Our Homeschool Learning Room 2013-2014

Welcome to our homeschool learning room! Although learning takes place all over our house, this is the primary location where we spend time learning and creating. I’m Sallie and I home educate my daughter, Caroline, who will be in second grade this year.

Originally our living room, we re-purposed it into our learning room about a year and a half ago. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made concerning our family. I like having a place for everything so it works well for me to keep the learning “stuff” confined primarily to this room. It also makes a welcoming place for Caroline to do craft projects, pick out a game, or curl up in the glider with a library book any time she likes.

This is my desk and large bookcase where I keep my current materials. We have lots of books and other things in our basement. I only keep the items we currently need in the learning room to reduce the clutter.

We also don’t have a computer in the learning room. This was a deliberate choice we made so we would not be distracted by it while doing our learning time together. We do use the computer a lot for learning, but when I’m working one-on-one with Caroline, I want to focus on her and I want her to focus on what I have planned for us to do. This eliminates the temptation to take a peek at my email. 🙂

When I plan for the week, I put all of the materials I need for each day in a different container labeled with the day of the week.

This large wall contains many of our active learning tools. Caroline is a right brained, spirited child and so I plan as much as I can to keep us actively involved.

This is our Sentence Strip Pocket Chart. I use this for math, reading, spelling, poetry, etc.

On top is our Monthly Calendar Pocket Chart. I plan on using different date and month cards this year, but haven’t purchased them yet. We will also use this with the different fact cards for calendar pocket charts I’ve been creating to both use and sell.

On the bottom is the new whiteboard that Caroline is already enjoying. Score one for mom!

This is our craft cabinet that I keep well-stocked with a big variety of items.

Another storage place. The top drawer is for Caroline’s current learning materials. The middle drawer is for sentence strips storage. The bottom drawer has my Fellowes Comb Binding Machine that I use for making my own little workbooks or study books on different topics.

Fun new stuff I need to put away!  I got it out for the picture, but had to hide it before Caroline saw it!  If she saw these items now it would be hard to make her wait for the first day of school.

Our big basket full of library books and a cozy glider for reading. We are HUGE library lovers and are probably there two or three times a week most weeks. We’re either picking up books we’ve ordered that have come in, attending a program, or stopping by just because.  We love the library!

My piano. Hopefully Caroline will start taking lessons next year. She has shown an interest so I’m hoping this is something she can do.

And our bird bath with a goldfinch. We love looking out the windows at the birds!

And there you have a little tour of our learning room! The Learning Room Annex is the family room that is connected by pocket doors. We spend a lot of time snuggling on the couch, reading books in front of the fire.  We’re really looking forward to the cooler weather to come and starting school in a few weeks!