Wednesday, August 11, 2010

OUR HOMESCHOOL ROOM (the older version)

Not Back to School Blog Hop
Over at the Not-Back-To-School Blog Hop we are sharing what our school rooms look like - it has been so much fun to take a peek into so many other homeschool families lives and see they places they "do school". I did a post on this just this past May when we redid our school room - so I am re-posting this now.... enjoy a peek at our new room!

What a busy week we have had here! Monday started with all of our carpet being replaced in the upstairs. That was something we have been putting off ever since we moved into this house five years ago - simply because we knew all the work that would be involved with moving everything out of the rooms.....ugh.
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But ahhhhhhh - the sweet reward of fresh, clean, dust-free carpet. I was so caught up in all the cleaning, purging, reorganizing, and rearranging, that I forgot how wonderful the end result would be!
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While our house was in complete disorder, we decided to go ahead and go all the way with it. We had decided lately that our schoolroom, which was previously in the dining room, was becoming a bit overwhelmed with all the homescool items. Now that Boo is a full-fledged homeschooler, focusing on pre-K and kindergarten learning takes up a LOT of space. We decided to repurpose our entire basement into our school room.
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After a lot of hard work and about 5,023 trips up and down the stairs, our schoolroom is in perfect working order! I think it's so important to have a very rich learning environment for young kids, whether it's at school or at home. My kids thrive on order and structure, and I just love creating that for them! Boo is quite taken with calendars lately - so now she has her very own calendar and every day she loves to put the date on and count how many days have passed during the month.
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I had no idea how many wonderful educational items we have collected in our almost 15 years of parenting - that is until we saw them all in one place!!
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We had planned on moving the schoolroom this summer, but everyone decided that we should do it while we were in the "move and purge" mode! I'm so glad we did - our last few weeks of school this year are less of a drudgery in our fresh new room! Last night, Banana said "I can't WAIT to do school tomorrow!!"
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As our family is growing and changing all the time - I just love figuring out the best uses of our space, and repurposing and rearranging! I'm kinda sick that way.
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This afternoon the girls had fun with a little craft project with those 10,000 tissue paper squares - this time a decopauge idea thanks to Aunt Kiki! (And no, the box still hasn't been dropped - keeping my fingers crossed).
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Believe it or not - we managed to have a wonderful school week in the midst of the madness! We did lots of fun things, but I didn't bother to take pictures this week.
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And now, our dining room has been reclaimed as a dining room. I honestly don't know HOW we ever managed in that small space before. Now - the next project to tackle.... making the dining
room more functional for our family - and getting a table that we can all actually fit around! Any suggestions?? Doesn't it look so empty now? It actually echoes....
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gotta love a little doggie tushie

25 comments:

Nana said...

What a great idea to make the whole basement your schoolroom. So much room. Looks great. I love the carpet too. You and I both have a little sickness. We both like to redo things....often. I am in that mode now. Starting with the bathroom and who knows where it will end up.

Karen said...

Love the basement and school room. I'm not sure how it all fit in that dining room either!

Now. Come take care of mine please. I can't begin to wrap my head around how we will get all the furniture out of the rooms - did they do it in one day? There's no way that can happen here....

Stefanie said...

Wow it looks fabulous!!! I'd love an entire basement for schooling. No basements here though. LOL

http://prncsstefy.blogspot.com/2010/05/weekly-wrap-up-story-of-school-room.html

Wendi said...

Your homeschool room looks awesome...I love all of the colorful posters, and the letter collages :)

Nichole said...

That's a beautiful space!

Amanda American Girl said...

I love all the shelving - have a great school year

A Stable Beginning said...

A great space you have. I love how you put all of the alphabet crafts around the room, I am going to do that too. I linked to your blog inside my post telling visitors about it. Have a great year!!!

Theresa said...

I love your photography!

This is our first year homeschooling our two girls, A is in 5th grade and P is in 3rd. I am so excited to find other moms homeschooling girls around the same age! I look forward to following your blog!

Sheri said...

What a super cool area to do school! I had to chuckle at your sickness-as I too suffer from redecorating and repositioning of household items to the point my hubby claims he is not blind cuz I would kill him due to all the furniture switching around I do. Have a great year and it is fun changing up stuff-keeps the boredom to a minimum!

z said...

OK, I want to have my living room look like your school room! LOL!! Love it. Totally bookmarking your blog!! Love your photos!

Jessica said...

Looks great! Thanks for sharing!

What kind of carpet did you get btw?

Heather O'Steen Photography said...

Thanks ladies for your kind words!! Jessica - our carpet is some kind of frieze(??) - it holds up really well, we had the same carpet on our stairs already for a few years.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful space! I love your decor. Please come to my house. lol

Carrie said...

That may be one of the prettiest schoolrooms I've ever seen! It's beautiful!

Enjoy all that great space!!

Joyful Learner said...

Looks beautiful and airy! I love all the sunlight you get in each room. I am still working on reorganizing the school stuff but unfortunately, we don't have a lot of space.

Gidget Girl Reading said...

AWESOME!!! I want your room :) LOVE it!!! so cozy and homey!!

Abby said...

LOVE your space. You've done really well. I love the chairs & the desk arrangement!

I just wanted to say that your description of your oldest sounds just like my oldest! Two exceptions. My oldest is younger than your oldest & she wants to be a nurse, not a vet.

Have a great school year!

Sharon said...

Your space is wonderful! We are starting our first year of homeschooling so I am looking for ideas. Thanks so much for sharing!

Sarah said...

I love so much about your room. Those cute chairs, the letters along the top, and it all looks so neat and organized. I usually worry that school posters on the wall look too cluttery, but you've made them look great.
Thanks for stopping by my blog and I hope you have a great year.

Diane said...

I love everything about your learning room!

Sam said...

Very nice! We had the same problem, and transformed our playroom into our schoolroom :) http://www.thekelleyeight.com/2011/08/our-classroom.html

Mom of My 3 Kids said...

I love it! The ABC border is so cute.

Jan Johnson said...

Hi! We just built a desk system for our school room, and I LOVE these rolling pink chairs (we have 3 girls too!) Would you tell me where I can get some ? You can email me at janet10@hotmail.com

The Heaviland Family said...

I would also love those rolling pink chairs for our homeschooling room. Can you please e-mail me the info at jessieheaviland@gmail.com? Thank you!

Heather O'Steen Photography said...

Those pink chairs came from Ikea! :)