Our homeschool classroom is all about functionality. Years ago, we decided to convert our family room which almost never got used into a homeschool room. We tore up the old carpet and painted the floor. This may not be the most attractive flooring solution, but it was cost effective and it is easy to sweep up bits of paper and scraps from crafting and I never have to worry about the kids ruining the floor by spilling paint.
We painted the room a bright colour and added wall decals (alphabet, numbers, owl tree, Africa with Ethiopia cutout to represent the birth country of two of our kids) from Peel Monkey. Some of the classroom decor also comes from the posters and charts that go along with our character building program, We Choose Virtues.
We have five desks (one for each of my “students”) that we have picked up for free at garage sales and the like over the years but we also put a table in the room as often we find working around the table together easier than the kids working at their desks.
There used to be a fireplace in the room which made it very drafty in the winter so we filled the opening with insulation, covered it with a board and then attached cork to the board to create a giant cork board. It is so useful. I use it to pin things relevant to the topics we are currently learning about. I find the mantle above handy as well as I can place books related to the current subject of our unit studies on top for easy access and to encourage the kids to look at them.
The room has less wall space than it appears to because there are patio doors, an outside door and two entrances so I made the door to the outside into a chalkboard using chalkboard paint. As it is a metal door, it is also magnetic so I have magnets on it as well that I can hang up posters or charts with. This has really helped make the most of the space. I write the quotes we are memorizing on the “chalkboard” and the kids sometimes use it to draw on or play games on.
I use the Ikea Expedit unit to house our board games and puzzles. Above that, I have three clocks set to different time zones in the world that are important to us. One is the time zone for where we currently live, the other is for Ethiopia (where two of our kids were born) and the other we change depending on what we are studying or what is happening in our life. For example, later this year when The Husband and our second oldest son go to Thailand, we will set the third clock for there.
My whiteboard is all about functionality. It is obviously used as a white board but is set up so that my chore chart is on the back and the bins underneath are often what I use to create and store our weekly sensory bins. This again allows me to make the best use of the space that I can.
My favourite part of the room still is the reading corner because we have made such great memories there. The bean bag chair and light sit beneath the owl tree decal and it is a comfortable place to read or snuggle or play Uno.
I have boxes that hold the larger items for our unit studies, use a shoe organizer for our craft supplies, have five sets of units with ten drawers each for our workboxes, and have another unit with ten deeper drawers to hold our sensory bin supplies.
Our classroom works really well for us. We have tried to make it functional and fun. I like to have things such as books, globes and maps, board games, puzzles, and hands-on learning aids accessible to the kids at their level so I have set the room up to maximize those opportunities.
I am linking up in the schoolroom hop week of the Not Back to School Blog Hop. If you are looking for ideas for your classroom, be sure to go check out all the other ideas. You can also follow me on Pinterest or you can just follow my Classroom Board.
Baby oil has a scent that either you love or hate and I have some kids in each camp so some of them can’t get enough of these while others choose not to play with them because of the smell and I’m okay with that.
I decided on a purple themed bin because I had some great things on hand that just happened to be purple! For the base, I used crinkly purple paper shreds for crunch, rice that had been dyed purple, purple foam bits that were nice and soft, beads, and pompoms. I added a purple shovel as a scoop, string, plastic grapes in different shades of purple, and a (fake) Canadian $10 bill.
To create a sensory bin around a particular colour is as easy as having a look around your house to see what you may have on hand that would fit the bill and throwing it all into a container for the kids to explore! The ideas are endless…for a blue themed bin, water with a few drops of blue food colouring could serve as a base as could blue jello or glass beads. For a white bin, cotton batting or cotton balls make an obvious choice for a base, but foam packing pellets, white rice or shaving cream could also be used.
Last week, I made a Monsters themed sensory bin. This was such a fun bin to create and for the kids to play with.
There are a variety of textures includes because of the squishy sponges, the hard plastic on the links and the Bumbleball. There are also lots of other textures to explore with the wood, the fuzzy bits on the pompoms and on some of the sensory balls.
Be sure to use caution if making this sensory bin for little ones. The googly eyes can come off the sponges, especially if they chew on them and that could pose a choking hazard. As with all sensory play, adult supervision is recommended.
