Our Homeschooling Space

Currently, we have no extra space in our home for a homeschooling classroom. I am tempted to use my dining room like a lot of homeschooling mothers do, but I am planning to use that instead of the breakfast nook area for our meals. If I had not pre-inherited my dining room suite, I would give it up in a heartbeat. But I love my mahogany set. I have been thinking of moving the hutch and table and chairs into the breakfast area and using that, but I don't think it will fit very well.

So for the time being, we are using our breakfast nook and current kitchen table. This table is going to my parents as soon as we get desks for the boys which should be within the next coupe of weeks when we have our trip to Charlotte.

First up is Mommy's desk. This is my early 1900's Sellers kitchen cabinet. Most people call them Hoosier cabinets since Hoosier is the most recognized name. It is in the process of being refinished from the red on the bottom to the plain oat at the top. I am tempted to paint it with milk paint instead of staining the oak. I'll work on it more when it gets cooler outside. I can't wait for it to be finished!!

This is my materials cabinet. The top left is our curriculum books and the top right are books for things like Art, Science, History, Math, etc... The second shelf contains our art supplie like paints, crayons, markers, coloring pencils, stencils, scissors, etc... It also houses our beakers for Science (our test tubes and scales are that the top of the cabinet). Our next shelf has our Kapla blocks, magnifying glasses, flash cards, computer programs, and the boys' pencil boxes.

For the start of the year, Joe and I gave the boys a present of their own pencil boxes. Inside was a "My First Ticonderoga" pencil, 12 pack of Crayola Coloring Pencils, 10pck of Crayola Markers, and a box of 24 Crayola crayons. They each picked out the color of their box. Joshua chose blue, and John-Michael chose green for their boxes.

The basket on the left of the next shelf down contains our Leap Frog Phonics game, and other games. The basket on the right contains more books that I use.

Our whiteboard is on top of our manipulatives area.

Our Manipulatives area. This is where we keep our Lacing beads, Measuring cup games, wooden puzzles, Tanagrams, Cuisenaire Rods, children's games, and Montessori items. I have two cookie sheets that I got from the Dollar Tree that I use to make up Tot trays. These are hands-on activities that I alternate giving bookwork and hands on games while I work individually with each of the boys.

a close-up of our whiteboard. We are the Saints Brigid & Patrick Academy. I tell the boys the day of the week, and the date each morning. As well as any Feast Day. At the bottom is the current prayer we are working on memorizing.

here is our calendar and Pledge of allegiance. Right now I am hanging the current week's artwork on the windows. These are the boy's chairs at the table.

I will post again once we decide on what we are going to use for the boys to sit at. That will allow the space to set up our art and our computer areas as well.

what do you use for a homeschooling area?