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where am I going to put a homeschool room????
So many new homeschooling parents I meet ask this question. Do you need a homeschool room? Of course not! Most families do not have a dedicated room for schooling. It is homeschool. Your home – and the world – is their school room. You can homeschool on a train, you can homeschool on a plane. You can homeschool in a car, you can homeschool near or far. You can homeschool in the kitchen, you can homeschool, err, I’m out of rhymes. You get the point, right?
When I started to homeschool, we did not have a homeschool room.
We had a room in the basement that was good for messy art projects. We used the kitchen table for most other work and went on lots of field trips. Then, after binge watching Fixer Upper, I really wanted to redo something – ANYTHING – in my house. Thanks, Chip & Joanna.
The office.
It was ugly, sterile, plain, mismatched, and *gasp* I had to see it every time I walked down the hall because it is wide open. Oh, the horror. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic, but it wasn’t a very pretty space and it was not used to its full potential to serve our family. An open office? Who can work there with noisy boys in the house? Naturally, I wanted a homeschool room. A few deliveries from Ikea, Amazon, and a can of paint later later: I had a homeschool room.
Now that I have a beautiful homeschool room, guess where we homeschool????
The kitchen, livingroom, park, car, basement, oh, and occasionally the homeschool room. Not much changed in where we choose learn. We do use the school room occasionally and enjoy it, but it definitely hasn’t changed the tone of our homeschool enough to actually need it.
The benefit I did find from it, however, is the organization.
In the past, I had to go all over the house to organize lesson plans and find items we would be using for a project. Books were in one room, art supplies in another, my computer and printer somewhere else…It wasn’t ideal to say the least. Now, all the books, papers, art supplies, binders, printers, science tools, fling flangs, dilly dollies, and gizmos are all in the same room. I can sit in there and make plans or prepare the day very quickly. I also have space to store their work and hang their art.
Do you need a room for that? Of course not! If you are not able to give up an entire room for homeschooling, it will be just fine. I would, however, recommend a dedicated cabinet or bookshelf could serve you the same way; especially if it were located near the dining table where you typically do a lot of school. As I write this, we are in the process of looking for a new home. Finding a house with a room for homeschooling isn’t even on the list of priorities. If we end up with the extra space for it again: great! If not, I will be intentional about how I organize our stuff to make my job, MY LIFE, a little easier.
Pros to having a dedicated school room:
- Keeps school items organized
- Gives you space to plan with everything you need nearby
- Some kids enjoy having a desk ad school space (like structure)
- A place to hang educational materials without clashing with decor
- Less distractions from toys, screens, and general things around the house
Cons to having a dedicated school room:
- You lose space that could be used for other things
- Kids don’t always wish to sit in there to work (prefer confort)
- Supplies and books walk off all the time to a more comfortable place
- It separates school and home; makes it hard to help with school while doing all the other things you need to do
- It makes it harder to simply integrate learning into the day
Even with a Dedicated Homeschooling Room, our cabinet in the kitchen still holds most of the important and relevant schooling stuff. Yes, this is a real-life shot. I didn’t even clean it up. There are math blocks in the container, books we use for tea time, art supplies, and in the cabinet below you will find board games, notebooks, and our math game box.
What do you think? Could you live without your current homeschool room? What have you done to make your home work well for homeschooling?
Check out our before, during, after homeschool room makeover!
