Organizing my School Room
Someone in my Little Hearts for His Glory Yahoo group is creating a website to help homeschoolers get organized, learn about curriculum etc. Since I have been reorganizing my school room, I thought I would post some pictures and talk about how I have organized. I know, yawn, yawn.
Our school room is actually what used to be our dining room. We have a large kitchen with and eat-in area, so don't really need a dining room. Here is a picture of my husbands and my computer desks, because the lamp was on the flash didn't go off. My desk is to the left and my husbands desk is to the right. (If you click on the pictures you can see a bigger version of them)
To the right of my computer desk is a two drawer filing cabinet with my printer/copier/scanner on it (a must for every homeschool if you can). Before this year I had a notebook that I would put my daughters' work in, but sometimes it wouldn't get in it promptly and would get lost, dirty torn etc. Since I have to hand in a portfolio to the school district every year, this is important. This year I made up a file for each subject and then put a folder for each child in that file. Then as they finish their work I can file it (more likely to do) until I am ready to assemble their portfolio.
I love to look at people's bookshelves. It is probably one of the first things I do when I go to someone's house, so instead of a distant shot of my bookshelves I thought I would try and get some closeups in case you want to try and check out titles (I did do a couple of distance shots for a couple of my bookshelves. I have four 6' to 7' bookshelves in my school room.
You can't see the titles to clearly in the above picture but this is my landmark book collection. Great history reads for the 5th -8th grade age.
The third & fourth shelves contains other years Teacher's manuals (again on the side) and then the my history and geography books as well as atlases and dictionaries. I did have my books organized dewey decimal but that just wasn't working for me. So this time I organized them by era (which we will be studying them by) All Ancient resources, craft books, biographies and other books on the era are together, same with Middle Ages & American History. I see now that I have taken the photo that my children have already started to mess up my shelves again.
This shelf is under my landmark books. It is my science shelf organized by types of science: Physics, Chemistry, Earth & Sky, Biology, inventors ( I decided not to include them in the history section) and field guides. They are very tight and I definitely need more room.
Here we have our Character Sketches (because I haven't found a good bplace for them yet) alon with my art books, folklore, poems, and music books (again biographies of the composers are included in this section rather than the history section to make it a bit simpler)
This bookshelf is my reading bookshelf. It contains my literature books (Dickens, Austen, Alcott etc) my Junior Fiction and Easy readers. The bottom shelf are my husbands books and I told him he needs to build himself a bookshelf because I will soon be kicking them off ;)
Here is my ever important set of World Book encyclopedias. I used to have a set of Britannicas (they had belonged to my husbad when we got married), but did not like them (I grew up with World Book)
This used to be a pass through window to our kitchen which my husband blocked off (he is a contractor by the way). Here I keep more of my paperback books as well as CD's & tapes (and there is a puzzle in that can).
Below are a couple of drawers in my four drawer filing cabinet. They each have a large plastic bin (with a lid if I can find them) and a metal bin. In these drawers I keep my craft and basic school supplies.
The last of my book shelves in my schoolroom contain the "adult" section of our home library. This has our Bible Reference, herbal medicine, sewing, Christian Fiction, christion living and field guides.
I hope you have enjoyed touring our school room. I will try to get a picture of the children's area when I have it organized.
Our school room is actually what used to be our dining room. We have a large kitchen with and eat-in area, so don't really need a dining room. Here is a picture of my husbands and my computer desks, because the lamp was on the flash didn't go off. My desk is to the left and my husbands desk is to the right. (If you click on the pictures you can see a bigger version of them)
To the right of my computer desk is a two drawer filing cabinet with my printer/copier/scanner on it (a must for every homeschool if you can). Before this year I had a notebook that I would put my daughters' work in, but sometimes it wouldn't get in it promptly and would get lost, dirty torn etc. Since I have to hand in a portfolio to the school district every year, this is important. This year I made up a file for each subject and then put a folder for each child in that file. Then as they finish their work I can file it (more likely to do) until I am ready to assemble their portfolio.
I love to look at people's bookshelves. It is probably one of the first things I do when I go to someone's house, so instead of a distant shot of my bookshelves I thought I would try and get some closeups in case you want to try and check out titles (I did do a couple of distance shots for a couple of my bookshelves. I have four 6' to 7' bookshelves in my school room.
You can't see the titles to clearly in the above picture but this is my landmark book collection. Great history reads for the 5th -8th grade age.
This is the top shelf of one of my bookshelves. it contains student Bible materials & books, homeschool & child help books and Christian biographies.
The third & fourth shelves contains other years Teacher's manuals (again on the side) and then the my history and geography books as well as atlases and dictionaries. I did have my books organized dewey decimal but that just wasn't working for me. So this time I organized them by era (which we will be studying them by) All Ancient resources, craft books, biographies and other books on the era are together, same with Middle Ages & American History. I see now that I have taken the photo that my children have already started to mess up my shelves again. This shelf is under my landmark books. It is my science shelf organized by types of science: Physics, Chemistry, Earth & Sky, Biology, inventors ( I decided not to include them in the history section) and field guides. They are very tight and I definitely need more room. Here we have our Character Sketches (because I haven't found a good bplace for them yet) alon with my art books, folklore, poems, and music books (again biographies of the composers are included in this section rather than the history section to make it a bit simpler) This bookshelf is my reading bookshelf. It contains my literature books (Dickens, Austen, Alcott etc) my Junior Fiction and Easy readers. The bottom shelf are my husbands books and I told him he needs to build himself a bookshelf because I will soon be kicking them off ;)Here is my ever important set of World Book encyclopedias. I used to have a set of Britannicas (they had belonged to my husbad when we got married), but did not like them (I grew up with World Book)
This used to be a pass through window to our kitchen which my husband blocked off (he is a contractor by the way). Here I keep more of my paperback books as well as CD's & tapes (and there is a puzzle in that can).Below are a couple of drawers in my four drawer filing cabinet. They each have a large plastic bin (with a lid if I can find them) and a metal bin. In these drawers I keep my craft and basic school supplies.
The last of my book shelves in my schoolroom contain the "adult" section of our home library. This has our Bible Reference, herbal medicine, sewing, Christian Fiction, christion living and field guides.I hope you have enjoyed touring our school room. I will try to get a picture of the children's area when I have it organized.
Comments
Super glad your posting again.
Christina
inHistiming (HOD)