In the beginning years of my homeschool journey, I spent so much time looking at fancy homeschool rooms. I admit they fascinate me. I love how you can get so creative with them and can make them fit your homeschool style. And since I love all things decorating and organizing, I dream of the day I will be able to color code and organize one perfectly functional space for my homeschool.
Canadian homes await at HomesEh! Find, compare, and secure your ideal property effortlessly. Until then, I live in a house that is about one thousand square feet, and although I love looking at all the lovely homeschool rooms on Pinterest, it’s not practical for me to have one right now. There is no spare room in our home. Right now, our homeschool areas are set up in each of my children’s rooms. The subjects for each child are neatly arranged on a shelf in their room and we often sit in one of their rooms to do our school work.
With all that being said, I have found that it is not necessary to have a dedicated school room in our home. I would of course love to have one, but right now, the way we have been doing things is working for us.
Here are four reasons NOT to have a dedicated school room.
1. No Space For One
I think this kind of goes without saying. Along the same lines of what I mentioned above, if you don’t have a spare room in your house, then you probably won’t be able to have a dedicated school room. I have to admit that I tried to copy some of those pretty rooms from Pinterest on a smaller scale by creating small corners and areas instead of having a whole room, but they never quite worked out. Right now it is just easier to use the room that the kids sleep in.
2. The World Is the Classroom (Not Only the Schoolroom)
I often walk into my boys’ room to find them laying in a pile of books that they have taken from their bookshelf to read. I love how they incorporate their school material into their regular everyday lives. When they are in their rooms playing, sometimes they will reach for a toy, but just as often they will reach for a book, one of their science experiments, math blocks, or any of their school material.
Because their school room is a part of their bedroom, it allows them to see that learning can (and does!) take place anytime, anywhere. Not just in “the school room.” I, of course, don’t think that by having a dedicated school room, that kids will never want to learn once they step foot outside of it. I only mean that I love the way it happens naturally for my boys inside of their rooms or anywhere we go!
3. We Can Homeschool Anywhere!
Learning happens all over the house! Instead of having a specific room where we dive into our subjects, we feel free to sit anywhere our mood dictates. Oftentimes I am preparing lunch and the kids are sitting at the dinning room table working so that I can still see and help them as needed. Sometimes, we even cuddle in bed and read a text together. Learning happens all over the house and we love it!
4. Keep the Clutter Down
By not having a dedicated school room, I am actually able to control the clutter better. I am one of those moms that likes to hang on to old curriculum, just in case. While there is nothing wrong with that (I do have little ones that might use it when they’re old enough), it can create a bit of homeschool hoarding. I only know because I have experienced it.
Right now, I store things that are not being used in my linen closet. So, since I only have a small storage closet, it makes me a little more intentional about the things I keep. I still hold on to things that my oldest son is finished with in case his younger siblings use it later, but I know that I can’t keep everything.
Do you have a homeschool room? If not, where do you “do school?”
This post contributed by Jennifer from Organized Home Organized School
If it makes you feel better… I have had a dedicates school room for most of our homeschooling years and we never use it for long. I always plan to do more with it each new school year but we end up, inevitably, around the kitchen table or hanging out on the couch. Your own experiences are spot-on and would probably continue to be the norm even if a whole room for school suddenly appeared 😉 Thank you for sharing! (saw you today as featured blogger on Titus2)
You’re probably right, Amanda. I would love to have a dedicated room to have more storage for my supplies, but we would probably still end up homeschooling on the couch 🙂
I will say that we DO have a school room but it is an open room with no door in the back of our house. We usually do school in the living room but then the books go straight back to the desks. We have nice bookshelves for our books, and our supplies are in matching painted black boxes. I don’t like my kids doing school in their rooms because they tend to lose things in the teenage boy pit. I guess it’s just really personal preference. 🙂
Lol at “teenage boy pit.” 🙂 I can definitely see that being a drawback. I love the idea of the painted black boxes. I love to decorate and make things match and look nice for our supplies as well.
Nice article. One of the great joys of homeschooling is that you get to do what works for you. I have had the privilege of both, no designated homeschool room and a designated homeschool room. We now have a homeschool room and it works wonderfully for us. Our kids spend most of their time in it. Even when we aren’t “schooling.” Embracing your situation is key.
It sounds like you have embraced it. Kudos to you! Thanks for sharing.
Yes! Embracing your situation is key. Very well said. I enjoy our current situation, and I am also looking forward to the day we can experience having a dedicated school room. Thanks so much for leaving a comment Brandy 🙂
I have had both, a large basement area that we dedicated as the “school area” the first year we homeschooled, but it was too far away from the rest of the house and I don’t think my girls enjoyed that time of homeschooling. We moved out of the country for 3 years where they attended an International school, when we returned and homeschooled again, we had no basement or spare room. I was concerned about not having the extra dedicated school area, but it forced us to stay organized with our supplies and as you mentioned, keeps me from hoarding school supplies! LOL My girls now sit at the dining room table or kitchen island or even the sofa to do their school work. It’s all about making your space work for your family. ❤️
I couldn’t agree more 🙂
Years ago, I chose to put 3 boys in one bedroom, rather than give up our school room. Later, we moved to a house where we did not have a dedicated school room for 10 years.
One of the things I love about our current home is our school room. It *is* messy, I admit. 8 bookcases can’t quite contain everything. But it gives us a place to spread out art projects without losing our table downstairs for meals, and it houses all sorts of educational treasures accumulated over the last 17 yrs of hsing.
Having a school room is a luxury, but it’s a tool. It doesn’t control us. We’re still free to lay on the trampoline out back for story time or take our sketch pads to the park. Having my students where I can SEE them helps make sure the work is getting done.
We do both. When I’m watching other kids we don’t use the ‘study room’. However on a basic day I enjoy our ‘study room’ because it keeps all the kids contained in one place. I’m not constantly running around pulling someone out of something they shouldn’t be in lol. I’m referring mostly to my 2 and 4 year old.When they get old and my 8 year old is able to be a little more self directed I’ll love to go back to just using our living room.
The fun thing right now is it’s more than a room for school. It has wall to wall windows so we’re using it for a green house and it also has the old style tv for vhs and games the kids like to play. I can decorate the walls with posters of the world, periodic tables, and other diagrams that I otherwise wouldn’t really want in our living room.
The house we moved into in September is the first one in which I’ve been able to have a school room. I loved it! I could walk out and leave the last lesson sitting there when I was done for the day when we finished, if I didn’t have time to clean up. However, the room got too cold for comfort when winter arrived a month and a half ago, so we moved to the kitchen table for the lessons I have to teach individually (everything else was being done in the living room anyway), and then my daughter moved into the school room because the room she slept in outside was too cold. So, I no longer have a school room again, but I’ve decided that I really prefer the kitchen anyway. I can keep tabs on what everyone is doing better, and even make lunch while sentences or even just words are being written.
We just moved from a home with 1100 sq ft to one with almost 3 times that amount. I’ve gone from tucking school supplies into closets and the basement to having a dedicated school-play room. After only a week it’s already been nice to have all our supplies in one spot. I expect that very little schooling will take place in there, but I’m ok with that.
We have a homeschool corner, it has a desk, bookshelf and it’s where my son keeps his supplies and does independent work. The world is our classroom but most of our “formal” learning is done at the dining room table, I don’t feel the need for a classroom. A Lego room on the other hand….
Ha! A Lego room would definitely make my kids’ (and my) day!
I have a small homeschool room and I love it because it is the first room people see when they come in the front foyer of our house. I hope it shows them that you CAN do home education and that it’s a lifestyle, not recreating school at home. In the room, (originally considered a dining room) there’s a comfy couch, two work spaces, a huge map, inspirational posters, a bearded dragon cage, a little fish tank, coastal looking baskets, a few bookshelves and two set of colored drawer rolling carts help keep things going. The carts are my favorite!! We, of course do school in the living room, kitchen, and outside too. Well, doing life together, we are constantly learning! I love hearing how others do this thing called homeschool, and I’m learning all the time on this journey. Thanks for sharing!
We do have a homeschool room, it is awesome. I do not agree with your ‘reasons’. Our ‘room’ is clean, organized and clutter-free. We sit right in front of a huge window, where we can watch the birds, squirrels & wildlife eat from our bird feeder center. If we want, we can open the windows for fresh air. I do not like the thought of them doing ‘work’ in their bedrooms. I think they should be separate. If we like, we can sit on front porch, back deck or anywhere in house to do work, but we love our school room. When I first read the title of your post, it gave me a negative feeling. I think you could’ve phrased better. Sounds a bit harsh to those who are blessed with a school room!
I appreciate this post and the comments that followed. I find that homeschooling requires a level of personal organization that … I have yet to achieve. 🙂 I like to say that I am still suffering from the loss of my youngest son’s naptime (we called that time “power school” and actually got quite a bit done) … but that was 6 years ago. Hah! I like the idea of “embracing” the situation I’m in … but does that mean embracing my apparent inability to get on top of this once and for all? Maybe if I spent less time wishing I or my situation were different, the ideas about dealing with what’s in front of me would flow more easily. (I got here from a search on “organized homeschool” because I really *would* like to figure this out. But maybe I’m just making it too hard …)
I appreciate the article although I would never publish something that discourages a concept that has been proven to help children develop into structured teens and adults. A child who has a “I’ll do what I want when want where I want” will likely have more difficulty adapting to school where there is a structure and more importantly their career where there will likely be an established code of conduct. I am actively working on establishing an education room in my 1300 square foot apartment for our almost 2 year old and newborn baby boys. When it comes to your children I feel that you should do whatever you think is right for their future.
I feel that those who are offended should maybe consider those of us who do not have space for a school room are not very well supported in terms of ideas on how to home school without a dedicated space. It is so easy to jump on a current idea, but the fact remains that every family does it in the way that suits their child/ren and family and circumstance. I found this article a breath of fresh air for those who are not able to provide a spiffy school room. I do not have a school room any more as it did not work so great for my children. My children are still STRUCTURED because I educate at home to enable to think and learn outside of the perimeters. The title of the post is exactly what drew me here, I am not aiming to do school at home. We need more that do not have a school room to share how they do it, how they organise and merge their schooling with their home life.