Monday, August 10, 2009

Our School Room (again)

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It's week 2 at the Not-Back-to-School Blog Hop, and this week we get to share where all that learning occurs. I wish this topic could have been saved for next week, because I'm still putting the finishing touches on a mini-makeover. But I still want to participate, so I'm just going to re-post what our school room looked like last year. Any new comments will be in this color.

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Here's our school room -- my favorite room in the house. It is truly a multi-purpose room: guest room, office, school room, and craft room. The room is over our garage and separated from the rest of the house, and this arrangement has served us well. Last year (two years ago) we hosted an art class in our school room and I never had to worry if the rest of the house was clean!


This is your first view of our school room when you enter. Those of you with hyperactive kids know what the trampoline is for! I bought the table years ago for a craft table with intentions of painting it. Just one of the many projects waiting to happen. (Still waiting...)


The bed is where we do all our read-alouds, Bible memory work, and DVD/VHS watching. It can be a little too comfortable when the sun is shining through the window, but I've only fallen asleep a few times.


This TV with the tiny screen is across from the bed. So far the DVD player has not fallen off, but clearly we need a new setup here. Ignore the awful popcorn ceiling. (Yea! The little TV is gone -- all 5 of us pooled our Christmas and some birthday money and even fished around the house to find enough money to buy a larger TV. And then it took us 2 weeks to figure out how to get it set up properly -- the kids thought it was pretty funny to see MUS's Steve Demme all pink!)


Here is where most of the written work gets done. I bought the desks cheap from a former homeschooler at my church and the chairs from Biz Chair. The rolling cart is used to hold extra supplies and hanging files that keep everything from completed assignments to catalogs. We have very little usable wall space in this room, so Hubby installed a great bulletin board above the desks -- perfect spot for our timeline and other helps.


When we first started homeschooling I thought this book case would be sufficient for our homeschool books. Is that laughing I hear? (This book case is now holding the TV and stereo, and all the stuff that goes with them. Where the book case used to be we have hung a 3x4' magnetic white board, stealing Darcy's idea. Handyman himself even gave us a few pointers.)

Thankfully, we already had two larger book cases around the corner. Now five of the ten shelves have been taken over with homeschooling materials. (Umm...all of them are for homeschooling now...and with this year's books coming in I'm starting to run low on space again.)

This was one of my smarter ideas this school year. The bin holds our library books in the order we plan to use them, divided by subject. As you can tell, we are due for a trip to the library -- usually it is stuffed to capacity.


Here are two of my favorite things in our school room -- our view and sentence diagrams written in window marker. It's really scary that sentence diagramming gives me such pleasure.


The artist in action. Below Anna is the state quarter collection that is still missing Hawaii. Has anyone seen a Hawaiian quarter yet? (We did finally find Hawaii.)

And this is one of the strangest things about our school room. The previous owners used this room for a home-based business and apparently needed lots and lots of outlets, some in very strange spots. This room boasts 21 electrical outlets and 7 phone jacks (including 2 in the bathroom)! How crazy is that!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the Blue House Academy school room.

Oh, and since not all our learning takes place in the school room, you might want to take a look at this other old post to see our outdoor school room. This is where many of our Outdoor Hour Challenges will occur.

23 comments:

  1. Love your space and can't wait to see the Make-over!

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  2. Wow, that is a great room! I don't think I could have a bed nearby when we school, I'd fall asleep for sure lol.

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  3. What a great room. I know what you mean about the book shelves. We have three large book shelves for our books and supplies. You can never have enough.

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  4. What a great place to do school! I love the coziness of having the bed up there!

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  5. I like your 4 chaired desk area. Very innovative! You have a pretty blog too. I don't think I've been here before. Nice to make your acquaintance Kellie.

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  6. Great space! I like the library book sorter. We found many of the books we need for our next unit through our state library system. I'm going to make an organizer like yours. Maybe I'll finally get books back on time!

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  7. Cool School room! I LOVE THE OUTDOOR view...I would never get tired of seeing the outside! :) Happy Homeschooling! What ages are your kiddos?

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  8. Oh! What a great idea! I need a container like that, with dividers for our library books too. Thanks for sharing your school room!

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  9. I am lusting over your school room!!! How awesome!

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  10. What a fun room. I love the idea of doing "school" on the window. Why didn't I think of that? I have a big sliding glass door right near my school area.

    Thanks for sharing on the Blog Hop. By the way, I did laugh at the idea that that tiny excuse for shelves would be all you would need for homeschooling. We just don't have a clue when we are newbies, do we?

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  11. Kellie,
    I realy like the way you have your desks area arranged. We plan on using the same window markers for diagrams for preschool and elementary science with my sons. Love your blog!

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  12. I love it! That's a great room. And so weird about the outlets!

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  13. Thanks for the tour. I've been thinking about a mini-trampoline for those long winter days!

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  14. wow, wow, wow. First, I am SO getting a trampoline. We were at a friend's house today, and my toddlers jumped on it nonstop. SO MUCH better than couch jumping!!

    I adore your desks. And bookcases. I'm all about books (aren't all homeschoolers?) The library bin is a great idea!! (Another idea I plan to copy-- thanks!)

    Sentence diagramming with window markers. Another nature lover, I see!

    Thanks for sharing. I hope you have a fantastic year!

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  15. Great space! Love the desks and the writing on the window!

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  16. I like the idea of writing on the windows and laying in bed reading together! How many wonderful memories you must have! :)

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  17. Love love love the window diagramming.

    I love to see my boys diagram sentences. It's a sick pleasure.

    Will keep my eye out for Hawaii, and send it your way if I find it!

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  18. Wow, I love this room, and the desks all lined up in a row. Our school is semi-organized chaos!

    I was at another blog (can’t remember which one now) and saw your question about the plastic over the map on the kitchen table. (And like an idiot, I posted this reply below at the wrong blog *blush*). She said hers didn’t slide unless the kids had been under it too much, but mine slid all over the place. So I drew a big border around mine with a permanent marker, about 4″ out from the edge, then cut it out, and sewed a casing into it with a heavy duty sewing machine needle. Used a bodkin to put elastic through it, and voila! No more slippage. I have a big oval table, so the finished product looked like a giant shower cap. When I got tired of the map I covered it with a real table cloth and put the plastic back on, and tucked the extra fabric under the casing. (We had spilled milk here three times in the past week, and no, I don’t have ANY toddlers.)

    Happy homeschooling!

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  19. I'm a homeschooling mother of 3 in Alaska. I thought it was too funny that we both came up with the book bin with cardboard dividers by subject. I love 'our' idea! It is working great so far!

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  20. I, too, was greatly inspired by your book bin idea. It was always so frustrating to me to bring a ton of great books home from the library only to have them gather dust on the shelves because you CAN'T SEE THEM!

    Thank you for the wonderful idea and for the peek at your beautiful school room.

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  21. Oh, thank you... for letting us see a bed in the school room! We are *hopefully* about to move and I am wondering how to have a guest room AND school room. I love that it could be a "reading corner".

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  22. I love to diagram sentences also. My SIL who is a high school English teacher says she's never diagrammed a sentence in her life. That makes me sad that it seems to be a lost art.

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  23. Love the window diagramming! And we have a trampoline too. Yours looks much nicer though, our foam surround is falling apart!

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