New Homeschool Area Tour!

New Homeschool Area!

Last post I gave a sneak peak at our new Homeschool Area, and promised a tour soon. So… without further ado, here’s how we have it all organized:

In the cabinet on the left, we have the kid’s tote bags, which contain their daily work: current math book, binder, writing journals, whatever else they might be working on at the moment) We used to use baskets for daily work, but the totes work so much better, as they can take their stuff to wherever they feel like working that day… their rooms, the back porch, the big chair in the living room, etc. On the shelves above we have basic supplies, such as pens, pencils, rulers, and small office supplies. These are stored in various baskets and jars, which we have collected over the years. We also have some homeschooling books, and the binder I use to keep track of what they’re doing all year.

Left side cabinet, for basic supplies and daily work.
I put cork tiles inside the door to post notes and lists.

The next big bookcase is where we keep all of our math, science and social studies stuff. On the top shelf, we have a box of math manipulatives, and the laptops. Under that, we have all of our various math books. (Math is the only subject we really use curriculum for, and we have collected quite a few math books over the years!)We also have boxes with place value blocks and geoboards. Hidden away in the cabinet, we have a bunch of science things and some social studies/history/geography stuff. We don’t do any formal lessons in these areas, but instead just provide lots of materials and books for them to explore.

Math, Science and Social Studies cabinet. I put cork in these doors, too.

This is our Nature Shelf. I wrote about our old Nature Shelf in this post and this post. We loved our old Nature Shelf so much, we just had to make sure we had one in the new space! The small baskets hold "Earth Treasures" that we have decided to keep... things like unusual rocks, shells, some dragonfly wings we found in the garden, and the shell from a robin's egg.

Our Nature Shelf. Right now it holds a basket of acorns, some sea shells,
a piece of a wasp hive and a stick etched with interesting little bug trails.

The tower in the corner is where we have our drawing/writing stuff (except for that basket on the top shelf… that’s where the computer cables and accessories are kept) The second shelf holds dictionaries, thesauruses and jars of writing prompts. Below that, we have boxes of markers, crayons, and colored pencils, and paper trays with lots of kinds of drawing, writing and construction paper. The bottom shelf holds lap-sized dry erase boards and assorted dry erase markers.

Dictionaries, thesauruses and jars of writing prompts.

Next we have the Art Cabinet. This is just full of all of our art and craft supplies, except for the bottom shelf, which contains Noodle's extensive Car Magazine collection. 

Art cabinet.

The baskets along the top of the shelves contain back-up school supplies, and lesser-used craft stuff. I'm really happy with how this space turned out. I love that we are able to have lots of tools and resources at our kids' disposal, so that they may explore and learn in meaningful ways... and I'm especially glad that we now have a way to keep it really organized, so they can make the most of those resources!

So that’s it! Our new Homeschool Corner in our New Kitchen! (which, by the way, will be finished by tomorrow! Pics of that coming soon!) Also…  I plan to write up a post about our “Family Command Center” wall in the next day or two… here’s a sneak peak:

But for now... it's time for this Mama to get things ready for tomorrow... Our official "First Day of Not School."  I have a special breakfast planned, along with some special activities!