We are relaxed homeschoolers. I have no problem with my kids wearing swimsuits reading upside down on the couch. I am just thrilled they are reading! I love to have an enriched environment with lots of educational material around at all times. That has led to a bit of a mess.
We need structure and I require certain things from my kiddos. Such as the schedule I told you about Year Round Homeschool Planning Tools We get together everyday to start the day off right, with Prayer and the Bible. That means we need a home base. A center for our learning materials to be easily accessed and stored.
A place to start our homeschooling day.
To highlight the great work the kids are doing such as a timeline, art projects, science charts, etc.
Frankly we have no stable income this year so we will need to get inventive.
Our diningroom is mostly remodeled. Thankfully we have the rest of the material to finish that project. We just need the time. That will be the first thing for us to do. When the diningroom is done we will work on a more functional comfortable area around my hospital bed for the family.
***One project at a time… back to the diningroom!***
First I have to think about the special needs in our home. I and 1 of my daughters use a powerwheel chair often. Several of the kids have low tone and foot drop meaning they cannot lift their feet properly to make it over things on the floor even transitions from carpet to hard wood. So we are going through the home piece by piece and leveling the floor and making it all lamentant flooring that is smooth with very low transitions.
We are also changing our diningroom table to a central post table we had downstairs holding up laundry mounds. That way we will stop hitting our toes on the table legs.
We did have to buy primer, putty, and paint for the walls but we used the Labor Day sales and our Vet discounts to get a discounted price. The walls went from a grim gray to a pleasant yellow. Not too bright as to agitate but a mellow yellow to encourage and uplift!
Then we are going to look through the years of material, charts, and maps. I will also be going through the garage to find some cool things to upcycle and deck out our homeschooling room.
My dad sells tons of things on Ebay and I am sweet talking him into a huge wall map to give that vintage school room look that I am liking this year. If you like the look he has several maps for sale (click the pic of the map to go to his ebay store that has the maps)
Our homeschooling room is our diningroom and our backroom near my hospital bed. Those two rooms will be the core of our working area. After a good deal of thought and looking around I found a metal cart at Sam’s that is going to allow me a home base of homeschooling on the go. It is 3 tiered and lets me put the basics like writing material and utensils on it. Our read aloud books. A whole shelf devoted to lapbooking and unit study material. The bottom shelf is large enough for 3 of the kids homeschooling boxes.
I use legal boxes to put their books and learning material in to keep it corralled. Each child gets their own box to keep their things in. They are also responsible for that box and the books inside. It has kept down on the mysterious missing math books. 😉
I am trying to reuse everything I can from my home and years of accumulation of homeschooling material. Then if I need a bit more I am trying hard to only buy that which is absolutely necessary and steeply marked down. It also has to hold up to the hard wear of my kids. That means that the Dollar store may have some gems price wise, the durability of their stuff just won’t work. I would rather buy a couple Rubbermaid containers that will last than a Dollar store container that will break within weeks of starting to use it.
Ahhh the fine balance of being cheap and being frugal.
I will keep you updated on our progress. Hubs tells me that by the end of the weekend the trim and pantry door will be up. That means the room itself is done and I can move on to feathering my homeschooling nest. 😀
I will put together pre- mid- and finishing touches pics as I am able.
Here is a cool find from Amazon that I am super excited about, Chalk labels and a Chalk marker! (now I just need to figure out how to write fancy like “That Super Mom” on Pinterest…. hahaha)
Legible Heather… That’s all that is needed! Repeat until you believe it.
For those that have a homeschooling room what are you doing with yours? Upgrading? Upcycling? Cleaning and moving on to a new year?