Since starting our homeschool adventure five years ago we have lived in three different homes. We have set up shop in a play room/office/school space combination room, the dining table, a bonus room that served has half bedroom and half school room and now, a designated school room.
My point is, you don’t need a homeschool room to homeschool well! We’ve homeschooled MANY places that were not “officially” for homeschooling. And they have all had their perks.
When we bought this house though, I knew right away where the homeschool space would be. The builder’s intent was for this room to be an office, but I quickly nabbed it in honor of #thathomeschoollife. As nice as it is to have a room for mom and dad to tuck away and pay bills and sort emails, our days are primarily filled with learning so it wasn’t too hard to convince Dominic that the office would be best used as a school room.
Before unpacking a thing, Dominic build the bookshelf wall. He took my Pinterest dreams and brought them to life in an economical and functional way and two years later, I still love this wall with all my heart. I mean, how can you not adore a wall bursting with books?!?
Next, we measured and measured again and found the perfect IKEA combination for the opposite wall. The middle piece is a 2×4 Kallax with add on table extension, the desks are the Linnmon/Alex combination with an Alex topper.
Tucked in the corner we have our cart-o-random. It’s the Raskog utility cart, also from IKEA. Although, if I was shopping again I think I’d nab the new Nissafors. I’ve also heard Michaels has a good utility cart and Michaels almost always has good coupons!
Just this last spring we Dominic made the shelves above the kids’ workstations to balance out the stained wood of the bookshelf wall and give them some personalized storage space. That pretty much finished things up! Two years in the making!
As you can see, this space is very lived in. We tidied some for photos, but it’s pretty obvious that this is where the action takes place! And, with a toddler, preschooler, early elementary kid, and a mid elementary/advanced reader – I have a really wide range of topics and learning tools to cover!
Other things of note … I love displaying the kids art work and a simple string and clips does that perfectly across the window. Each term we take it all down and choose to keep some for their portfolios and then *gasp* recycling the rest. The baskets underneath the bookshelves hold board books, Duplos, and our library books. When all five of us – mama plus four kiddos – head to this space I need activities for the little boys nearby and with all our books library ones have to stay in a special spot so they don’t get lost. The red suitcase – thrifted! – holds this fun activity that the little boys are obsessed with.
I only documented one other school space well – the half bedroom, half school room one. I do miss that giant table and when/if we move and I have the opportunity to plan a homeschool room again I’ll definitely be incorporating something like that again.
If you’re looking for more homeschool favorites/resources, I try my best to keep the homeschool section of my Amazon shop updated!