: we use the desks to do most of our homework, the sofa to do reading, and our computer desk to work on papers or projects ready to print; also the kitchen is our lab now, and the patio we use for messy projects when weather permits. So as you can understand kids can get weary at home in only one spot, therefore adjusting is always a good thing to keep in mind! If you are like me and love to be neat, my suggestion to keep things tidy is very simple; try to make a habit of enforcing the rule: before they move from one activity to another, kids should pick up whatever clutter or mess they left behind before engaging into a new one. This way everything keeps a place and it doesn't get overwhelming overall in the household environment.

Take a look at our homeschool room and storage:

*Kids computer desk*

Here our workstation and our reference bookshelf

The two bookcases that hold our curriculum, reading books, resources, games, projects, and files.

Let's take a closer look now and see what we store here:

*Here our encyclopedia and our curriculum for Elementary*

*Here middle school books and teacher manuals*

*Here another encyclopedia and our projects and games shelves*

*Our continent boxes*

*Here we store our Project's files"

*At the top, we keep all our games, cd's, globe, maps, and projects we love the most*

*These boxes hold our music, art and math resources*

*Here our globe and cd's*

*Here our science materials and games*

*Jesus the Teacher*

The Three drawer tower continues to store all our paper supplies

For now this boxes hold all our supplies

You may have an idea now on how and what has helped our homeschool run smoothly, I like to be tidy, but also love to have color and mix a variety of boxes and baskets that help me store different things. Not long ago I began to label everything, ever since my last pregnancy when my hubby helped me with school. It just made it easy for him to locate everything and now it became my little obsession 😏! To finish this post I want to point out, some of those items I love to use to keep materials labeled and preserved for my other children, maybe you find them useful too. 

*Without these: whole puncher, label maker, and laminator. I don't know how could I ever lived before! they are my must have items!

I hope you have enjoyed reading our homeschool room evolution, it was fun to go through memory lane and shared it with you!