F-i-n-a-l-l-y, I feel like I have our school room organized enough to keep me sane. That's a good thing. In just two weeks, we're headed to Africa, and I need all the sanity I can get! (Did I mention yet that I'm a wee bit nervous about the trip there & back???)
We don't have a separate school room. I do have a room upstairs that I could use if I wanted a separate room, but that just doesn't work for our family. I like being able to step into the kitchen to make a fresh cup of tea, or into the laundry room to change out a load of clothes, or to the back door to let the dog out. So we use our dining room. I love to have my house neat and tidy and decorated nicely, but I feel no need to hide away our school things. After all, we homeschool, so it's okay if part of our main living area looks like a school room!
Adding an extra student this year requires more space, but we were running out of shelf space already and our craft cabinet was a disaster. We have big plans for some awesome built-in bookcases, but there just wasn't time to get those done before we got going with school. So I bought a $19 plastic shelf unit at Lowe's (at left), and spent quite a few hours going through things to figure out what to keep handy, and what to keep but not so handy. I'm still waiting on the arrival of some books I've ordered, so the shelves aren't jam-packed yet. And I took Jimmie's suggestion about getting math manipulatives out in the open, so Kathryn can actually remember to use her tangrams and geoboard and such.
I would also like to direct your attention to our new BigMac! (At least, that's what we call it around here!) We took advantage of the tax-free weekend in Georgia recently to buy the iMac we'd been saving for: SWEET!
Our old table was bugging me. Mostly just because of the way the legs were; we had to push in the chairs just right to make them fit. But it also seemed to sit a bit high for Kathryn, and I figured we could use a little more room. So I searched for a reasonably priced solution, and found a 60-inch round restaurant table for sale on craigslist. It was ugly, with a boring brown top and chrome pedestal. But it sits a little lower, and I like the idea of a round table. We paid $65, and I painted the whole thing black; Rustoleum did a great job on the chrome pedestal, and a good sanding, several coats of paint, and a layer of furniture wax did wonders for the table top. Much better!
Finally, I tackled the craft cabinet. It's an old TV armoire that now holds craft stuff and all our various board games. We had a bunch of junk in there that we no longer needed, so I trashed much of it, and will donate the unused but un-needed supplies. A few new plastic organizer things from Hobby Lobby and some labels (taped on pieces of hot pink index cards, so I can change later) helped soooo much! I can find things in here now! Woohoo!
We don't have a separate school room. I do have a room upstairs that I could use if I wanted a separate room, but that just doesn't work for our family. I like being able to step into the kitchen to make a fresh cup of tea, or into the laundry room to change out a load of clothes, or to the back door to let the dog out. So we use our dining room. I love to have my house neat and tidy and decorated nicely, but I feel no need to hide away our school things. After all, we homeschool, so it's okay if part of our main living area looks like a school room!Adding an extra student this year requires more space, but we were running out of shelf space already and our craft cabinet was a disaster. We have big plans for some awesome built-in bookcases, but there just wasn't time to get those done before we got going with school. So I bought a $19 plastic shelf unit at Lowe's (at left), and spent quite a few hours going through things to figure out what to keep handy, and what to keep but not so handy. I'm still waiting on the arrival of some books I've ordered, so the shelves aren't jam-packed yet. And I took Jimmie's suggestion about getting math manipulatives out in the open, so Kathryn can actually remember to use her tangrams and geoboard and such.
I would also like to direct your attention to our new BigMac! (At least, that's what we call it around here!) We took advantage of the tax-free weekend in Georgia recently to buy the iMac we'd been saving for: SWEET!
Our old table was bugging me. Mostly just because of the way the legs were; we had to push in the chairs just right to make them fit. But it also seemed to sit a bit high for Kathryn, and I figured we could use a little more room. So I searched for a reasonably priced solution, and found a 60-inch round restaurant table for sale on craigslist. It was ugly, with a boring brown top and chrome pedestal. But it sits a little lower, and I like the idea of a round table. We paid $65, and I painted the whole thing black; Rustoleum did a great job on the chrome pedestal, and a good sanding, several coats of paint, and a layer of furniture wax did wonders for the table top. Much better!
Finally, I tackled the craft cabinet. It's an old TV armoire that now holds craft stuff and all our various board games. We had a bunch of junk in there that we no longer needed, so I trashed much of it, and will donate the unused but un-needed supplies. A few new plastic organizer things from Hobby Lobby and some labels (taped on pieces of hot pink index cards, so I can change later) helped soooo much! I can find things in here now! Woohoo! 
