A Few Simple Suggestions for Organizing Your Homeschooling Space

I began homeschooling in the days before social media. I'm STILL not on Pinterest or Twitter, or anywhere else where I might come across a darling room in a home, set up like a darling room at a school. That's fine by me - we don't have an extra room in our home to dedicate to the soul purpose of homeschooling. And I don't want to be locked in just one room for the process for a few reasons.

First, I've got things to DO! Teaching and/or learning with my kids is only one small part of my day. I spend less time on instruction than they spend learning. That means we do some portion together and they continue on their own while I make dinner, or fold laundry, etc. They find me when they need me, so the ARE all over the house learning.

Beyond MY needs, the kids often need to be in separate spaces, one needing to concentrate on Math while another practices Spanish pronunciation, my little guy escaping the piano practice to find a quite corner to read while we snuggle.

Finally, I like spatially representing that learning happens everywhere. "School" is not confined to a space or a time. So we learn all day, and learn everywhere we go.

But doesn't doesn't need to mean our tools for learning are scattered to wherever we used them last (though that has ALSO happened!). So here is what WE do, so things are easy to find and use and hunting them down doesn't become a barrier to accomplishing a task.

I have a "school work bucket" in the kitchen in a lower cabinet where everyone can reach it. It is the catch-all for everything we use or could conceive of using in the space of a few month. It holds the books we are working on together, papers, math worksheets, answer books, and DVD's. It may have the art projects and a few art supplies too. And a few crayons and markers thrown in for good measure. I tell the kids that their task (penmanship practice, math, whatever) isn't done until their things are put away. Of course, some days it feels like I'm saying that 'til I'm blue in the face. But when I come across something that has been left out elsewhere in the house, I just drop it in the school work bucket, and when they can't find something, that is always the first place to look.

The school supplies we AREN'T using regularly (the books on science experiments we haven't gotten to yet, the discount workbooks that were on a screaming sale we aren't advanced enough yet to crack, the math worksheets one kid has grown out of before another grows into them) are all in a closet. (But lacking closet space, I would organize them either by grade level or subject and box them up to fit in storage or under a bed somewhere.) 

Then a few times each year I go through the school work bucket. If we aren't using something anymore, it goes back to the closet to wait for another sibling (or given away if we are done or I didn't find it useful). And as the kids advance I see what is in the closet that can be transferred to the school work bucket, like a tickler file to remind me to try this or use that.

I should comment about storing completed school work too! Their math until older grades, is done on transparencies so I lack a lot of evidence they DID it. But samples of their art, penmanship, writing, projects, etc. go into a collection bin (also in a cupboard in the kitchen). A few times a year, I empty this bin by sorting out who did what and placing this completed work into binders for each child, like a scrap book only FAR LESS darling. I divide the work by "grade" level, and because I only save incremental samples and not ALL of it, usually a few grade levels can fit in a single binder.

Having these binders helps the kids to see their progress and helps younger sibs see that their older sibs, who may presently do something better than they do, once were at the same skill level as their younger siblings. AND I found it really helped when I was putting transcripts together for college and an application to attend a private school! For my oldest son's "high school" transcript we assembled when he was 15, we were able to flip though this binder and remember what he studies in history, in science, in Chinese, and THAT he studied certain things so we had a fuller record of his learning.

This system has worked for our family for over a decade. Homeschooling does NOT require a school room, though if you have one and love it, more power to you! You don't need to spend a fortune on setting things up. Remember that along side your children's learning, YOU are learning what works best for YOUR family. You will discover what that is, and if the solutions you find are simple and inexpensive, all the better!