Our Homeschool Room

Today I want to share with you a little bit about our homeschool room and how it came together perfectly with a small budget and a lot of creativity. I will add that we are truly blessed with amazing friends that made this a reality with all of the love, support, encouragement and helping hands we received to pull this off, just in time for learning. 

This room truly is a dream come true for us.

We dreamed of a space for learning for years. For years.
but it never seemed to come
and there was always something else on the list, 
but today.
today the time has come and we are sharing our favorite "new" space in our home.

chalkboard love

To bring focus to the largest school space in this room we decided to paint the whole wall with chalkboard paint, with the help of many hands this turned out perfectly! I love the contrast it adds to the whites and shades of grey in this room. It really makes the map pop off the wall and stand out and brings attention to the sweet little desks and so far we have enjoyed creating little doodles on it. I am sure it will become more functional as the weeks go on. Also layered on this wall is a sweet green chalkboard that dear friends were looking to pass on (or throw away). I could not wait to add it to the wall to bring a little color and texture to this space!

old desk love

These desks were found on Craigslist for a very sweet price. They are old, beat up, and imperfect. Not unlike most of us... rough around the edges and in need of lots of grace. I think they are a perfect fit for my early elementary students and will get us through a few years, just in time to pass them down to the next crew. I love that they have a space under each seat for their personal books and little treasures.

piano to play, map to dream

This piano is a treasure gift from my dear grandmother and many hands have pranced along the keys over the years and I smile each time I think about how it landed perfectly in this room, being one of the focus items in this dream space of ours. A gift of the heart that reminds us daily of how much we are loved. Over the piano we added a vintage map that we found on Craigslist. This really brings the perfect 1950s vintage feel to our room that I was dreaming about. It really was my heart's desire when I was originally dreaming of a schoolroom and I feel so blessed by how it came to us.

do it yourself project

I am really pleased with this adapted Child's Art Station from Lowe's that we originally found on Pinterest. We were so blessed that our oldest child put this whole project together, even reformatting the directions, to make it a perfect fit for our art corner. You may also notice those sweet little handmade aprons that a dear friend with some amazing sewing talents created for our little artists!

school cart

This Ikea Raskog cart is always wheeling around this room (and our whole home), it has all of our basic supplies in basic canning jars we already owned and the other sections are now filled with teacher manuals and read-alouds for our year. This is a very sturdy, easy to move around, cart that I really enjoy having in our classroom. I would feel lost without it, and we have just begun our school year.

paper to go/cart of supplies

For years we have had "piles". You know those piles of supplies that grow and grow, but never really have a proper home. It was making everything we did take so much longer and often I would buy something for a lesson or project that we already owned. I am challenging myself to use supplies we already own this year and buy very little and that will make for a very creative school year. One of these 10 drawer storage carts has all of our paper, from printer paper, to notebooks, to cardstock and one of the carts has everything from art supplies to math manipulatives and it is working out so well for our daily needs. 

stations of accountability

The FisherKids Homeschool Responsibility Stations 

description: 

 Whether you are new to homeschooling or a seasoned veteran, you know that organization is the key to success. But how do you organize school responsibilities AND home-life responsibilities? We have combined our popular responsibility station with a homeschool organization station to bring you the best of both worlds. You will receive the 16"x16" metal pegboard (hooks and hardware included), notepad (good for one calendar year) that is divided into school assignments and home responsibilities, a school supply bucket, a chore chooser bucket, set of 20 chore sticks (blank on one end for you to fill out age-appropriate chores and marked with "thank you" on the opposite end), one set of three money bags, and downloadable Parent's Guide.

cost: $65.00 each

not included are the clipboards, school supplies such as the pencils

I cannot recommend this system enough. It lays everything out. It gives your child a chance to grow into a responsible member of your household without continued pressure and prodding and it gives them a chance to earn, spend and save money wisely. I am very thankful for this part of our room.


So, that is our main space. 
the honesty is that it is not perfect and there are so many things that were different in my mind when I was dreaming of a school space for us, but in the end, this is just right. It was both affordable and full of lots of little things that are both pretty to look at and functional, as well.

This room truly has a less is more feel. It is small room, but we have used as many walls and spaces as we could, while still focused on also keeping it fairly clutter free and overall "unbusy" for a less cluttered mind. It was important to me that we were less distracted by color and "loud" items in our room and could more clearly focus on our work and exploration. This room also houses my studio, which is also as simplistic as possible. That is coming up in a post soon, so make sure you return to see how and where I create. I am still working on a couple of projects and saving for the last few things.

I also want to share that we do not keep much from year to year, unless I know it will be difficult to replace or we will use it right away the next year or the year after. We just not have the space to store much and we often use the funds from selling those items we have finished with to purchase the  next year's curriculum, books and basics.

Make sure you come back often to see how we are putting this room to good use!