Home school room suggestions, is this doable?

[DelKroemer]

We are a family of five and we are currently moving into a 2 bedroom apartment.

I really want to get use of our small space and have been wanting a school room for my girls.

Has anyone had a bedroom double as a school or play room? I was thinking of creating a school/play room

in my kids; bedroom and then having loft beds in one area of the room for them, kind of splitting their room in half

for bedtime and school (keeping all clothes in closet or underbed storage to elimate use of a dresser)

Another option I am looking at is making the lager bedroom a school room/home office, because I work from home

and my hubby is also a student (so we have many computers) and then hubby and I would skimp on a bedroom and

use the living room with a sofa bed. We have never spent much time hanging out in our bedroom anyway, aside from sleeping and of course for privacy.... Not sure what to do...tips are appreciated!

[OTMomma]

How old are your kids? I would think that the loft bed idea would be good for older kids, mine are still too little for that. We homeschool all over the house, and our home is also small. I have a shelf for my homeschool stuff in the kitchen, and we use the kitchen table for various subjects, we sit on the living room couch to read together and dd has a kid size table in her room she can use for writing, working puzzles, etc. On sick days, we all climb in my bed and read books together. I love the idea of having more room for homeschooling, but I can't see giving up a bedroom to do it any more than I could give up having a kitchen.

Peace,

[DelKroemer]

My kids are almost 4 and 5 1/2 and they sleep on bunkbeds. I like your suggestions, as we do tend to go all over the house to homeschool, and when I think of it I really like having a bedroom :)

[moominmamma]

We have not had a "homeschool room" or anything approaching it until very recently. Mostly for the first ten years or so of our homeschooling we used the kitchen table, the breakfast bar, the living room couch or (most often) the living room floor. We have a smallish house, very small bedrooms and very little extra space or storage space. We just did our best to find good storage systems for the materials the kids were using regularly so that it could all be easily packed away. This seemed the best use of space in our limited square-footage ... I figure a work surface is a work surface, no matter whether the work is school-like, paying bills, putting together a sandwich. In a small space, multi-purpose space is a necessity.

Recently we have made an effort to create some school space, because my kids are doing a lot of focused independent work (6th grade through 12th grade levels now) for which they want silence and privacy. My youngest has a tiny nook (2 x 3 feet) within the L-shaped bunk/loft-bed arrangement which she uses. My middle dd has a bit of crawlspace under the roof in the attic. Ds just uses the family computer desk. Eldest is currently using one end of the breakfast nook. This allows them each to work independently, and it means I can circulate from one to the other and provide input as needed without my input disturbing the others.

In short I think that when space is limited and kids are young it makes the most sense to focus on efficient storage solutions and to keep the work space multi-purpose and flexible, rather than designating an entire area as just for school. Until the kids are older and need undisturbed privacy for independent work, at which point they'll need school space in different rooms.

Miranda

[onlyzombiecat]

I wouldn't stress about having or not having a separate space designated just for homeschooling.

We do have a room set aside and still end up reading on the sofa or working at the dining table. It is kind of nice to designate a storage area though for your materials.

[tankgirl73]

I have storage space that is (more or less) reserved for homeschooling materials.  A lot of those materials are multi-purpose, of course, and often the lines are fuzzy between what is "homeschooling" and what is just "stuff we do at home".  Things that PS families would usually have anyway and just consider normal family stuff, we often count as part of 'school'... heh.  Or vice versa, stuff that I don't want the kids to think of as "separate and school" but just "normal everyday stuff".

But it's like, most families need storage space for their 'stuff', craft stuff and educational books and whatever, so ours is just a little bigger to also hold curriculum stuff.  ;)

Other than that, though, we don't have a homeschool 'room'.  Like the above poster, we do stuff all over the house, depending on what it is.  I like the idea that learning is everywhere, not just in a particular room at a particular desk.

That being said, I've put most of my daughter's "school stuff" right in her bedroom (she's 4).  We've been very Montessori with her, so the most sensible approach was to have her Montessori activities easily accessible to her in her bedroom.  I didn't want them separated off or just mixed in with the 'regular' toys downstairs in the playroom.  The extension of that has been that as we've started doing some more formal curriculum, little by little and bit by bit, the logical place to do it for her has been in her bedroom.  So she's got a little table in there where she can sit and write, and all her math manipulatives and books are on her shelves.

We do circle time in the kitchen, though, and she does computer stuff in the basement, so we're still all over the place.  But the point is just that... with each of my kids, the best solution has been different.  WIth my son, keeping his 'school' materials in his room was a disaster.  I need to keep them in a separate place, well-organized, etc.  He needs his room as his play space and 'school stuff' happens elsewhere, for the most part.  My daughter is the opposite.  So, do whatever makes sense for your family, there's no one right way.  :)

[Savoir Faire]

Honestly...we live in a house with a school room...and....we don't use it that much. I pretty much only use it for bookcases to house all our stuff. I think that a school/play/bedroom might get a bit cluttered/crowded... I guess depending on the size/layout of your apartment, I'd might keep the supplies elsewhere.