Learning Spaces

I thought I would show you all a few of our "learning spaces" today.  We don't tend to do school at home, but consider ourselves to be home educators whose chief desire is to instill in our children a deep love of God and His Word.  After that our goals are to instill a life-long love of learning in our children and to learn as a family.  Therefore our entire house could be considered a one-room school house.

We do not have a separate room designated as a school room.  Our "school room" is an area of our den that houses most of our books, learning tools, games and preschool toys.

Grandson Chase is working on a preschool bag activity while Jackson works on handwriting.  Yes, he is very excited about it!

Kaelan is at my desk (cords everywhere!!) working on math via Teaching Textbooks.

Aaron is working at Jordan's desk on a history assignment.  He and Jordan like to listen to some music while studying to block out noise from little boys!  He also does some work in my bedroom at his dad's computer/desk.

This is where I sit as we start our "group time" each morning.  The bookshelf holds my Bible and any books that we are learning from as a group.  We read each morning from the books of Proverbs and Psalms, have prayer and then generally read from a biography or historical fiction. Right now we are finishing up our American history studies and have recently finished biographies of Robert E. Lee and Teddy Roosevelt.  While I read, Caedmon and Jackson play quietly on the rug in front of me.  I also give Jackson picture books or I Can Read type books on the topic we are covering.  He is not reading fluently yet, but learns a lot from the pictures.  ; )

Here Jackson is looking through a history book.  Behind the couch are stored our video and DVD collections and National Geographic Magazines that we use as references when studying other cultures.  I keep them behind the couch so that little ones don't have them readily available.  On the upper shelves are reference books and a collection of biographies of missionaries from the country we are currently studying.

The piano gets at daily workout.  We have a Roland that has fully weighted keys and is full-sized.  The best part is that my pianists can use headphones with it, so the rest of us don't have to hear the practice all the time.  We so many of us in close quarters that helps!

Our collection of Landmark books is much used!  I am very thankful to be able to go to my bookshelves and collect books for us to learn from.  We do go to the library often...especially in the "school year", but I find that we can get by with using our home library more and more often.

 This area stores our game collection, puzzles and preschool toys.  It is hidden from the view of people in the main living area!

Our Geosafari collection, picture books and easy readers on the bookshelves.  The drawers hold Kaelan's current books and notebooks and the bottom drawer holds scrap paper.

This huge cabinet houses our arts and crafts materials, science kits, school supplies and science books.

The drawers on the left hold Jackson's school items while the middle drawers hold the extras for him and our collection of preschool activity bags.  The drawers on the right are labeled for each day of the week and hold activity bags, file folders and other material for Caedmon.

This huge shelving unit holds our history and biography collection.  The crate on the floor holds Aaron's materials so that he can take them to the dining room or his bedroom.

''

This is my desk.  The shelves above hold our currently unused math texts, poetry anthologies and readers, math manipulatives, lace-up activities and more.  It also holds our CD collection of audio books, teaching and sermons.  To the right of my desk is a cabinet with our printer on top and assorted copy paper, card stock, notebook paper and construction paper.  To the left is my huge file cabinet that contains two drawers of piano music and two drawers of file folders with information for almost every KONOS unit we have done for the last 20 years!

This is the dining room table where someone had already started working independently this morning.  I use the white board for scripture verses and quotes that  I want the children to copy, spelling words, extra chore assignments or just phone numbers and grocery lists!

Our kitchen could be considered a learning lab as several of the children experiment with cooking and help me with soap making and food preservation.  Our porch is used in the spring and fall for some of our group time or we may head to the bench swing and picnic table or to the deck and sit there to read together or alone.  The children are voracious readers and spend time reading on the trampoline as well as in their bedrooms.  They all have their personal book collections in their rooms.

Learning also happens in the woods, at the creek or in the garden.  Now we have also added chickens into our daily life so we are learning much about how to take care of them.  

Thanks for stopping by for a tour of our learning spaces.  Do you have a school area in your home?  I would love to see a link to your blog post showing your ideas.