With all the remote learning happening this year, there are a lot of seasoned homeschoolers posting what they do, to help the newbies and the parents thrown into remote learning figure it out.
So I figured I'd throw in my two cents.
First off, we don't have a homeschool room... We don't have a homeschool corner. We have a homeschool shelf.
Yep. That's it. That's our home school stuff. 4 Kids learning, my teacher books and a few office things for my hubby and I.
The kids have fold-able chairs that have desks on them (Think college chairs with the tiny desk... but the desks are a tiny bit bigger). Or they can grab a clipboard and go sit on their beds or on the couch as long as I can read their writing-though they usually don't because the 2 year old thinks that's an invitation for help. 😁😂
So let's start at the bottom-a good place to start since that's the picture that loaded. LOL Please keep your eyes focused on the shelf-not mess all around it.
Years ago when we started with Abeka, I took to Pinterest and found this really awesome organizing idea for Abeka. Now, Abeka writes their curriculum for their school in Florida-it's the same curriculum that homeschoolers utilize. It has 170 lessons.. Figuring you do one lesson a day-that's 170 days of school. Pretty typical for at school study..Not so typical for homeschool unless you are in a state that requires a certain number of days or hours-thank the good Lord, we are not. You see those two black crates? The one on the left holds 1st grade Abeka for Grace, our 6 year old. The one on the right holds preschool papers for our 4 year old who is insistent on learning to read just like everybody else. (and I just realized I didn't proofread my last post. Oy vey.) So Abeka organization. Each girl has their own milk crate (that's what we called them in the olden days lol). Each crate has a bunch of hanging folders, no I don't know how many somewhere around 40. With Grace's, each hanging folder holds enough for one week of work. In Grace's case, we are starting the year off with two lessons a day of phonics and math. She reads 3-4 stories in the readers a day (we'll get to that shelf in a minute), along with a page of cursive and reading with mom about community helpers, basic history and basic health. Sometimes Hannah joins us for the reading, sometimes she doesn't-she doesn't have to at this point. So when we start the morning all I have to do is grab two folders, take the papers out and get her started. Hannah's preschool papers are in the other milk crate. Like Grace's, each hanging folder has one week of work, in each folder, I already have days presorted so all I have to do is grab a paperclip full and I get Hannah started. At the end of the day, I record any grades needed for Grace then the papers go in the back of one of the milk crates-we'll clean those out when we are done next year. We keep tests, or any fun pictures they drew, the rest either go to the burn barrel, recycle bin.. or if the pages are blank on the back, they go to the color box and get colored on the back side. Grandparents love seeing the pictures and the school work.
The second shelf up. Starting on the left we have Elijah's coloring books-he knows which box is his and can get out his own coloring books. He's getting used to losing his playmates almost all day right now-it's a rough adjustment for a two year old. The rest of our boxes are extra PACEs for Andrew and Eva. We have the whole year worth of school at home and ready to go. The test and next PACE are easy to grab and Andrew and Eva know where to go if they have to get something without me available. My sorters are cereal boxes.. I asked some friends to gather cereal boxes all summer for me to be able to organize everything and I'm short just a few, but we have a few cereal boxes we are working through.. I'm finding the family size boxes are a must, they fit the PACEs just perfect without needing to bend them at all. That idea came from Andrea Mills-she uses plastic bins from Dollar Tree, but cereal boxes work great. We've gotten fancy with boxes that have survived 4 or 5 years and covered them with shelf paper... But honestly, that's a luxury right now and needed-but it is fun.
Ok, so we're going to focus on the top shelf in this picture-only halfway up the bookshelf right now. On the left we have Grace's books. If we are missing something in her box down below, we figure out what it is from these books. This box also has her cursive book and the readers she does with me. The next box is the readers she reads to me. The next two "spots" are Eva's. It has her PACEs, readers for literature, cursive, planner and her science workbook. She knows where everything is and can get to everything herself. The rest of the shelf is Andrew's. His readers, PACEs, textbooks (science and math) and binders with worksheets (state study, math and science). He also managed to stuff his planner in there somewhere.
As I'm sitting here looking at this arrangement I'm wondering how in the world I'm going to fit more PACEs on this shelf along with Elijah's preschool next year... But, let's do one year at a time.
Ok, Here's the last of the organization. The top two shelves...that I'm going to show you anyway, we'll discuss the very top of the bookshelf...but I can't reach up there without a ladder.. because I'm short lol.
All right, let's start on the bottom shelf in this picture. On the left is a box that holds electronics... This is up a little higher because Andrew and Eva aren't allowed on their Kindles without permission... So that box keeps them hidden from sight, and in plain view of mom and dad so we can make sure everyone is behaving. We have a little writing board that we keep track of memory verses on. Flash card sets we use every day (more on that in a bit), the oatmeal box holds pencils (mechanical and normal), extra un-sharpened pencils, erasers, handheld pencil sharpeners (we have an electric one hidden from the two year old on a back part of the desk-he keeps trying to sharpen the super hero legs....). On the right is an Osmo Kindle system... The kids got it last year for Christmas... I can't figure the fool thing out so there it sits. In the gray case is a Robinson Curriculum set. Back when I was homeschooled (late '90s), Robinson Curriculum came on CDs. Well-that's the WHOLE set. So if we ever need a 1828 dictionary or literature books to print off instead of buying, there it is. Robinson is a very reading heavy curriculum, the CDs hold McGuffey Readers, cursive and hundreds of out of copyright books you can read on your computer or print off. We didn't have that when we first started or we probably would have started with that stuff honestly. Robinson also recommends using Saxon math from the beginning-so the CDs don't hold math. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. We have printed some books off the CDs before, but not many.
The top shelf hold my stuff. My teacher book-with Answer Key for Andrew's science. The next binder over holds all of the first grade Abeka teacher things.. Honestly, I don't touch the teacher books unless I can't explain something using the papers... But when I bought the first grade readers second hand the lady had all the teacher's books there too. So we have them. The box (again, a cereal box) holds the teacher version of the first grade readers-they mostly have extra reading comprehension questions in them. Then we have more answer keys. The next binder is mom's planner.... Ummm more first grade teacher keys (seriously..how many teachers books do they need why can't they just put it ALL IN ONE PLACE?!!?). Now, you see those juice containers? Well, those are what you buy frozen juice concentrate in-they make GREAT pencil holders. The rest of that shelf is office things for hubby and I.
Now the very top of our bookshelf is a little messy. It's holding a broken laptop (loooooong story), extra spiral bound notebooks, a big box holding a ton of flashcards we may or may not need, and a microscope.
We pull down two things every school morning, the oatmeal box with pencils and the milk container with colored pencils-it's home is somewhere else.
Honestly, this is working awesome. All the kids know where to go for what they need. Andrew and Eva had to get out tests and the next PACEs today and could find them easily. It's easy for them to get to my books I need if I need them to get it for me.. I am loving this setup. We might have to add another shelf next year-but we are definitely going to stick with this set up. I can completely understand why Andrea Mills used this set up. The only thing I'm missing is a certain box to put in that day's papers until I can sort them. But we'll get that when I can clean some more-which depends on what needs baked/cooked and how Dinah is doing. She is still having many grumpy days at 2 months old-but doing awesome.
Thanks for reading!! I hope this helped if you needed the help.
Any questions? Go ahead and ask. I'll answer as soon as I'm able! Thanks for reading!
~Tabitha
