Our ClassRoom is our Kitchen

This is our ClassRoom........

When we started homeschooling 2 years ago - I had the perfect place for our 'classroom' - the bonus room over the garage! It just so happened my mom was here when I made this decision and so we went to town decorating and making our 'school room'. I must say - it looked like we thought a school room should look! It lasted about 3 months and ended up being a complete waste of time and money! We all hated being up there and ended up doing school in the kitchen every day!

So....that gave me a reason to decorate again and slowly we have made our kitchen area also into our school area! My hubby gets frustrated sometimes because the table is covered in books and whatnot that I haven't had a chance to put away yet but we just slide it out of the way for meals!! I had fun painting and creating a functional space that would not look like a school but was a classroom! Any reason to redecorate,paint and organize is fine with me and I am so excited to show you guys around!

The wall of bookshelves now has another small shelf on it to accommodate all my boxes for the workbox system we just started using and loving! I love all the possibilities of bookshelves and have quite a few of them around our house! The red couch you see is where we do all of our reading and I have 1 fellow who loves to do all his work sprawled out on the couch! Inside the doorframe between the 2 rooms I have sticky tacked the alphabet cards we use!

I made this chalkboard from an old bulletin board(a freebie from a friends trash). I just painted right over it with about 4 coats of chalkboard paint! It works great and I can hang stuff on it too with a push pin if I need to! The bookshelf under the window is made from a rain gutter and was so easy to make! It works perfectly to house the current Science books I want us to look through - the boys can see the covers and it makes it much easier for them to pick one! Go here to see some other ideas for gutter shelves!

This is my Grandmother's hutch that needed a place in our house and is now housing construction paper and notebooks in the bottom, mommies supplies like stapler, pens, pushpins, etc in the drawer and by removing the doors on the top part of the hutch the shelves house the boys daily books like math,LA and games. Each shelf is 1 boys stuff and is easily accessible to me when filling boxes for school!

The bottom of my husband's Grandmother's hutch houses all our art supplies! It was another item that needed to be in our house and so to make it useful I put the barstools away and pushed it under the counter so the boys could get at our art supplies whenever they wanted! I do not have paint or any other art item that I would want them using when I am not watching!

Over the pantry door(on the inside) I have a clear shoe holder. The key to this is(for me) is that it is clear. I hade some that were not clear but becasue I couldn't see what was in the pockets I never used what was in the pockets!! An empty( and clean ) frosting container fits perfectly in the pockets to house the smaller and/or loose items I wanted to stay put in them - erasers, pencil sharpeners,pencils, markers,counting bears,etc. The other pockets have flashcards and other misc. items that I knew I wanted to use but if I couldn't see it I would forget about it! Sorry the picture is funky!

There was no way i could just put books on the shelves so when I found these fun bookends on clearance I painted them , added a plaque I painted with all the different subject names and added some color to the bookshelves! Fun!!!

This has been my project for the past week - a timeline wall. We used a trifold project board last year and it was just a pain to get out every day and put away so I just decided we would have a wall timeline that could stay up forever and we will just keep adding to it year after year! Granted it is right down my front entryway but I am sure you have gathered that I am okay that people know we homeschool when they come to our house! It is still empty as I haven't gotten around to putting up the figures we have studied yet - maybe next week!!!

I am in the process of debating about whether or not to take over the coat closet down here - put a bookshelf in it and house all the science project stuff we are now starting to accumulate as the boys are getting older! A project for another day!!!

I hope you enjoyed this tour and it gave you some ideas for your classroom!!

My name is Julie and I am Mom to 4 Boys - 14, 8, 6, 4. I homeschool the younger 3 and the oldest just finished 8th grade and will be going to High School next year - AARRGGHHH!!! We have been homeschooling for 2 years and have a very eclectic style with a mix of unschooling, Charlotte Mason and unit studies! I started blogging as a way to share our goings on and pics with family (because none of them live near us) at just a little house. I had so much fun I decided to start a homeschooling blog boys,school and fun to document our journey as we homeschool. Come visit me so I can come visit you!!