I guess I have always wanted my home to feel like a home and for our homeschooling to blend into our everyday life. I like that we have a learning atmosphere without the public school look. Honestly, our little end-of-the-family-room area for school stuff has always been enough even when we had four children of varying ages learning at home.
Besides, I don't know about your family but in ours not much time is actually spent sitting in a desk and chair or in our case at the table with a chair. I will admit that as high schoolers my boys spend more time now than in the past actually sitting in a chair like normal people. Most often they can be found completing math on the sofa, laying with their feet over their heads off the reclining chair, draped over beds with books on the floor, or outside at the patio table. They eat and read at the kitchen table, sit on the floor with their journals so the dog is within reach, sketch and listen to music in their bedrooms, and stand at the kitchen bar to finish a writing piece with the laptop.
I would feel terrible if I went to all the trouble to make an elaborate schoolroom and they didn't use it. In reality, the best reading space is in our living room where the morning light is just right for enjoying a good story or an episode in history.
Our school is not contained by a few walls but it creeps into many corners and spaces of our home. I sort of like that our map is in our living room and their books are strewn on the coffee table. I love that their artwork hangs nicely framed in the bathroom and in the kitchen. Once we finish our homeschooling years, I will miss seeing the boys schooling on the back deck, or in their older brother's room, sitting on the front steps with a cat or dog, or in my big comfy desk chair. I smile when I find their school books on my bed or in the backseat of the car. These are all reminders that we are a homeschooling family.
I wouldn't trade our cozy little house with its itsy-bitsy school area for any polished and shiny new schoolroom. Our house is our schoolroom...or better yet our neighborhood is our schoolroom...no wait, the universe is our schoolroom. Okay, so the universe isn't exactly our schoolroom but since we are covering astronomy this year we can sort of say that the universe is our schoolroom. :)
A big part of our homeschooling life is the time we spend discussing things we are learning about or reading at the moment. We talk best when we are outdoors, riding in the car, or just sitting at the table after dinner. (Honestly sometimes I feel like they really want to talk when I am in front of my laptop....I have learned to grab the opportunity and set aside what I am doing in order to hear what they are wanting to talk about.) Dinner conversation includes their dad so he gets to be a part of the grand educational process too. Visitors to our home often comment that our teens have a lot of interesting things to talk about and I think that here lies a clue to what is at the heart of our homeschool. We have always talked to them...now if they were sequestered off and learning only was to take place during school hours or in a certain location, look at all the wonderful stuff we would all miss out on!
No thanks. I will continue to be content with my set-up and not even think twice about all the fancy looking stuff that is available out there for homeschoolers. This post reminds me of my post last year about workboxes. It isn't aimed at any particular blog entry or writer. It is not meant to try to change your mind about any school supplies or equipment you may be thinking about acquiring. I just felt like writing about our crazy, wonderful homeschooling life for anyone who wanted to read about it.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
14 comments:
I love that you have so honestly conveyed what works in your homeschool. I also don't have a school room, our stuff is blended and sometimes that drives me crazy! LOL
The thing is with new homeschoolers is they may not know what works like some of us who have been doing it a while and they need to try to find that balance. I'm glad you advocate just using what you have, but newer homeschoolers shouldn't feel bad about trying different structures until they find what "fits".
Oh, how I love this post. Sometimes I feel a bit wistful, looking at other peoples' school rooms, wishing we had more space. I still wish we had more space, but honestly, if we did, it would just be more space to spread out our books, instruments, art supplies, toys, etc. I also love that there are no clearly defined learning areas. It is sort of a mental thing with me. If there is no "learning area" I feel that the kids will be encouraged to find inspiriration in whatever setting they find themselves in. A hearty bravo for this post!
This was a great post! I've been looking at all the blog posts and pictures of these AMAZING homeschool rooms, too. I think I even posted about one I saw and wanted to emulate. And then I look at ours now, which like yours, is pretty much non-existent because we homeschool all over the house (instead of in a neat little desk under a map and bulletin board), and sometimes I wonder if it is less than adequate. But your post has helped me to be honest and realize that no matter how much effort I put into an amazing school room, my kids would end up right back on the couch or the back porch swing to do the majority of their schooling. And I'm good with that. Thanks for your encouragement to do what's best for my family, as always!
Man those windows offer beautiful views. I agree with you on the undefinded space. I have a desk area more of a place for me to keep everything all together but like your family and many others, the learning takes place wherever it chooses to.
I love your homeschool space! Ours is (unfortunately) not as much outdoors, but it's certainly all over the house. I guess what I call our school room is really the place we neatly store all of our books and such. We do art projects in the kitchen. We (sometimes) study nature in the yard. We do our table work at the dining table. We read on the couch. Though I love the look of specific school rooms, I just wouldn't want to be that isolated from the rest of the world -- and life, and the house -- all day long.
Yep. We did our school wherever worked. We did our read alouds in the living room, sprawled on couches or the floor. I did my math at the kitchen table or on the floor. We read wherever. It worked very well for us.
~Luke
We don't have a "school room" either, the couch, an dining table and a couple of bookcases to hold it all is what we have. We could finish our basement and add a room down there for homeschooling, but I know we wouldn't use it!
We like to be confy together on the couch. I also like being able to work in the kitchen while they are doing their independent work.
Great post and I agree with you. The world is our classroom!
Great post. I LOVE seeing your boys learning all over the house; that's what we do too. We have a room we call "our schoolroom", but it is just where we keep our stuff and sometimes do crafts (we also do them at the dining table). I just love seeing kids be comfortable and absorbed in learning!
I have had school rooms in the last three houses we've had. Well, two and a half. When we started homeschooling we made the master bedroom into a family room that included the bookshelves and a table for school.
The other houses has "school rooms" which pretty much became rooms for bookshelves and whatever else we piled up in there. I don't think that in the two years we were in those houses we actually did school in either officially designated "school room".
So I'm off the school room wagon. Not that we have room for it here, anyway. But I'd rather split the school book shelves around the kids' rooms and dining room and not have to give up that extra bedroom.
Thank you for your post! There are times I feel so inadequate because I couldn't make the school room work in our house. My kids do their schoolwork and reading and experiments all over the house. We tried a "school room" and it was more of a frustration for me than a help. I was going to try the school room again this year because I thought that I needed to (because that's what other people do) - thank you. I don't feel alone now and realize that there are many people like me. I try to keep it picked up and organized but school is in our entire house - not just a room because learning happens all the time! Kudos to those that have a school room and make it work but that's not me and that's ok.
I love your honesty and insights. Thanks for sharing! Please keep doing so.
I am so with you sister! Who could think of excluding the cats! They "help" in so many ways as do comfy couches and beds to lay on while reading, a pleasant deck to soak up sunshine and blankets for cozy reading in winter. If I wanted a schoolroom I'd put my son on the bus--in fact that's just what I do with my daughter!! She loves rigid "school" while my son does not! He craves freedom. Great post!
Yeah, we live in a small space. Our classroom consists of the kitchen table, my desk with the computer, the kids' rooms and a couple of shelves on our bookcase to store books and stuff. The great outdoors works as well. I am glad to know that I'm not the only one out there. ;)
When I started homeschooling 3 years ago (4 maybe?) I started out with a schoolroom. It was beautiful. Little tables, posters on the wall, EVERYTHING. I move out of that room after six months. It was unwieldy and didn't match how we learned. Instead now I have MY desk (which I use for craft stuff) and a storage cabinet (to keep things closed from my 3 year old...whoever that happens to be at any given moment). OH I have bean bags for the kids to read and play on...although my 8 year old is still reading on the couches and the kitchen table, and in the yard, the car, church, um...yeah
What I'm TRYING to say is that I totally agree with you.
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