I wasn’t going to participate this week. Why? Because we don’t have a school room. And, as I’ve been reading others’ posts, and seeing pictures, of their wonderful school rooms, I’m trying really hard not to be envious. We want a school room in the worst kind of way.
We do school in our dining room. The table is right in the center of a room that contains 1 doorway (to the kitchen), 1 double doorway (to the living room – french doors belong here but we took them off about a year ago when Ian kept slamming them into one of the computer chairs), and 3 large windows. The room is FULL. We’ve got my hutch, our piano, two computers on desks, an old school desk (that I keep my laptop on sometimes), and 2 bookshelves in here. Needless to say, there’s really not a spare inch of space in here!
I love having company, but find that we really only invite over the people that we know really well and feel comfortable with – probably because I feel a little awkward inviting “just anyone” into our classroom. LOL
On the flipside, though, I wonder if – if we ever do have a situation where we have a classroom – we would even use it – or if we’d all end up back together, around a table somewhere?! Isn’t that silly? But, I think once you get used to something the way it is, you’re resistant to change. And, we’re definitely used to things the way they are, since we’ve been doing school in the dining room since Ashley was 5 (and she’s almost 17 now – oh! that almost hurts to say!)
No fun pictures of my classroom this week. But I should mention that even the surface areas are covered with school stuff – for example, the top of the piano has our globe on it, and some stackable filing trays. The heater cover has the kids’ printer on it (and usually a bunch of “where can we put this?” items.
9 comments:
This is homeschooling at its best~LIFE! I believe your kids will remember the time you spent around the dining table far longer than all the pretty (AND I do like the pretty, too!) stuff we can throw our energy into...Aww...enjoy!!..and invite over some friends~they love you and will accept your HOME! Sending a hug to you and all of US with HOME schoolrooms ;-))
I totally relate to what you said! I envy those beautiful, large school rooms too, but honestly believe we would never really use it for the purposes of school. My sister has a nice schoolroom in the basement & they all end up using the upstairs!
(I completely understand the company part also. We have to pull our kitchen table from the wall just to fit us around it, let alone our guests). :)
Enjoyed reading your post.
I don't have a classroom either Heidi...I think it causes us to have to be a little more creative :) At least I keep telling myself that, because I would REALLY like a classroom too :)
I appreciate your honesty and we don't have a separate classroom either. I have been so busy I forgot to do my classroom post. I am going to get working on that asap. Not only do we not have a separate classroom but my dining room looks like a classroom. NO "House Beautiful" here. Our house looks like some I have seen in the homeschool blog world but definitely not like the homes in the magazines. I like pretty, too, but functional is much better. I am sure we are all doing the best we can with what we have to work with.
We have a designated school area, but we end up at our dining room table just as often! I'm starting to see that education doesn't need a "classroom." It just needs learners!
Have an awesome year of learning!
I consider our schoolroom as the primary place for our *materials*. As far as the students, they can't always be found in there! My son, especially, moves around. If not for the computer, which is required for a lot of my daughter's work, she'd probably be more of a roaming student as well.
We use our dining/classroom for most everything as well. Maps, white boards, time-lines, schedule, etc all grace the walls of our dining room :) But the wonderful thing about that is...when dad sees something new he asks the kids about it. So he does get to see some of the things that have gone on during the day.
God's Blessings
We don't have a school room either...we mostly stay in our living room. Sometimes Bridge goes to her room to work on stuff. We only use the dining room table for science experiments! I have a dream of a school room, but I'm sure that we would probably just end up back in the living room, as we like to be comfortable!
Heidi ~ we have a school room... a nice size school room... there are two desks, our old dining room table and various shelves of various sizes.
We are sitting at the kitchen table - like we do every day - doing our school work... our school room is our catch all and is trashed...and even if/when I clean it, we still end up back in here and just using it for storage...it is truly a sight for sore eyes...
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