Schooling in a Small House – Ideas?

One idea I’ve considered trying before is giving the kids backpacks to put their books/pencils/etc in.  Then they can simply grab the backpack and move anywhere to do school, with most of their materials right with them (independent work at least). 

I have all school supplies in our living room, which is where we do school. First, I store all books for the current term under our coffee table. I have them where they can stand up and I can slide books in and out by using plastic desk organizer that is supposed to be for file folders. This keeps books from always falling over like they do with bookends etc. On other side of coffee table underneath, I have a child’s dictionary, thesarus, and their individual binders. On top of the coffee table I have a full plastic school box of map colors, another of pencils, and another of markers. My end table drawer contains post it notes, hole punch ring enforcement stickers, and my ear buds along with my lap top. I have my teacher binder between couch and end table. Lastly, I have a lap top table in living room beside entertainment center with a small child’s chair and kid’s laptop is there and situated where I can see the monitor at all times. on the wall is our white board so that they can work out math problems. They do teaching textbooks on the computer. beside the laptop is a box of whiteboard markers and an eraser. Our Map is mounted to a large corkboard that slides out from against a wall and we can flip it from the world map to the US map and mark all over it if we want.   What helped me the most was their binders which are about 1″. I took any workbooks and hole punched the work and I place a weeks worth of work in the binder at a time. If I am goiing to have them do a written narration, then I just place a plain piece or paper under the tab for that subject. At a weeks end, I go through each childs binder and pull their work and enter work completed in CMO and then file work in binder labeled finished work. I have their master binders which are huge and hold the whole years worth of papers on a book shelf along with all the other books for the year that we will use. the rest of our library is on book shelves in our dining room, but if I didn’t have them, I would store books under my bed, or theirs if I had too. My teacher binder is also 1″ and again I place only my teacher’s guides or workbook answers etc for the term in there. So in all my school space is literally 10×8 space. I only have 2 kids though.

We also school in a small space 🙂  We recently finished our basement and added a very small addition, which took us from 650 sq ft up to 1100 sq ft and it feels really spacious!  But that’s for six, going on seven of us 🙂

We have a 30″-wide cabinet in the living room where almost all our school books are stored.  It has doors, so we’re not always staring at math workbooks and random worksheets.  There’s also a small bookcase for library books and bedtime read-alouds.  Writing and art supplies are stored in cardboard photo boxes from Michael’s–they’re nice-looking enough to leave out without it feeling like “school stuff” is taking over the house.  A couple desktop magazine holders on a small desk surface, along with the laptop.  A book basket by the fireplace that holds my “teacher” books and school read-alouds.  I also have a rolling cart from IKEA that serves whatever is our most urgent need–it’s held playdoh and coloring books for the littles, science or art supplies, reading materials, etc.  It’s wonderful because it’s so easy to roll from room to room.

Don’t waste vertical space!  We are working on hanging shelves throughout our house at about a foot below the ceiling, wherever we can.  They’re great for storing materials or household items you don’t use all the time, and they’re above head-height so they’re totally out-of-the-way.

If you need to store your materials in another room because of space, make it a routine each night to pull out everything you’ll need the next day.  If your kids are responsible for their own materials, have them do the same.  That way you’re not running to other rooms for stuff during school time… that’s a big one that has helped me a lot.

We are currently in a large house, but have homeschooled in smaller spaces.  In the past, we’ve stored commonly used supplies in a cabinet or on a microwave stand (I kept art supplies in the bottom cabinet and books on the larger shelf where the microwave is supposed to go).  I’ve also stored things in large rubbermaid bins and pulled them out as needed.  We keep our large timline behind the couch and pull it out on our timeline day…you could keep maps this way if you had something to mount them on.  

We keep their individual materials in those plastic bins for rinsing dishes (they are $2 each at Walmart).  They can pull them out when it’s time to work on 3Rs.  The rest of the time they are stored in the schoolroom.  We sometimes work in there and more often work in our large living/dining room.  

I keep our dog outside or on the back porch while we are doing school.  Sometimes I keep him gated in the kitchen when it’s too hot or cold outside.  We have noisy parakeets that I had to move out of the schoolroom!  They get really loud in the mid-morning and early afternoon.  

We keep our computer on an endtable in the living room.  It’s not the most eye-appealing spot, but it’s easier to keep an eye on them there.   We have a computer in an upstairs office, but I don’t like them using it…the computer is usually locked.  We keep passwords on both computers so they aren’t getting online when they shouldn’t be.  DH and I are the only ones that know the password.

We’re schooling in small qtrs now too – camper and a 7.5′ x 15′ “bunkhouse”.  The bunkhouse is our schoolroom/laundry room/storage of everything that needs to be at hand and doesn’t fit well in the camper.  It’s interesting!!  I have 12-square cube storage unit that houses our current things.  I think we have everything we need for two term at least there.  A few string instuments between there and my desk w/ the laptop and printer on it.  Table at the other end w/ whiteboard on it against the wall.  Sits me and two kids…not ideal since I have 4 at home, but so far it works.  My oldest takes her things to the camper or a blanket outside and does most of her work independently.  I haven’t figures out where/how to do our “together” things yet.  Still getting rolling here, but we did it outside the one day we did it thus far.  Probably will continue that unless the weather is bad and we do it in the camper.  Life’s great isn’t it?!??  I’m just a little concerned about how this is all going to work when baby arrives in Oct. and winter is upon us!!!!