The homeschoolers school upstairs in the morning. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out where to store their materials, because our dining room is open to the living room, and the kitchen is not an eat in kitchen. But schooling in the dining room was really the only option, so I tried to find a storage solution that wouldn't take up too much room, and that the toddlers would get into (much, anyway LOL) and that wouldn't look too bad and that wasn't too expensive. I ended up going with the
itso storage system from Target. It is in the corner of the dining room. (The homeschoolers do history, reading, writing, spelling, and grammar upstairs.)
Starting from the bottom left cube - Our "mailbox",
and the grammar boxes. (there is a shelf in this cube.)
The upper left cube - the green half drawer has the
grammar solids,the grammar wooden symbols,
and a dictionary. (there is a shelf in this cube.)
The two small green tubs have art supplies in them.
On top of this cube, there is a 3 drawer unit with writing,
handwriting, and reading comprehension books.
The green tub on top of this has craft supplies,
and on the very top is office supplies.
On the bottom right, there are history "notebooks" -
1 inch binders with lined paper and page protector sheets.
In the cube above on the right, there are are language notebooks,
each "notebook" has dividers for spelling, writing, grammar, etc.
Then there is another 3 drawer divider with spelling workbooks,
then copy paper, then envelopes & stamps.
The green tub on top is the "inbox", and there is a
dry erase board on the very top.
Now, we go downstairs to the what we refer to
as "The School Room." The room is 9' x 10'.
We do Afternoon School downstairs. The subjects we
do in the afternoon are Math, Art, Music, Poetry, and Geography.
These are what we call the "Free Time" Shelves -
There are Tangrams, a couple looms, Draw Write Now books,
Dominoes, Origami, Wood Models, Music Cards, Art Cards
Money Cards, Guitar Book
These 3 drawer units are on top of a bookcase
that is to the left of the Free Time Shelves.
These contain the Math Books, and Math flashcards,
protractors, etc.
On top of the these are some tubs with painting supplies
(poster and watercolor)
To the left of that bookcase is the Culture bookcase
(There are also the Math U See blocks in this bookcase.)
On top is Botany information - Botany cards from
Montessori for Everyone, The Handbook of Nature,
a Viewfinder with Astronomy reels, an Usborne Astronomy book,
Astronomy cards from Montessori for Everyone, planet models, etc.
Same bookcase - Math U See blocks,
Base 10 blocks, Math Cards, Asia flag cards,
US Flag cards (from Montessori For Everyone
Continent/US Kits)
Various Atlas books and Asian Animals and Plant Cards
(MOE Asia Continent Kit)
all continents, And wooden maps (I have US,
North America, and World- from Montessori N Such)
Bookcase to the left of Culture Materials -
This bookcase contains reference materials.
On top of the bookcase are the general art materials -
markers, pastel crayons, beeswax crayons, Crayola crayons,
colored pencils, watercolor pencils, charcoal, modeling beeswax,
and modeling clay.
To the left of the reference bookcase is the table -
This is our former dining table. There is our jumbled Inbox
(we did go through and file/toss most of the items), Science notebooks,
and lined paper, copy paper, pencils, a water bottle, etc.
There is an egress window in this room, and we get quite a bit of
natural light. The older homeschoolers generally sit here.
To the left of the table, the Picture Book
bookcase. These books are actually for Preschool
Story Time, but this room is the best place to store them.
I keep Picture Books for the month in the Preschool Area.
On top of the bookcase, there is a CD Player and
a file folder holder. There is a file for each homeschooler
and for Super (my preschool-aged son.)
To the Left of the Picture Book bookcase
is a closet. This closet stores all my
craft and sewing supplies. We also usually keep maps
on the door.
To the left of the storage closet are the two desks.
I got these for free last summer - they were set out for
garbagecollection at a home in my neighborhood.
I got our currentdining table for free at the same place.
Actually, the only furniture I purchased in the room was
the Culture bookcase, which I bought at a garage sale
last summer for 50 cents. Everything else was given to me
or already had in the house.
In fact, many of our curriculum books were also "lent" to
us this year from a couple homeschoolers who weren't using
those books this year or books that I used last year with Flower.
So there is the room.
There are a few things not pictured in this post.
In the
Downstairs post, in the homeschool room picture,
you can see a bench. We didn't have anywhere else in the
house for it,and so it ended up in here, and I generally sit there.
I also have a Rubbermaid tub that sits on the floor that
contains the Apologia books, and the Art, Music, and Poetry books.
Next Post - The New Preschool Language Area!
Top shelf on the Art Shelf - free art materials, shamrocks, and
Second shelf on Art shelf - Q coloring sheets and Cat In The Hat coloring sheet
Cutting sheet, paper, and inset paper (the children like to use inset paper for smaller drawings/making books, etc.)
Top shelf of the geeometric shelf - The insets. There is also a geometric plane shapes chart on the wall and geometric plane cards in the bottom right corner - both from Montessori For Everyone.
The Geometric Shelf
Math U See Stair
Quilt number activity
Quack, Quack flannelboard story from KidsSoup
A picture of some of the things on the wall.
