Welcome to our Classroom

After a year of homeschooling in our dining room, my husband suggested that we needed to have a dedicated space. I wasn’t excited about the suggestion. I really loved the idea of school being an integral part of our home life. Our dining room was the perfect place to ingest and digest physical, spiritual, and mental food! It is in the center of our home, and was the perfect place for us to do school. It seemed like casting it off to a separate room would make it more institutional rather than fluid in our lifestyle. However, the lugging books upstairs every weekend, the clutter in my dining room... and the baby growing up and needing space to play all made having a classroom more convenient.

We converted our attic bedroom into a classroom. And, one and a half years later, I now need a bigger classroom! LOL! The more space you have, the more stuff you collect...

Our classroom reminds me of the old fashioned one room school house. The concept of the one room school house makes me happy inside. It has two desks for my older children, a toddler table for the babies, and a preschool corner. The front of the classroom has the cursive script letters banner going across (along with Hebrew letters) and the back of the classroom has print letters.

Preschool Early Learning Corner

We also have a 6 foot long table and two benches for crafts, projects, one on one learning, legos, etc.

Teacher's Corner (Ary pushes her preschool table close to me)

A highlight of our classroom is our pencil station. I get so irritated when my students say they don’t have a pencil, or they lost their pencil mid school day, or they broke their pencil... WHATEVER the pencil excuse is, I have a hopefully neverending stash of sharpened pencils fo my children. The pencil sharpener is also at the pencil station, along with extra erasers. This takes so much stress off of me. I keep other office supplies at our pencil station - there is post it notes, note cards, glue, tape, rulers, and a stapler. When any of these things are needed, they are quickly at our disposal. The only problem is that my 2 year old thinks these things are out so that she can get to them!

Educational Video Time

Even though we have a classroom, we still school in other areas of our house. I find that it is very useful to have a set apart space to keep down on school clutter in other areas of my house. It is also a good transition to my children’s morning routine... they eat breakfast and then “go to school”. It works for us so far! The only drawback is that I now have another room in my house to clean!

Pencil Sharpener Station

If you have an extra room in your home, or space that can be converted into a classroom, and if you think it will work out for your family - give it a try!

Classroom Checklist:
1. Long Table for Crafts and Activities
2. Desks
3. Toddler Table
4. Whiteboard or Chalk Board
5. Bookcases
6. Bins for each child’s books
7. TV for documentaries and educational videos
8. Toddler Corner: Floor Mat, Easily accessible Toddler Books and Puzzles, Felt Boand
9. Pencil Sharpener Corner: Pencil Sharpener, Plenty of pencils and erasers, Glue, Scissors, commonly used supplies
10. Printer (Especially if your classroom is far from your home office.
11. Student Artwork
12. A Calendar to mark upcoming events
13. Organizing Cabinets for supplies
14. A cork bulletin board
15. Oil Diffuser

-T.E.A. 2018