Our "School" Area

A lot of our "schooling" happens on the couch during storytime. One of the reasons FIAR appeals to me is because it's one of the ways my kids learn best. There's nothing really "schooly" about our couch, though.

We do do quite a bit at the table as well. Just about anything that would require writing, drawing, molding, sorting, etc (mostly anything that is NOT reading or conversational) happens here. We use those big maps to locate places (duh!), talk about upcoming road trips, where so-and-so lives, etc. We also use them to put up our FIAR titles. This wall also holds the occasional artwork. The papers up there today are paintings of dinosaur footprints.

To the left is a one-by-three bookshelf. The top of the bookshelf holds an iPod dock/portable speakers, and our two netbooks. The first shelf is designated for kids-ish stuff. You can see my copy of Books to Build On there because it was library day today. The middle shelf can't hold a whole lot because that's also the space where the plug is to charge the speaker and netbooks. (The cords could come up the back of the bookshelf, but then those cords are much harder to manage if we need to move them around.) It is the spot where my planning binder goes. We store adult school texts in the bottom space.

Just a few steps away from the table is our kitchen. We have a built-in desk that holds this paper organizer. It has a few pencils (we also have a bazillion in the desk drawer), and a few workbooks that I have yet to decide how frequently we will use this school year.

This bookshelf sits in our living room just off the dining room. The green crate on top holds books that I don't want the kids into, but that I want quick access to. It's where my FIAR manual, the kids' notebooks and other supplies all live. The black boxes on top are our DVDs. The case on top of the DVD boxes holds our extra chore cards. Our chore boards are on the wall just to the right. Under our chore boards is our library book box.

In the shelf, at the top left we have our scripture picture books. The top middle has more scripture resources and then those smaller books are our old-school version of the Help Me Be Good series. The top right has our C Rods. It also held a few books to do with the C Rods, but a certain 2-year-old I know was getting into the book...and as it's a book I want to keep nice, it got relocated to the green bin up top. I'm hoping to make some C Rod shape worksheets and laminate to keep in that cubby. Both middle left and bottom left have coloring books and workbooks (that my kids use like coloring/activity books). The yellow bin is a bucket full of mega blocks that my toddler also loves to dump out and play with. In the middle are two boxes--one has Anamalz and the other has figurines that correspond to common kids' stories (Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks, 3 Little Pigs, etc). The middle right bin holds a ton of balls. The bottom middle bin holds our extra Wii controllers. The bottom right bin holds our Leapsters, their games, Tag readers and their books.

Finally, the place where we store a large majority of our things. This is Emmett's closet, actually. The wooden shelves came from Ikea for dirt cheap. The plastic boxes are Really Useful Boxes, and yes, they are really useful. They come in different shapes and sizes and stack really easily. This is the closet where we store play-doh, moon sand, craft items (pom poms, paint, crayons, markers, scissors, glue, wiggly eyes, glitter, construction paper, etc, etc), puzzles, extra school items that I buy at Back-to-School sales (bulk paper, notebooks, etc), our musical manipulatives, the FIAR books we're not rowing, some non-fiction picture books.

And that's it! I would love to have a big school room to put all these things in, but we only have 1100 square feet. So, we have to be creative and frugal with our space. One day, maybe we'll make the 3-hour trip to our closest Ikea and pick up some even better shelving options (like the Expedit shelves maybe?)...