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homeschoolorganization

How To Create a Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick To

June 13, 2014 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

By sharing with you earlier The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule, I hope that you placed a high value on your routine.  When I hear the word routine, it conjures up a warm and fuzzy feeling.  But I know for some homeschoolers, the words routine and restrained seem to be more synonymous and that just kills me.  I want you to love what I love, I can wish can’t I?  And it’s true, how to create a homeschool schedule that YOU can stick to, is the difference between organizational agony and thriving in organizational bliss.

This year too, hopefully during the summer, (unless I am on a beach in South America somewhere soaking up the rays and surviving from my upcoming move) I will be sharing more specifics about the different kinds of homeschool routine that vary with your kids ages and seasons in your life.

And before I forget because I have been asked several times, there is no way I am stopping my blog.  When I move, I may be M.I.A. for a while, or longer if a beach is calling me (don’t hate, just saying) but am way too vocal to be quiet now.  I just had to let you know that important information though it has nothing to do with what I am blogging about today.

How To Create A Homeschool Schedule That You Can Stick to

Today, I want to keep it simple for you and give you a beginning point in creating a homeschool schedule.  Sharing tips that are more broad or that can be applied across a number of scenarios helps you to keep the basics in mind when planning.

3 Easy Steps to Homeschool Schedule

First, instead of planning hour by hour and day by day, think of your day as zones.  Later on, I will go through plugging in the details with you, but for now divide your day by general broad zones.

For example, because we do homeschool, we would have our days divided up like this: morning routine, school routine, afternoon routine, personal routine and evening routine.

Wasn’t that easy?  It’s true, we have a bit more to divide out in our day, but it’s still doable.  Whatever you do, AVOID for now assigning everything in your life an hour by hour appointment.  Don’t go down straight jacket, hem me in road because like you, I couldn’t stay there either.  Start with general zones and then work within those zones to assign details or all the activities that fall within those time zones.

Next, list the activities you will have this year or the upcoming year, whichever one you are planning.  It’s important to create a homeschool schedule each year because activities will change.  True, sometimes each year my schedule changed slightly, but other years it changed drastically.

Creating a list of my to-do, whatever it is, helps me to not miss plugging it in a zone.  Did you catch this part?  For sure this will take the longest amount of time because you are listing EVERYTHING you need to do for the day.  Anything for the home, kids, the Mr. and time for you, all have to be listed.  Get it all off your mind and on paper.  It feels better there too.

The last thing to do is to explore your options in how you will accomplish that activity.  What do I mean by this?  Whether it is teaching a child to read or taking the kids to a co-op or class, you want to assign a realistic amount of time to do that activity in your zone.  It is hard to do that unless you know you have investigated all your options.

For example, some years, I combined extracurricular classes for the kids so that we would have one long day out and away from the house instead of breaking up multiple school days to take each kid to their classes.

Explore ways of how to maximize your time away from home.  Can you buy groceries while they are at class or use that as part of your household time?  And while you are at home, explore ways to maximize it too.  Can you combine two kids for one history program?

Finish exploring options so that you have measured your time better when it comes to plugging it in your zone.

Beginning at this basic framework each year helps to avoid unrealistic planning, the feeling of defeat before you start and gives you a boost in organization.

Dividing my zones, listing my activities and exploring my options is the glue that helps my homeschool routine stick.

Learning to stick with a schedule gives you breathing room and almost a feeling that you have just created extra hours in your day.  Ewww, it feels sooo good!

What do you think? Does starting at this point instead of listing it all hour by hour give you some breathing room?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature

Want to read some more?

{Homeschool Organization Series} Where do you begin?

Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler. What to Keep & What to Skip

Streamlined Record Keeping

Creative Storage Solutions

Swoonworthy Learning Spaces

Grocery Shopping, Cooking & Laundry – Oh My!

Day 9: Carpe Diem: Homeschool Schedule by The Day, Month, & Year. {31 Day Boot Camp For New Homeschoolers on My Blog}

4 CommentsFiled Under: How To - - -, Schedule/Balance Home & School Tagged With: homeschool schedules, homeschoolorganization

The Sticking Power of a Solid Homeschool Schedule

June 6, 2014 | 7 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule.

POWER OF A HOMESCHOOL SCHEDULE

Too, I have a bit of trepidation in sharing about this topic. 

It has been my experience that homeschoolers obsess worry about this topic more so than some other homeschooling issues. 

Deep down they truly care how to fit everything in a day, maintain their sanity and identity, and strive to make the homeschool journey a memorable one for the right reasons. 

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule. Click here to grab these tried and true tips for planning a schedule!

Sometimes they feel isolated because they think other homeschoolers manage their schedules better.

Doing what I love to do and sharing with you just two points that help me to organize and what sometimes {not always} comes easier for me, I hope to give you a gentle sweet nudge in the right direction. 

You are not alone in your struggle to make it all fit in a day.

Homeschool Schedule Equals A Plan of Action

Visible Schedule.  Achieving success starts by creating a visible schedule.  I know, you may think that is stating the obvious, but I promise there is a fundamental, but powerful point here. 

Understanding that your schedule needs to be visible is the first step to a well-defined plan of action.

This is a very fine and let me emphasize that again—very fine point—that makes a huge difference between the organized homeschooler and the wanna be organized homeschooler.

Having good intentions by going through your schedule in your mind keeps it just that – a thought.

It is not a call to action or a plan. 

Staying in your mind is sort of like keeping it at brainstorming level or at a mulling over stage. 

Too, if you have a creative solution for a hiccup in your schedule, then you want to quickly commit that to a point of action.

When a schedule is committed to paper (or any other location in your house) it becomes a plan of action.  It has gone from abstract to concrete.  Does that make sense?

Paper method is just one way that a schedule is visible.  It is my preferred way, but it does not have to be your way.

Shocking Invisible Homeschool Schedules

Avoid schedule type mayhem. In addition, what type of schedule you create depends on which family members you want to make aware of it.

Don’t just jump out there in your enthusiasm to organize and create something that hems you in. 

Carefully scrutinize the needs and ages of your household.  It will change and your need for different schedules will change.

Homeschool Schedule

For example, when the kids were little and though I hadn’t moved away from stepping in sync with a public school schedule.

I still presented what worked for them at a very young age which was simply something hanging on the wall to talk about each day.

At that time though I still had my schedule down on paper though it was not necessary to share it with my young kids.

Also, having more than one place or location for your plan of action is a recipe for success. 

How? Because you have just doubled your efforts to help you accomplish each task day by day by sharing it with your children.

Many hands do make the work light or in this case, keep all on task.

Children have a natural bent toward routine.  If you want to be more organized, use that natural bent toward helping you to flow through a day with a better plan of action.

Homeschool Organization Means Communication

As your children grow older, they become self-starters and built in motivators when they don’t even know it. 

On more than one occasion when my sons were very young, they would prod me by asking if it was time to start our school or task.

Temporary Command Center

Then last year, I shared my Woo-Worthy Big Calendar by NeuYear that I had visible in my house for a while. 

Even though I had already started downsizing for our move, a temporary command center was a must.

The ages of my children have now changed dramatically, but the need of a visible place to communicate my plan of action has not.

Whether you put your schedule in a student planner, your homeschool planner, on a wall, on your refrigerator, or a central place in your home, it needs to be visible to accomplish your plan of action for that year.

A homeschool schedule is the backbone of homeschool success and a visible schedule has helped me over more than one homeschool hurdle through the years.

However, a common mistake in creating a homeschool schedule that has sticking power is to plan hour by hour, minute by minute and what seems second by second.

Next, I will share a few tips so that your plan of action keeps you organizing instead of agonizing.

How many places do you post your homeschool schedule?

The staying power of a homeschool schedule cannot be underestimated for the organized homeschooler. It takes time and self-discipline though to stick to a schedule. Click here to grab these tried and true tips for planning a schedule!

Want some more tips about scheduling?

  • How to Plan EVERYTHING in Your Homeschool Video
  • {Homeschool Organization Series} Where do you begin?
  • Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler. What to Keep & What to Skip
  • 6 Ways to Organize Your Homeschooled Teen
  • Homeschool Organization – Preschool/Kindergarten Free Morning Routine Flip Cards
  • 100 BEST Ideas to Organize Your Homeschool Area – Storage, Spaces, and Learning Places
  • 3 Ways to Instantly Gain More Time in Your Homeschool Day

Hugs and love ya,

Homeschool Organization The Sticking Power of a Homeschool Schedule

7 CommentsFiled Under: Organization, Schedule/Balance Home & School Tagged With: homeschool challenges, homeschool planning, homeschool schedules, homeschoolorganization, organization, organize, organizedhomeschool, planning, schedules, year round homeschool planning, yeararoundhomeschool

Homeschool Organization : Are you Collecting Cookbooks OR Recipes?

January 22, 2014 | 8 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Homeschool Organization Are you Collecting Cookbooks or Recipes

A few years back I wrote an article about organized menu planning for my new bees, but when it comes to meal planning I think anybody can benefit from the tips.

Applying here that small, but significant tip that I shared too in my recent post Homeschool Organization–Where do you begin? when I emphasized the baby step to organization which is to “identify with precision” the need or problem defines the troubled spot real clear.

Here is my answer: When I am meal planning, I am not collecting cook books, but recipes.  And let’s take it one step further to make it even more clear what our needs are if we are struggling to put supper on the table and that is to collect recipes our family will eat.

In the picture below is what my recipe book looked liked back then.  I now call it my main recipe book.

Homeschool Organization Recipes and Meal Planning

I basically took the time to go through most of the cookbooks I had and recipes I had collected online and put them in a 5 inch binder.  I divided it by these sections; main entree, breakfasts, sides, breads, condiments, desserts and beverages.

Recipe Books Left over after homeschool organization purge

The picture above are the cookbooks that I had left to go through at the time.  I do not have any of them now because I finished that project.  I only kept two cookbooks that were of sentimental value.

Unless we are clear about what our goal is for anything that we are trying to organize, then no clear cut plan will ever emerge.

Are we collecting cook books or recipes? There is a big difference.  One we can bring clutter in our kitchen if we collect cook books and the other collecting recipes is clearly defined because that is what we are really wanting to achieve.

Too, with Pinterest now, it is easier to store recipes online.   Still though we want to spend LESS time flipping through cook books and online on Pinterest when it comes to menu planning.

The only way to do this is to take time to print them, organize them and have them handy.  Make a specialized cook book for your family.

I know there are tons of online grocery shopping and menu planning tools, but they never work for me when I about to menu plan or cook.  I like having it all down printed in front of me to flip through or look at while I am cooking.  That is just me, you may do better with something online.  I need to touch and see my recipes in my binder.

But do you know what is the sweetest investment when taking hours and hours to make a specialized recipe binder cookbook? It is filling the binder with recipes that MY family will actually eat.  Avoiding time wasters by flipping through useless pages in a cook book and avoiding spending hours and hours on Pinterest to find something different only to make the same old usual dinner is priceless to me.

Can you see that menu planning becomes a cinch?  Your recipe book should be filled with more recipes that your family eats and enjoys instead of recipes that have not been “field tested” by your family.  More on that in a minute.

Can you menu plan for 365 days and not repeat a meal?  That was my mind-set when I started filling my book and I can do that now.  Of course, I don’t do that because some foods my family really loves and wants to have them a couple times a month.  The point is that your recipe book is not filled with recipes that your family will not eat and you have a variety to choose from when boredom sets in.

So don’t go through willy-nilly sticking all the recipes in your book.  It took me almost 3 years to get the first book done because I would test out a new recipe on my family before it was a “keeper” for my binder.  Choose selectively even if it means having less recipes in your book.  When I started I promise I couldn’t think of more than about 7 -10 meals that I cooked and that my family actually would eat.  I knew I cooked more, but I had to get them all down.  I knew that if my crew gobbled the meal down, it was a keeper.  If they just kind of liked it, but knew it could taste better by adding this or that ingredient, I revised the recipe to suit my family.  The point is it takes time to test each new recipe that you put in your binder.  The basic rule of thumb is to fill your binder with more tried and true recipes than recipes for testing.

My recipe binders have now hit one of my must-haves for homeschooling because when I am tired, I can still menu plan for 30 days because I know my family will not only eat but enjoy just about all the recipes I have stored now.

Homeschool Organization Divide Your Cookbook by Sections for YOU

Today, I have 3 binders (first picture above) because it is the way I prefer to menu plan and organize.  The big binder or 5 inch binder is my main book basically for all my recipes except crockpot meals and I also took out the breakfast section.

In homeschooling we need to relentlessly use our crockpots year round and I now want those recipes to be kept separate so I can find them easier.  So that is my second binder.  And then the meal we prefer to eat together as a family is breakfast, so I collect recipes that are unique and fast and keep that binder easy to retrieve.  Too, though it is called my Breakfast and Lunch binder because it has home lunch ideas in it also because I don’t want lunch at home to become boring so I keep those ideas handy there.

Heads Up: Don’t make too many binders though you may think it is easier to organize this way.  Organization is about keeping things streamlined and you can make this project too complicated by over organizing.  I really only have 2 binders, my main and crockpot binder, that I reach for when planning.   The last binder filled with breakfast and lunch ideas is just that – an idea book if I get bogged down.  Breakfast and lunch are not areas I need help on everyday like my main meal which is supper.

Homeschool Organization - Specialized Recipe Binder for Your Family Now

It’s just about time to update my binders again.  Since we will be moving and because I can’t take the binders with me, it will be the perfect time to update them when we get settled again.

Look at these easy steps I did in case you want to start one now.

  • 1. Go through each cook book slowly or online recipes and decide what your family will “try” (field test) and what they will eat.  Don’t do this in a hurry as you probably, like me, paid good money for your cook books and want to get the full use out of them.
  • 2. Then decide whether to tear out the pages or unbind them in your books.   Keep in mind that organization for homeschooling is not waiting for the perfect looking page.  In other words don’t say I will re-type a recipe.  You can do that later if you want to because right now you may get side-tracked if you try to do that.

And if you do that, instead of completing a specialized cook book for your family, you may create road blocks by waiting to set up a perfect page.   I know, I know, it grinds me also because I like it all matching and pretty pages, but the truth of it is you have time to come back to make those pages pretty after you declutter.

  • 3. Each torn out page or printed page from Pinterest needs to go into a page protector.   Page protectors are good for messes in the kitchen too since your recipe is protected.  Go ahead and put the recipe in the sections you created whether you are know or don’t know if your family will like the recipe.

It is much easier to take the recipe out of the page protector and throw it away than it is to have a big pile of pages laying out, adding to clutter and not usable.

  • 4.   Field test on your family by cooking the recipes you were unsure of and then I put notes on my recipes when I cooked the ones I was testing.  Mark up the recipe, place a check on it or something so you will know if you tweaked it a bit,  will keep it or toss in the garbage if there was no salvaging it.  Basically, mark the ones you have cooked already so you have some record.
  • 5. Throw away all cook books and their clutter.  It feels pretty good at this point.

Did I mention you actually look forward to cooking and you have something treasured that was made just for you and your family?

I have created something unique for my family and you can too! Take from this what you can use and I hope it breathes some help into your cooking routine.

I can’t wait to make another set of binders when I move.  And this time, I may have to create some brand spanking new pretty divider pages for our recipe binders and new covers too.   What do you think? Want to do this now or with me again when I land?

Hugs and love ya,

2012Tinasignature Day 10. Celebrating THE Day! 10 days of Planning A Homeschool High School Graduation

8 CommentsFiled Under: Home, Organization Tagged With: homeschoolorganization, menu planning

Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler: What to Keep & What to Skip

September 26, 2013 | 4 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Must-haves for the organized homeschooler are not the same must-haves for other stay at home families.

Think about that for a minute because priorities become real clear. The point is we share living and learning spaces and what we skip and what we keep are different.

By sharing must-haves for the organized homeschooler, I want to ease organization for you.

Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler: What to Keep & What to Skip

I do not want you to create a must-have list of things which don’t work.

Organized Homeschooler

We stop agonizing over organizing and what becomes a hobby for some folks (oh yes, I could so go there but I try to keep myself reined in) and the realities of the things that actually need to be organized becomes two very different things.

When You Homeschool and Agonize  Organize

There is a difference in the ways we approach an idea, task or project IF we want to accomplish organizing that fits our homeschool lifestyle.

Our homeschool lifestyle cannot be dismissed as some small undertaking so it requires  a measure of finesse that a lot of books, blogs and websites on general organizing just don’t understand. We are not sending our kids off somewhere, but we are living and learning in shared spaces.

Look at my list below because we don’t have to give up organization and don’t want to; we just learn how to do it differently.

5 Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler: What to KEEP

Homeschool Keeper 1. Menu Planning.

Menu planning for 30 days has grit, it’s the only way I menu plan.

It’s not easy if you normally menu plan for 7 days. However, I encourage you to menu plan for 30 days because you do not have to plan again so quickly.

You get a whole lot more return for your time when you menu plan longer. Taking an extra 15 minutes or so in the beginning of the month gives back more time in the month than it takes up.

For example, I turned this into a year long project. Take one year and plan something for every day of the year for recipes that your family like.

This plan will keep giving back for year after year because you’ve created 365 meals and the best part is that you have meals already created.

I color coded every 7 days so that you can see one glance at a time. I plan for 30 days, but shop weekly. So seeing the whole week at one time speeds up the process for myself.

Grab this editable recipe form on my page DIY Easy Home Management Binder.

Homeschool Keeper 2. Chores Assigned to Each Family Member.

I could not do what I do or even school for the day if my kids did not help. Teaching them requires time, but the payoffs are huge.

Ideally, I would love to tell you that I trained them so that now they do all my grocery shopping, but really they have learned some valuable life skills that I can’t check off in my planner.

Update: Yes, they did ALL my grocery shopping and half of the cooking as they grew older. Now, with so much available on-line they still help put groceries away.

Grab this editable chore chart too over on my page DIY Easy Home Management Binder.

Homeschool Keeper 3. A homeschool planner like my 7 Step DIY Homeschool Planner.

Do I need to tell how my heart goes pitter patter when I prepare the 7 Step DIY Homeschool Planner each year?

There is NOT another like homeschool planner like it because YOU organize it each year for your EXACT needs this year.

Using my printables with tons of options at every step, you create a UNIQUE one of a kind planner.

If you’re not a paper/pen gal, you still want some way to easily track your school work.

Homeschool Keeper 4. Command center. Even if it’s simple or temporary.

It’s one thing to have plans in mind, but communicating to the rest of the family is how to effectively carry out plans.

This area can include all upcoming activities for the family and even a Home Management Binder.

Many plans or routines fail and can be traced back to lack of communication.

A physical place at the house where everybody can see what is planned is useful in keeping my family up to date.

Also, I use and love Cozi, which is a free family calendar app.

Each week the calendar is sent o everybody’s email or phone. I love this now that I have teens because we could be going a lot of different directions during the day. Not just that, but the boys can see what is coming up too and learn to plan.

However, one place in the house where all family members pass by for the day was more effective.

Reminders from apps can be out of sight and out of mind; a command center in the house is a way that all family members can stay organized and be mindful.

Homeschool Keeper 5. Place to organize the overflowing amount of books, supplies, and crafts which come with the full time job of homeschooling.

Though I highly recommend having a homeschool room, I know that is not possible with everyone.

In addition, I was told I would never use a dedicated school room. That was not right either. Look at my tips Dedicated Homeschool Room or Dining Room Homeschooler.

Twenty years later and I’m here to tell you I used it very often. So much advice I’ve learned depends on families circumstances at the time.

When I started all of my kids were preschool. I needed pint sized furniture and I needed ways to train them to a habit and to get them ready to learn and focus.

On the other hand I have also had many years of my homeschooling where I couldn’t have a school room. I loved our homeschooling years just as well.

However large or however small area you have, I recommend that you have a place to corral all the clutter so that your home remains a place for relaxing family evenings.

5 Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler: What to SKIP

What to Skip 1. Reading organization books from those who don’t live our homeschool lifestyle.

Skip organization books that do not include homeschool parents as an author. I’m not saying you can’t glean some tips.

But if you are struggling in this area, then a book written for an audience that does not have the same demands we have  on our time could end up discouraging you instead of inspiring you.

What to Skip 2. Extensive record keeping.

I’m not saying to throw caution to the wind, but record keeping for the right reasons is key to being organized.

For example, fear of the homeschool law changing is not a good motivator and we’ve brought undue stress to our organized day.

Trying to keep all records to provide proof when your state law does not require record keeping is undue stress. It’s one thing to keep it for you, but another if you need to meet the law.

However, record keeping becomes important in the middle and high school years.

Look at my videos How to Successfully Begin Homeschooling Middle and High School (facebook or here for YouTube) and How to Stay on Top of Record Keeping – Seriously!

Also, I have some detailed tips here Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1 and Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2.

What to Skip 3. Stressful Schedules.

I’m an organized person, but that still didn’t help me to find a balance until several years of homeschooling.

Some years, I was able to schedule hour by hour because it suited our pace.

However, most years, a flexible schedule was needed to accommodate slower learners, my toddler, and preschooler.

Your youngest learner is your TRUE scheduler.

Skip a stressful homeschool schedule in favor of a peaceful schedule.

What to Skip 4. Perfectly picked up house.

Having a perfectly picked up and clean to my standards mindset was the hardest for me to let go.

Learning to let go of that mindset helped me to stay organized although it didn’t feel that way in the beginning.

Accepting a kid cleaned house was not only key to my sanity, but now that my sons have all graduated it trained them for valuable life skills.

Being an organized homeschooler means knowing when to delegate which is not always easy. However, a good enough picked up house while being clean allowed us to move on with our school day.

What to Skip 5. Overflowing amount of clothes.

Lastly, when my kids were young, I realized the more clothes they had, the more they seemed to plow through them.

This always equaled to not only more laundry, but tiny mounds of messes everywhere.

So I realized less is more; I reduced my kids’ wear to less than half.

As you school longer, you realize that you don’t need as many dress clothes for activities outside the house. Unless, your kid are attending a five day co-op which is more like private mini school your kids need just a few sets of dress clothes each.

Having less helped me to organize more and gave me freedom to do the things we love the most.

Must-Haves for the Organized Homeschooler: What to Keep & What to Skip

Not giving up your homeschool freedom begins by knowing what to keep and what to skip as an organized homeschooler.

What are you must-haves and what have you skipped to be organized?

  • Homeschool Organization – 12 Unconventional Ideas for Storage
  • Homeschool Organization – Why You’re Still Drowning in Clutter
  • Homeschool Organization Motivation – 11 Gadgets To Get You Going
  • 100 BEST Ideas to Organize Your Homeschool Area – Storage, Spaces, and Learning Places
  • Top 10 Tips for Maximizing Space in (Really) Tiny Homeschool Spaces
  • Homeschool Organization – Preschool/Kindergarten Free Morning Routine Flip Cards

This is also a blog hop. This blog hop is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutual beneficial projects.

Hugs and love ya,

Must Haves for the Organized Homeschooler

4 CommentsFiled Under: Home, Homeschool Space, Homeschool Tools, Storage, & Accessories, Organization Tagged With: homeschool challenges, homeschool lifestyle, homeschoolchallenges, homeschoolmultiplechildren planning forms, homeschoolorganization, homeschoolplanner, homeschoolstorage, organization, organizedhomeschool, schedules

Homeschool Organization + {Storage, Spaces and Learning Places Part 1}

May 21, 2013 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Learning at home presents unique storage needs. We are always wanting more book space and spaces used creatively. If you are wanting to set up a homeschool room or just change it around you find out that ideas that come from playrooms are sometimes too playful, a home office can be too office-y {is that a word} and a craft room is too crafty.  If we don’t have a school room because we school at the kitchen table and part living room we still need creative spaces for storage.

Homeschool Organization part 1

What I do is take inspiration from all the rooms mentioned above and create a learning space. I can never get enough tips and ideas for spaces and learning places. I will be rounding up unique finds and then just some ordinary tips as reminders and putting them in a series.





Some tips from a public classroom will work at home and visa versa. Hopefully you can find something that inspires you to use your area to the full. Where possible, if a link  was given, I have linked each image so you can read about the space.

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You may recognize this school room from Confessions of a Homeschooler by Erica. What you soon find out is that your kids outgrow those sweet little desks and tables sooner than you realize. But they are still not tall enough to sit a high kitchen table. A craft table is a great idea because there is tons of room on top and chairs can be adjusted. Look at all that storage by using the center of the room. Do you see that trick? Free the wall to haul in more stuff.

                     {source}

This honey pine trestle table is ideal as well. The storage baskets under the table work out good. I would take notice of the sharp corners with a toddler that is using the table to pull up like my little ones did.  To me this works good for several preschoolers.  Look at this cool idea for the storage back with writing material . It hooks right beside the desk. Pretty, but something more durable would even be better.

Eclectic Kids design by New York Interior Designer Esther Sadowsky

Now this is one of those rooms that I mean by a play area. But there are several things that can be used. I love the color combinations and use of the chalkboard wall. The whole area is just bright and cheery.

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Johnnia at Giggles, Wiggles and Wonder has a nice laid out school area. The area along one wall utilizes a lot of area for storage. I like the fact that some of it is closed storage. That one built in could easily accommodate two teens or one teen and younger sibling.  Again the colors are bright and cheery .

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This area is so soothing and peaceful I could see an older student cuddling here to read or study. I love the bookshelves too.

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Homeschool Organization

Don’t forget high spaces and out of the way spaces. An over the door organizer turned school storage is what I used when we lived in a cabin that was 800 square feet for 5 of us. Use every inch of space. At the blog bowl full of lemons she lists where she purchased this cute overhead storage and there is one that is hot pink.

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Homegrown mom uses the space in her loft. One wall holds a good majority of her books  but she also has closed storage by using the boxes. How do you like the table is turned ? Again it is not against a wall but by coming off the wall unit she utilizes more of the center of her room.

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I love, love this room. It looks like a schoolroom but may be a craft room. But look how the small wall is used and each kid could have their place to study. There is only two sets of drawers but if you used workboxes those drawers could be used for shared supplies. Surround shelves make this room have tons of storage.

Are you going to make changes this summer while school has slowed down some? I am still pondering. Have a picture you want to share of your school room make over?

Switching gears here, I love the fact that our blog is hosted on a website so that when I get a twitch I can change our blog header anytime without completely redoing our website. I updated the blog header, what do you think? Keep it or go back to the other one?

Thinking about convention time, I wanted to share this with you.

By Todd Wilson

Hugs today and coming up next, MORE planner forms and a few more covers!

Love ya,

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2 CommentsFiled Under: Homeschool Space, Organization Tagged With: homeschoolorganization, schoolroom

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