Limited space, help!

Here is a link that might help.. http://www.livinglaughingandloving.com/2011/08/sharing-our-school-room-er-uh-yeah.html

Just a small tip: I use trunks to store books. They double as coffee tables! 🙂

Back the art supplies and packaging, I forgot to say put the pencils, brushes, etc. in clear jars. You can buy mason ones or just save ones you have emptied of food contents (such as spagehtti sauce if you buy it like I do sometimes ;). You can keep the lid or not, but these don’t take up much room and you can store them in rows b/c you can easily see what is inside.

Use stackable storage bins and go UP, UP, UP!

I have some of these, but not in green. I have a darker blue.

http://www.target.com/p/sterilite-small-stack-basket-green-set-of-6/-/A-14010910?reco=Rec|pdp|14010910|ClickCP|item_page.adjacency&lnk=Rec|pdp|ClickCP|item_page.adjacency

They are great as the handle opens and you can stack them on top of each other, where the stuff can be stored inside it fully and yet they still stack. Hope this makes sense. We use these for bigger items and some workbox stuff.

Our dining room is full of shelves now too. No, it isn’t so pretty but it is functional for our schoolwork to be stored and used.

Good suggestions!

I used to have a school room before baby #4 transformed it into a bedroom. Now school is downstairs in the kitchen. I actually feel like I’m MORE organized because of the smaller space. Before you buy anything for your space, think about these things first:

-Do you have your own “command center”? A place for office/filing drawers for school records and personal schedule. I have a “no-kid allowed” kitchen desk cabinet and drawer that houses my teacher supplies and materials.

-if you have some space, buy the largest cabinet you can that has adjustable shelves. I LOVE my cabinet that is full of baskets and books. I have this one..http://m.crateandbarrel.com/paterson-black-36.5-two-door-cabinet/s148264

-for art supplies, I like the plastic three drawer bins. I own two and stack them (as LDImom mentioned). I labeled every drawer so the kids will know what goes where. These are great to slide out completely and use individually as needed.

One thing I did that has helped tremendously is to save actual school space for ONLY what I actually use every week. Maybe you could place other less used books or materials in another area (maybe in a large container that slides under the bed?) My former school room has built-ins and I continue to store my less used stuff there.

Overall I’m glad that school is centered around the kitchen. It flows with our day very well. I do wish for some more wall space though. 🙂

HTH!

We also use our dining room table for most of our seatwork, and the children have bins for their individual work – sturdy plastic, from walmart, a wee bit bigger than dishpans – that slide onto a shelf in the pantry. I have a wooden bookshelf in the diningroom that holds TGs and flashcards, along with poetry books and some manipulatives, and we have a large map on the wall along with a small chalkboard. Our history and read-aloud books are kept on shelves in the living room, and youngest has his own basket of history, Bible and read-alouds that we keep next to the couch. The Bibles are in a rectangular basket in the dining room, and can be pulled out at Bible time and whenever else we need them. Extra, not-in-use books are stored in under-bed storage boxes or on shelves in the basement.

We’ll be doing a bit of remodeling in the kitchen and I’m trying to plan in school storage as well – rather than a bar-type seating area behind the sink, bookshelves (if you have one in your apartment, perhaps bookshelves could slide under?); a framed world wall map so that it looks a bit less tacked up, and a really large chalkboard. Husband feels a whiteboard would work better (probably true) but I love the look of wood-framed chalkboards and since this is our living space too, I’ve gotten the “whatever you like dear,” go ahead. Smile.

Other ideas: art supplies can be stored in pretty baskets or jars on a shelf so that you won’t mind looking at them. The same shelves can hold baskets with manipulatives, books, guides, etc. While it might be nice to have a separate schoolroom, this does work well for us, and it honestly keeps me from buying too many things I don’t think we’ll use – I’d have to find someplace to put it!

A friend reminded me of something really important the other day: this time is short and it won’t be like this forever, and we really use our space. She doesn’t homeschool and has mostly older kids and a neater house, so it felt very freeing for some reason to be reminded of this.

carmen.  a couple of weeks ago everyone gave their pinterest names. You might want to do a search for all the wonderful pins. You can copy and paste a few and get some good ideas on their sites and mine.  Sorry, I don’t remember mine off hand.  I pin stuff but I don’t know how to explain alot more than that… Pinterest.com 

You can go to someones site.  You will see pins that you like. If you like someones pin then you can look up people that they follow and you can see what they have.  Then if you want you can follow them to. When they pin new things you can look at them on your board and pin them to your board for others to see. 

   It is sort of your own personal bulletin board on line. This way you don’t have to remember all those cool things you come across on line.  You just pin it…   I hope I explained this well enough.  Sorry if I am clear as mud and not very helpful maybe someone else can clarify better or come up with our pinterest sites.   🙂 

                 Blessings and good luck…. We teach from our kitchen table too.