We were blessed to be able to purchase our first home a year and a half ago.
Getting this house was most definitely a gift from God through my husband’s sweet grandparents (who live next door!).
It’s a one story brick home. Three bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen/dining room combo, and living room. Nothing fancy. No extra rooms. My “laundry room” is actually my bedroom closet, but I wouldn’t be more proud and thankful for this home if it was a 5,000 square foot mansion.
Since we don’t have a “homeschool room”, our dining room serves two purposes: family meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner and a school room Monday-Friday from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
The key to utilizing our dining room for homeschooling is organization. If you know me at all, you know organization is not my strong point!
Luckily, we have these awesome built-in book shelves that separate our dining room from our kitchen. These shelves hold our books and supplies for the current year. Notice I said current year. There is simply no room for us to save things from past years or to buy things ahead of time for future years. When we are finished with curriculum, we either donate it to another homeschool family or take it to our local homeschool consignment shop.
Like I said, my organization could use some work. I have plans of redoing these shelves in the near future. Stay tuned for pics.
One wall in our dining room holds our dry erase board. Our first year of homeschooling, I thought I would hate having a dry erase board in a main room of the house. Now, it doesn’t bother me at all. It actually comes in handy to write notes to each other, or hang precious artwork when the refrigerator doors are out of room!
Our “desks” are the dining room table, and sometimes our front porch. I’ve heard many homeschoolers who are fortunate enough to have a homeschool room say that the majority of their school work ends up being done at the dining room table. It’s a simple fact, moms spend a lot of time in the kitchen and the kids want to be where mom is.
We are using Adventures in My Father’s World this year and part of the study involves creating a large timeline on a wall in your home. Since we didn’t have any wall space in the dining room for the timeline, it’s posted on our living room wall.
Yes, you know you are a homeschool family if you have an American History timeline on your living room wall.
There are definitely days when I wish we had a designated homeschool room. But, we make the most of the space we have.
Homeschooling in a small home is possible and we’ve made it work for us.
What’s working for you? Do you have a homeschool room? I would love to see photos of your homeschooling space. Feel free to link up to posts you’ve written about anything (not just homeschool-related posts) that is working for your family. Please link back to What Works Wednesday in your post so that others can join in the fun!
We also homeschool at our kitchen table, Heather. We bought my husband’s grandparents house after they passed away, so it is a 50′s ranch, also three bedrooms. We do have nice, big rooms though! And I’ve tried to put schooling in other areas of the house, but the kitchen table is where we like it best. I love your built-in shelves!
We do most of our work in the dining room, too! I’ve wanted a bigger house with a dedicated room for lessons, but there are a lot of pluses to not having one. Less room for clutter and unused curricula to accumulate means we streamline our schooling. I keep *nothing* that is unnecessary. I can see our school room from the rest of the house so I can do other things and still keep the kids on track. Also, we’re very good at cleaning up after ourselves because we have to do it three times a day in order to eat. Bright sides!
Hi Cindy! You’re right, there are always bright sides! Thanks for stopping by!
2 bedroom 1 bath house built in 1900. unfinished half basement and very basic attic space. 850 sq feet so I think we qualify too!
Gotta love it! Susan Evans has whole sections on organizing on her blog.
and you wouldn’t really be a homeschool if you didn’t have a time line on the wall in the living room.
We built a room out of a portion of our garage two years ago, and I envisioned having my own dedicated school room. Sigh. That dream lasted for a short couple of months and then I started up daycare and my dedicated school room became the dedicated daycare room!
Our schooling takes place in our living room. We don’t have a timeline on our wall just yet (although I am considering that to decorate our long hallway!) but we do have schoolbooks and our desks in our living room! There is no hiding that we are homeschoolers!
Yep! A small space will totally work! This year is different for us and I’m liking having the kids nearby
have a great week and thanks for sharing your homeschool space!
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