Back to Homeschool Blog Hop - Our School/ Play Room

My little guy was sick yesterday, so I am a day late on my post...

I thought the best way to do this post would be in pictures.  Lots of pictures.  I know that when I am looking for new ideas for our learning spaces, the best way for me to get ideas is by pictures.  I am going to show you our school room, as well as the other learning spaces in our home.  So here we go...

We have been blessed to have a school/play room right off of the kitchen.  Funny thing is that we rarely school in there, at least not together.  The kids do independent studies in here and they also play in there.

This is the school side of the room.  Trust me, it is only this neat and tidy because everyone is in bed {smile}.  I do, for my own sanity, try to have it organized nicely and train the kids to put things in their place when they are finished with them.  Some of them are still in training.

A couple of years ago, we invested in two of the Expedit shelving units from Ikea.  B E S T -  P U R C H A S E - E V E R ! ! !  The unit on on the left house our history, chapter, geography and art books.  The other unit holds our picture books, early readers, Bible based, math and phonics stuff.  I try to organize these together in the different cubies. 

The small shelve to the right, you know the one with the fancy ivy stencil on it {what was I thinking!} is for science books. 

The table was a $10 yardsale find.  I painted the top of it with chalk board paint.  The kids really like it.  One time we even traced Alpha Boy on there and then added organs for health. 

That awesomely ugly and uncomfortable couch was freeeee on Craigslist.  It kinda grows on ya after a while. 

This is the play room side of the room.  Again, I try to keep things sorted, for the most part anyway.

Those small containers, the ones with the pink and green lids were from the dollar store.  They hold magnetos, finger puppets, little people, plastic animals, Laurie Pegs and Numbers, etc.  These are handy to grab for Little Bits to do at the table or on the floor while I am working with an older child. 

There is the piano and our turtle.  Hey, anybody want a turtle?  They are really low maintenance.

I used to have a clothes line going across this back wall, but I took it down.  Little Bits and I just started making these letters from No Time For Flashcards.  I needed a spot to hang them so I just clipped them to the curtain.  I am just going to go all the way across the back wall with them.

We start our day with B&B (Bible & Breakfast) here.  I read the Bible and have my coffee while the kids eat, then we go over our memory verses.  This is where I am usually helping the kids with their independent studies, like math and language arts.  All of our art projects seem to happen here too.

The message board on the left side of the wall is an old window.  I placed scrapbook paper on the backside and write and the window panes with dry erase marker.  It has been nice to day a spot there for emergency numbers, menu plans, memory verses, blog posts, etc. 

While I was at it with that table, I went ahead and painted this little wall in our foyer.  Sometimes I will throw up a tic tac toe board, mark a spot and go on about my day.  Someone usually spots it and joins in the game. 

We have used this for math problems, hangman, spelling lists and just for fun.  I would have done this in the school room but that room has a lot of windows and limited wall space.  For those of you that are wondering what the answer to hangman is, it's JESUS SAVES!

This is our family room.  We do the majority of our reading for history, science and fun. 

That large coffee table is older than me, and was given to me by my grandma before she died. I love it and we use it every day! It is big enough for the kids to spread out and color and draw while I read. The two baskets under the table house paper and how to draw books.

I put an old map under the glass in the coffee table there last year, this has been really helpful and well used. Like when we read that Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, we can quickly locate it.

I got tired of lugging legos back and forth during the day so I took an old plastic drawer to store them in the family room.  Some of the kids will play with these while I am reading.  The clean up is much easier now.

This is where the kids use the computer for Teaching Textbooks and learning games.

This used to be where I would sit and scrapbook and stamp my nights away.  Now it is just a place to store the arts supplies for the kids : ) 

As you can see, even with a dedicated school room, we are pretty spread out.