How do you organize your homeschool environment?

Question

Do you have a special school room or just use the kitchen table? Do you have separate school supplies, or does the whole family share scissors, pencils, markers, etc.?
Are the school supplies (books, math manipulatives, art supplies, etc.) mixed in the same room as the toys?

Please help!

Answer 1

When all four of my children were smaller, we had a school room just to contain the mess. It was FULL of things from manipulatives and book shelves, a table and chairs, science projects, microscope, globe, Art supplies, etc. Now with them all grown and just one left in highschool, I just have a bookshelf for books in the corner of the dining room. I have one of those "pencil boxes" to keep her supplies in now.

If you have younger children, it is much nicer to have a full room for supplies though. We even painted the walls with artwork, made a school banner, created a model of the Solar System on the wall, had up a chalkboard, etc. We used a spare bedroom for the schoolroom. We had four computers crammed in there along the wall in one area, a table with chairs for a work area, a couple of bookshelves, everything necessary for school.

Answer 2

Well we used to have a house with a bonus room which we used as a homeschool room. Everyone had there own desk even Mom, so if anyone needed help she was near, and so were all the supplies. It was really nice.
Now we do not have an extra room so we meet in the family room, Mom stays in her room, and we each have a desk in our own rooms. We have a bookcase in the family room where we keep our library books ( we go every week, and we usually have a lot of books when we come home!!), and then we have another bookcase for our own book collection we have gotten over the years, which we keep in a very small extra room, or storage space.
We have a small table where we keep art supplies. But this year we did something very fun right before school started which we have never done before. We went to a CVS when they were having a back to school sale. Mom gave us each 5 dollars, and we looked through the supplies they have and got what we though was useful ( Mom helped the younger ones) .
To stay organized we each have our own 3 ring binder with the different sections, math, history, grammar, field trips, literature, ect. Then we keep our reports and other papers and things organized in our binders. Every time we take a field trip, we write a report about the place we went, try to get a brochure of the place we went to, and put those in our notebooks too!
Everyone does things a different way for homeschool, so I would suggest looking through your house, and thinking about your situation and deciding what would be the best way to do it, for you and your household!

Answer 3

There is no "rule" about how to organize the house to homeschooling.
But I suggest you organize yourself as it will be easier and less daunting.
Some homeschoolers have a separated room/ corner or table to do the "homeschool" work. Some are completely flexible and have no particular place, as they learn everywhere: going to the supermarket can become a math experience (selecting, categorizing, adding and substracting); watching a TV program may become Social Studies, or family values, or even development of thinking skills.
You can use any book to study English, or History. You don't need to follow a program, unless you want to do it.
I suggest, though, that for your own sanity and for the records (in case your children want to create a portfolio or e-portfolio later to show to Colleges, Grant agencies, jobs, etc.), you save their best works in files.
It is good too to have all the "craft stuff" and the "homework stuff" in a separate place so the kids know where to find it and they are not all over the place.
That does not mean that you can't use your kitchen table to make a cake and "teach" them about measures, nutrition, team-work and cooking at the same time.
Or that you can't use your garage or yard to build a bird house or repair something while teaching them safety tips and how to use different tools.

Answer 4

Do it in the way that works best for your child. It is different for everyone.

Homeschooling can be the best thing you do for your child/children. But everyone one has their own way of learning ... find what works best for each child.

We began homeschooling our son when he was 11 or 12. Within a couple of years, very little of his learning was done at home. At 14 he began taking courses at the community college, he had joined the fire dept. Explorer post, was raising a guide dog puppy, and was a Red Cross volunteer.

If you are just starting out, first find out the laws for homeschooling in your state. They do vary. Also, find a homeschooling group in your area. You don't necessarily have to be very involved in the group, but they can be a wonderful resource. Also, check out books on the subject.

There really isn't a right or wrong way to do it. That it the wonderful thing about homeschooling. You know your child better than anyone ... do what works best for YOUR child.

Good luck!

Answer 5

We're unschoolers, so everything in our house is part of learning. It's kind of funny to read about what we used to do and then realize how very different things are now, two years later.

When we were doing school at home, there were five kids that we organized for, so we had a magazine bin for everyone's current work. They had a separate folder for each subject (writing, spelling, math, etc) Each folder had two pockets, the left for assigned work, the right for finished work. We had the rubbermaid drawer organizers, everyone had their own drawer for their individualized papers and workbooks that they could access when they finish what was in their bins. I had a big canvas calendar (with the pockets?) as well as a big canvas sheet with the large pockets so I could put in schedule sheets.

All of the school supplies were shared, also in the rubbermaid drawers, pencils, pens, markers, scissors, paintbrushes had their own drawers. Construction paper sorted by color in a hanging file drawer. Everything was in our play room, dh built in shelves all the way around, and our toys were all sorted into the large rubbermaid totes, so it wasn't a big deal to rearrange those shelves to slip in school stuff. Everyone had their RIF books in their rooms, so textbooks were the only books in there.

We still have all the same stuff, but it's just a tool now, that kids can utilize when they want to, rather than being assigned. The folders are gone, although I do still have all my black-line workbooks to make copies out of in case someone shows an interest. The magazine bins are still there, but they hold real magazines, each kid gets their own, according to interest. The drawers just hold regular paper, and whatever coloring books or maps or whatever holds someones interest. The shelves are strewn with interesting items. We still have some of our text books, mostly science since my 8yo loves it. We have baskets with microscope slides, magnifying glasses, rocks, feathers, pieces of glass and bottlecaps. Lots of toys still, legos and blocks and zoobs and just any kind of builder you could imagine. Instruments and little dolls and playdough...stampers and stickers and scraps of fabric. Microscope, telescope, sewing machine, binders and notebooks and plastic laminator....all is part of our learning process.

It's not all in the playroom anymore either, it's been dragged around and put in different places, although sometimes I go through the house and drag all the stuff back to that room or someone's bedroom. I think the funniest thing like that is a little artist dummy, those models with the jointed parts for drawing poses? It's in our front entryway and people just change the pose randomly. One day every time I walked through it was in a different pose for jumping jacks lol!

Answer 6

Since we have a large eat-in kitchen, we converted our dining room into our central homeschool room. My husband made two custom computer benches on each side of the room. Each long, built-in bench has spacious areas for three computer systems. Our homeschooling tsyle is very computer-oriented, so this is an ideal set-up for us.

In a near-by hall we have lots of shelving in which our homeschool library is housed. We also have a wide variety of boxed kits that we assembled on various topics which contain hands-on tools for that topic. For instance, the Light Kit has optical puzzles, lenses, articles, activity printouts, a CD with downloaded optics games, a radiometer, a box of 3X5 activity cards that makes it really easy to organize lesson plans by sliding the cards into a sleeved photo album, etc. When we are ready to study that topic, we can pull out the kit and we are set to go.

I am a professional portrait artist and illustrator. I have a studio and gallery area in our foyer which is used for our homeschool art projects as well.

Non-computer-based assignments such as reading literature or doing math homework are often completed in the kids' bedrooms on the bed by their choice.

Answer 7

Our first year of homeschooling we set up in (literally) a one-room school house in the middle of the woods. Actually, a small rustic cottage with a loft, wood-burning stove, screened porch and out-house.

During the cold days our routine included cooking on the wood stove. It was fun.

We also did numerous science experiments in the surrounding woods and practiced using the scientific method.
While studying early American history we attempted to create our own clovis (sp?) spearheads using flint that we found.

We kept all of our supplies at the one-room school house. We even made a sign and logo for our "school." In addition to the usual books and supplies we had a chalkboard, bulletin board, portable white board and 2 drawer filing cabinet.

Now that my ds is in high school, we have abandoned the one room school house and use a room in our mostly unfinished basement. He needs access to his computer and the Internet.

Ours is an only child so mixing up supplies (except with us) is not an issue. Regardless, we keep his stuff separate. He is responsible for keeping notebooks and organizing the records for all of his subjects.

We searched far and wide for any tools to help create and maintain an academic portfolio and had no luck. So, we created our own and we intend to add this as a service to our family run business which my son helps with as an apprenticeship.

So... bottomline... we keep everything separate.

Answer 8

Some people do and there can be tax advantages to it, especially if the state makes you REGISTER your homeschool.

If the STATE makes you file, then technically you can write it off your taxes as a business!

Or as an eduational expense!

I personally had a bookself in my frontroom next to my desk and it had all my books. I had them by topic or genre. History, Science, Fiction, Arts. They were right next to my Harvard Classics set.

My telescpe was in my bedroom. My darkroom equipment was in the bedroom or bathroom, my camera equipment was in a closet.

When I decided to do an animation film I'd get some construction paper, tack it up on the wall somewhere, draw on some of it, tack that up with tape. Do cut-outs to animate and then set my 8mm camera up on a tripod 6 feet away so it wouldn't be out of focus.

When I was done I'd put it all away.

Answer 9

Great question!

We don't have the luxury of an extra room. We have a wall unit we dedicate to educational supplies. We use the box method of organizing because it's easy to pull out and put things away.

We have a box full of textbooks. We have a shelf lined with more reading and resources. There is a magazine holder we keep worksheets and folders in. We also have a box with all kinds of art supplies, a box with all kinds of card and learning games, and a box with science experiement stuff. We also keep a case with all our educational software inside.

We will do our work anywhere-- on the kitchen table or out on the patio, or do projects on the coffee table in the living room.

Answer 10

You might find the book, "Teaching Montessori in the Home, the School Years" helpful. There is also a Yahoo! group called Playschool6, as well as MontessoriMakers, that is filled with parents and directresses making materials, etc. at home. Montessori does generally go only until age 12, when a more classical high school approach is used, but if she is dyslexic, using some of the language works will be very helpful.