pics of small work areas?

[inky leeuhhh]

we live in a tiny apt with not much room for school. we made the dining area our "school" area. i'll take some pix later tonight when we are not so busy. are there any other people out there with small spaces they're willing to share? esp from those of you who are working with a tight budget!

[kittywitty]

We did before we moved. I don't know if I have pics that would describe it (just in background of other pics), but we had 2 bookshelves, a small 3 drawer unit for art supplies, and an IKEA cheap fabric/metal rolling cart with a bunch of shelves for individual school stuff, assorted paper and supplies, etc. This was all in our smallish dining room in an 800-900 sq. ft home with 4 kids.

[misidawnrn]

I converted our dining room into our school room. Where the brown bookshelf is I now have a tall one but everything else is the same. I love how DD's chair can turn either way, to the big table to work with me or to her desk to work independently. I had all this stuff in our already crowded living room and one day the post man brought 4 boxes all at once and they filled up the living room floor. That was it!!! I took the leaves out of the table and put the extra chairs outside and turned the dining room into the school room. I love it this way. We eat in the living room anyways to this is a great thing for us. I don't know how to post picts to show online.
from the living room looking into dining area
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/f...wnrn/066-1.jpg

from the kitchen looking into dining area
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/f...wnrn/065-1.jpg

[inky leeuhhh]

neat!! i haven't had time to snap a picture, but i can describe and post a picture later. i'm still adding to it- i wasn't sure we were going to get to homeschool next year until recently, so i didn't put much work into it. we have a 2 bedroom apt with the standard little tiny dining area off to one side, connected to the kitchen and dining room. against one wall is a window, and a spot with a table and a couple of chairs. this is where dd does her school work. against the opposite wall is a bookshelf that holds art supplies. on the third wall is a cabinet type thing (been in the family since the 1800's!) that holds the school books and curriculum. on one side of that i have a highchair (had to put that somewhere), and on the other side a wooden kitchen set that i want to move somewhere. probably wont get that moved out for a while, as i have very little spare time right now. i intend to move that into the bedroom, and move out our pet tarantula " Itsy Bitsy" to go in its place OR make that corner into a comfy area to read. i think it will most likely become itsy's area, because i have no idea where the kitchen set would go otherwise. lol.

misi, i like how open your area is! ours always looks cluttered because dd gets her drawings and papers ALL over the place. argh!

[akwifeandmomma]

Subbing to post pics tomorrow.

[meetoo]

I live in a smallish place and do not have a school room. It works out just fine for us. We started homeschooling last fall, the biggest things we have had to do is get creative with storage. I keep art supplies in a kitchen cabinet and in a dresser in the living room. I have a bunch of shelves in the basement for resources we aren't using at the moment. Things like that. IKEA has some neat storage units for smaller houses and there is a website IKEA hacker that shows you how to save money and build some of your own.

We also use work boxes for our day to day work. The workboxes are a wonderful way to organize their school work. It gives them a place to put their unfinished projects and all their school books! I think in a small apt these are a must! We use sterilite drawers and they work perfect. I am keeping my eyes out for something prettier though. You could also assign each child a shelf on a book shelf you already have. I've found in a small space it's important for everything to have a home. You can very quickly get over run with chaos.

The other thing is I don't want my house looking like a school. We do not hang up schoolish posters, big chalkboards, etc. We do hang up all their art work and things like that. I'm not a scrooge. Each child has a small calendar and small white board. I might buy a bigger white board this year but I plan to store it behind my desk. We have big maps hung in our upstairs hallway, but it is not something I would want down stairs (unless it was a nice decorative map, these are not ) If i think they need a chart for reference then I just print it and put it in a binder for them. I might actually make a mini office for each child this year too. Those look kind of neat.

I'm totally rambling now, but don't let a small space stop you! Get orgainized, find decorative ways to store your stuff, and most important teach your kids to clean up after themselves! Good luck!

One more thing if you are on a budget hit up yard sales! I recently found a brand new set of encyclopedias (10.00 ) I of course had no where to put them. The very next tag sale I found a shelf for 2.00. Now we have a place for our Encyclopedias and a little book nook for reading.

[moominmamma]

We just "school" on the living room couch or at the kitchen table. There's no school space to photograph. You'd just see a picture of a living room couch and a kitchen table. We have a set of bookshelves in the living room and the bottom shelf is where the homeschooling books end up being filed. Again, it's just a regular bookshelf. You don't need to designate a portion of your living space as homeschooling space any more than you need to devote a portion to reading or tying shoes. If you have the budget and the space and you want to separate schooling space out, by all means. But for me I prefer not to separate learning from living, either physically or conceptually.

Miranda

[WhaleinGaloshes]

I keep moving from on small apartment to a smaller apartment right now, it seems. In the fall, we're downsizing again to a one-bedroom which will be an adventure.

I commandeered one tall 3' width bookshelf for school-and-art supplies and books. That pretty much constitutes our school space.

I have plans to add a right-sized writing desk for DD this fall. I've wanted one for some time but it wasn't in the budget (my criteria is strong, space enough for one kid to write and draw only and the right height.) I have come up with a plan I like to build one with nothing but a cross-cut saw and a drill, so I'm back in business though.

This is important to me because even with a booster, I've found the kitchen table isn't the right height for her since she really took off writing and drawing, and the kitchen table is a bigish surface which in my house = clutter magnet. So DD's space isn't staying cleared off and my kitchen table isn't staying cleared off, and I'd like to see if remedying that restores some peace.

That's it for us, though.

[inky leeuhhh]

here are our pictures:

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n.../yakima013.jpg

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n.../yakima011.jpg

please excuse the mess, lol!

ok, i am LOLing at the sight of that green wicker shelf thing! that's the cats designated scratching post. i swear not everything in our home is shredded like that! lmbo! there's a box of school supplies under the table, too.

[linguistmama]

I'll try to post pics of ours later. We also live in a small 2bd apartment. We have one very tall bookshelf in the living room that holds all the kid's books, art supplies and homeschool books. The bookshelf doesn't fit in the kitchen where the table is, but we bring things like paint to the kitchen table as needed. Otherwise we read on the couch which is near the computer. More and more I'm finding the internet so helpful. Instead of having to buy a science encyclopedia we can log on to the one at the library or other websites. While I love the actual book in hand we just don't have the space or money for a lot of things right now. Part of me wants to have a whole room with homeschool supplies someday and another part of me really likes our minimalist approach We live 3 blocks from the library too so we go often and use those resources.

[inky leeuhhh]

i would love to live so close to the library. we are lucky to have many parks near us, but i would be in heaven with the library because we are on such a budget.

[LilyGrace]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

We just "school" on the living room couch or at the kitchen table. There's no school space to photograph. You'd just see a picture of a living room couch and a kitchen table. We have a set of bookshelves in the living room and the bottom shelf is where the homeschooling books end up being filed. Again, it's just a regular bookshelf. You don't need to designate a portion of your living space as homeschooling space any more than you need to devote a portion to reading or tying shoes. If you have the budget and the space and you want to separate schooling space out, by all means. But for me I prefer not to separate learning from living, either physically or conceptually.

Miranda

This is us. We've lived in several different places, from an itty bitty apartment to the decent sized (about 1600 sq ft) row house we're in now. I can show you pics, but you'd see a table, a couch, a kitchen...we don't have a school room. Books and tools are kept in a spare bedroom right now because we have one, but if I look at pictures over the past two years I see very few of work at the table..couch..kitchen. Well, more at the kitchen I made a video of our year and there was so much outside in the backyard or on field trips or the street (yes, we were blessed this year with many opportunities to seize).

We LOVE to take our reading to a setting that fits. We read Treasure Island on a hill overlooking the harbor, Mr. Popper's Penguins in front of the fridge, The Secret Garden under a tree. Math is often on the floor in front of the tv or in the car. Science is outside or in the kitchen. History is EVERYWHERE. I figure our books and tools are good as long as they're accessible - we don't need a special place for them and for us to learn. It's an everyday, every moment thing.

[yllek]

I love looking at everyone's hs space. We've got most of our hs stuff tucked into a small sunroom just off our living room. I have another closet elsewhere in the house where I keep just the art supplies. There are reference books in the sunroom, but we have loads of books all over the living room, bonus room and bedrooms too.

So here's the overall view. We have toys and manipulatives tucked inside the fabric bins in the shelves. They make it so easy to organize and clean up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51820660@N03/4770949513/

Here's a more recent view, with our current science project and map projects on the windows and books displayed on the shelves:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51820660@N03/4771588314/

And our little desk, stocked with supplies:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51820660@N03/4771587234/

And the desk in action:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51820660@N03/4770963003/

Math manipulatives, calendar and stuff:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51820660@N03/4770949311/


We spend much of our hs time reading under our oak trees, getting messy on the front lawn, doing art on the kitchen island, etc. Having said that, I do love having a little cubby for every little thing. It makes it so easy to clean up. And it's nice to have space for desk work when we need to do that too.

[elizawill]

my space is half a room. i have pix at my blog under photos. someone posted here a while back some fabulous ideas for spaces as small as a closet. i wish i had a link to it. it was amazing how one closet was so versatile. it not only served as a desk, storage space, etc, but it looked really awesome!!! maybe try to do a search for it?? it was from a magazine or something, but the ideas were phenomenal.

[mykdsmomy]

Originally Posted by elizawill

my space is half a room. i have pix at my blog under photos. someone posted here a while back some fabulous ideas for spaces as small as a closet. i wish i had a link to it. it was amazing how one closet was so versatile. it not only served as a desk, storage space, etc, but it looked really awesome!!! maybe try to do a search for it?? it was from a magazine or something, but the ideas were phenomenal.

I have to tell you that I came looking for a thread on small homeschooling spaces because I remember seeing a super cute space that *someone* had made ....and it was you Love how you organized your space!

Everyone here has such great pics and great organizational skills! I'm trying to do about sixty-eleven things with my dining room to make it work for school. It's always been our "school room" but I want to make it more accessible for my youngest who needs a boost in the creative play dept. I have a very small space and don't want it to look cluttered. I wish I had a camera to take pics of it to show and ask for tips

It's our dining area that is attached to our narrow long living room. The dining room is maybe 10x10. It has our dining table, our piano, a tall narrow bookcase (with curriculum) and a small rolling cart. I painted the room a deep red the other day and I LOVE IT! I also bought a small chrome colored 3 shelf (30" high) to put baskets filled with puppets, felt people, and books on it. I also have all of our art supplies, play doh, paper, etc that I'm not sure where to go with it. We also have tons of books that I would like to put out for easy access but am running out of room

I love all of your ideas because they are inspiring me to keep going I'm also on a tight tight tight frugal budget so that makes things a little tricky too.

Anyway...a big bump for more pics