Sunday, August 21, 2011

Our learning Space

I live in a very tiny house, so we do not have a dedicated school room.  Instead we school in the kitchen and in the livingroom.  I just finished reorganizing and decorating the livingroom learning space and had to share.

This is our nature center
Around the candles and the base of the wooden case I have fake leaves/berries in fall/harvest colours.  On top of the wooden shelf that wicker basket has feathers the kids have found tucked into it.  Pine cones, cool rocks, geodes we have cracked open, 2 shark teeth. and a very cute beeswax candle that looks like a hive with a little bee on it.


 Close up of wicker basket


 The drawers of the unit are to store collections of natural items.  This drawer show our rock collection, some found some bought.  Another drawer houses our sea shells.  Several are empty.  The biggest one at the bottom holds magnifying glasses, binoculars and a periscope for the kids to use while examining the world around them.


 The nature table is situated on top of this toy shelf.


This is our puzzle Corner. Wooden toddler puzzles on up through 5000 pce ones for the big kids.  Also there is some matching/sequencing type games here.  The chest it is on top of is actually my oldest daughter's hope chest.


 We have some puzzles along the window sills to display.  The basket of puppets is also stored in this corner.


 Table #1 for the little ones to play at.  That bench seat opens up and holds our wooden train set.


This is little table holds our wooden play sets and doll house.  The drawer underneath has all the accessories, doll house people and wooden semi trucks.  That is our basket of blocks on the floor to the right and the castle marble works to the left.  The tv is not in this frame but is to the left of the marble works.  This is under the big picture window.  When the blinds are open it lets in massive amounts of natural light.

Along the same wall as the above is the kitchen center and table #2.  This is a blue plastic table so we keep the lace fabric on it like a table cloth to soften the look of it.
Across the room is my big cubby shelf.  This houses the books we are currently using for all 4 kids.  It has the books for the full year for the younger 2 kids and most of the books for the big kids.  However, due to the way the bigs are doing "blocks" this year it does not hold the full year of books/materials for each block topic.  Those will be rotated as needed.


On top I have a bin of smaller items needed (chalk and slates for HWOT, tile pieces for AAS etc), Reference books, Homestead blessings dvd's, our globe and the current VP flashcard in an acrylic frame.

 Next to the big shelf is another small cubby unit.  This has more of the toys used by my youngest daughter and my dayhome kids. The little plate I love, it says "If your knees are knocking, kneel on them"  Next to this shelf is our library book bin.  We usually have no less than 150 books and dvds out at a time.

 Here is the couch.  It has a wall all to itself and we spend many hours there reading. (Or playing video games )


The space is small, and it is stuck in the 70s (mirrored tiles, orange shag carpet with matching orange drapes), but I like how it is organized and the kids really enjoy the time spent in there.

Next time I will show the kitchen learning space and how we make the most of our tiny home.