BellaOnline Forums Education Homeschooling Learning Rooms

I'm wondering if anyone has a learning room or school room or do you just learn wherever? I never saw the need for a formal "school" room but we recently decided to switch our master bedroom and playroom because the playroom space was tight. The playroom is going to be huge so I'm contemplating turning it into a learning room/playroom where we can keep all of our homeschool-related books, art supplies, science equipment etc. Right now we have all this stuff in the laundry room and have to drag everything out to the kitchen table.Anybody done anything like this? What's your homeschooling space like?

We have EVERYTHING in the dining room - lots of bookshelves in there; and its a big open room with the living area so we sort of spill over for the most part. I would love to have a library space separate from the main living/dining areas; but we just don't have the room for that right now.

We recently rearranged a couple of rooms in our house and freed up a lot of unused space. I was able to create a small nook that we are now using to keep all the educational activities/toys. We do not do anything formal in that area but my son often explores and plays with the things that are there.

Our two biggest needs were bookshelves (can't stop buying books!) and a place for art/craft supplies. We filled a wall in the den with bookshelves, and that took care of the book issue. For craft supplies, we had a built-in pantry right off the breakfast room. I dedicated 1/2 of the pantry to craft supplies which the kids were free to use at the breakfast table whenever they felt like it--as long as we weren't eating at the time.

Our actual homeschooling years occurred when our kids were older--after these spaces I've described were created. During the homeschooling years, we never had a specific place for learning. By that point, we felt like one of the problems with school is that learning is artificially restricted to certain time periods and spaces. Regarding time, why cut off a subject with a bell when a child is still enthralled with it? As for spaces, other than controlling clutter and/or possible spills, you can be pretty liberal with space. After all, learning can take place anywhere.

Our arts/crafts supplies are stored in my china cabinet, which is right off the dining room.

Overflow occurs. My mother and I (we split the teaching duties) each have school "stuff" in our personal areas (my office, her rooms).

We refer to it as disorganized organization. It works.

Our playroom isn't HUGE (I mean, it's big, but... 9'x15' roughly) but it does serve for both. Inside the closet is a shelving unit that holds all our homeschooling supplies and in the room is a kids table and chairs (small square one) that we can work at if we want to. Along one wall are some low bookshelves with mostly books, but also some bins with different toys that I want to encourage using (like musical instruments, etc).