The Homeschool Marm: Our Learning Spaces

We have many learning spaces in our home where we read, study, work on projects, and enjoy life together. As we enter into our 14th year of homeschooling, education is a lifestyle and culture of our home and family, and this is reflected in our living spaces where we share our daily lives.

We do not have a formal schoolroom in our home, as through the day we spread through the house depending on the subject or project of study at hand. Once weekly, we attend classes at Classical Conversations Anderson, where we join with a community of classical learners. We also participate in extra-curricula activities, church classes and events, and take field trips.

Just recently, we downsized to our house one-half the size of our previous home. We spent the month of July moving and we are working on getting settled in to our new home.

Our favorite room in the home is the family/dining/study room that is next to the kitchen. It is a bright room with large windows and french doors. We love to study and read in this room. It has built-in bookcases and a fireplace which we are eager to enjoy in the cooler months.

We love the natural lighting of this room. It is a peaceful place to eat and study.

We have a second family room that divides the living space from the sleeping areas of our home. This room also has great natural lighting. Even though our home is half the size of our previous home, we are very pleased with the lighting and layout of the house. Briyah has a small desk in the corner of the family room. This desk was her father's desk when he was a student. She uses this desk primarily as a computer station. I snapped a picture of her while she was listening to a Focus on the Family audio drama. Briyah does not sit at one desk while working on her academic work. She is able to rotate from the dining table, sofas, her computer desk, and outdoor areas on any given day. I turned the coat closet in the front entryway into a craft/supply/project closet. We store many of our art and project supplies in this closet. The top shelf contains our board games. One of these days, I plan to organize it all pretty with ideas I am saving on Pinterest. For now, it functions as a catch all space for supplies. We have an office nook that is off of the kitchen and it holds some of our curriculum, office equipment, and household files. I originally wanted to turn this office nook into an open pantry, until it became apparent that we had an overflow of stuff that needed to be placed on bookshelves in one general area. We have an outdoor learning space where we can eat, draw, study, paint, and work on messy projects. I found this farm table at the Goodwill for $35. I hope to create an outdoor classroom in our backyard with raised bed gardens, sand areas, and a mud pie kitchen. Briyah keeps track of the books she has read on an Excel file on the laptop. She was working on entering her books she read this past week in her file, but she was sidetracked by rereading a good book she enjoyed.
Briyah loves to read and she carries books with her wherever she goes. I snapped these two photos of her this week which is a typical posture for her on a daily basis. The picture on the left was taken when we were visiting the library. She could not wait to dive into her books so she started a new book as I filled up our crate. The picture on the right was taken at the Goodwill. Briyah is small enough that she just cozies up on a shelf while I am picking out good books to bring home for our collection.

Thank you for visiting my brief snapshot of our learning spaces. You can check out many more homeschooling spaces and schoolrooms on the "Not" Back-to-School Blog Hop.

Happy Homeschooling!

Source: http://thehomeschoolmarm.blogspot.com/2012/08/our-learning-spaces.html

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