Our New Schoolroom

I have been really struggling with how to set up our school room in a way that would stop the little boys from causing big messes every time they would go down to play. We have changed our room around 2 different times both ways just not working good for us. So this time I decided that I needed to really think about what was causing us so many probles with our previous designs… What I came up with was to put as much of my school stuff back onto storage shelves or some where the little ones cannot get into it.

To solve this problem I needed more shelves, so I had Jake build me 2 big shelving units back in our laundry area, 1 shelf for the closet in the school room, and then put some metal shelves we had in the garage from Ikea into our back as we call it “cold storage area.” Which made it possible to move just about everything out of the reach of little ones 🙂 and really clear up our room!

Here is an overview of the other side.

This is our first shelf with some of our books, I am still working on making printable labels for the front of the bins so we can find the books easy. Most of our books have been purchased at the thrift store for $.10-$.25 or from the Scholastic Book Clubs orders for really cheap. I found this wonderful idea for storing books from Carissa over at 1+1+1=1.

This is the second book shelf, the

top shelf contains teachers guides, activity books, reading books, etc…

Part of the 2nd shelf, and the 3rd shelf down is for our older kids chapter books that are not part of a series or pertain to any of the subjects in the book boxes.

The rest of the shelf is for storing more of our themed books.

Our Ikea shelf has now been organized with more books.

Top Shelf
- Starting on the top shelf on the left is our Worndurful World of Disney encyclopedias,
- next over are our reference books, next cubby over is our USA books and a basket of USA puzzles and flash cards,
- the last cubby on the top is my binders with my Letter Of The Week Curriculum and Montessori Manuals.
The Second Shelf Down
- Starting at the left is our collection of Highlight Magazines on top is our Boxcar Children books,
- The next cubby over is our Sugar Creek Gang books, and our Junie B Jones books,
- Next cubby over is our Magic Tree House Books, and Now and Then Heroes books,
- The last cubby over has a binder with my Homeschool Binder and a basket of Beverly Cleary books.
The third shelf down
- Starting at the left side we have some of our country books, and a basket of Christmas chapter books (which gets changed out during the seasons)
- next to that is a basket of seasonal Board books that Gabe can take off whenever he wants to read books with us.
- the next basket contains seasonal books of whatever picture books are not upstairs for bedtime stories. As you can see this picture was taken at Christmas when we had some of our Christmas Picture books out.
- The last cubby contains a basket with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, and a photo album.
The bottom Shelf
- Most of the bottom contains our Encyclopedia set,
- the last cubby also contains a basket with all of our National Geographic magazines.

I am hoping that this will make the books easier to find for the kids and make things easier to find when they need to be put away. In front of the shelves on the floor, I have a basket with some coloring books in it the little boys like to pull these out during school and color.

The very top of the shelf is being used for a couple things, first off storage for all my little jars and containers of Sensory Bin items which the kids love to trash when left within reach, I also have a basket with a bunch of different types of glue, and a basket with birthday related items when its someones birthday!

This is the 1 shelf that is being kept in the room for Montessori materials, and a few other activities the little boys are working on. Back behind that shelf is our Calendar area and a desk for someone to work at.

Here is our calendar area, the 2 containers on the floor contain the numbers for the calendar and holiday cards.

The kids workboxes which I still need to put the velcro and labels onto, our All About Spelling magnet board, pencil sharpener on the wall, and our cork board on the right is where the kids can hang any of their art work, I also have a pocket chart on the cork board that I put any new words we studying for the day/week.

The empty spot on the wall is where our Ikea Table will go for Ethan’s desk, we have some Ikea containers above where his desk will be so he can store his crayons, scissors, etc close by.

The top 4 drawers in the black stand of drawers contains extra pencils, pens, erasers, stapler, hole puncher, etc. The bigger drawers on the bottom have our water table toys, play doh toys, and our Grammar Farm animals and cards. On top of the drawers we have a spot for the kids to put their done pages for me to grade, and behind that is our cabinet full of different themed math counters.

These shelves hold our extra crayons, glue, paintbrushes, notecards, etc.. So the things that are needed frequently are close by.

The table to the right is where a couple of the kids are able to work. Our paper, and a few misc things that are used frequently are on the desktop.

Now onto the new storage.

This is one of the set of shelves Jake built for me, this is in the closet in our new school room by the calendar area. You can see the top shelf is a little close to the light so I decided to keep my extra folders, page protectors, laminating pages, etc… up there.

The second shelf down has our books, teachers editions, extra paper & notebooks, our trays, a basket with crayons, HWOT Wooden letters and magnet pieces, and a couple containers with misc items in them and a few other items that are used regularly in our class.

The bottom shelf has some of our games, flash cards and a couple bins of items used pretty frequently.

The bottom is where all my books I need to put into their proper themed magazine box. Since this picture they have all been stored away into their proper magazine boxes.

The second set of shelves that Jake built for me is back in our laundry area, there is this shelf that is the smaller one. I have some of our different units stored in totes on these shelves, I also have kids toys to rotate, empty containers, extra yarn, and more. It has been wonderful to finally get most of the school stuff organized in different totes, and get them out of the school room.

This is the second shelf he built, this one is a lot bigger than the other shelf. I have 2 sizes of boys shoes all stored in a smaller tote. Winter boots and snow stuff are in the big totes on the top shelf, along with some trays, and misc items.

Misc school stuff is stored on the bigger shelves, extra trays, puzzles, themed storage, halloween costumes, and more.

The bottom shelves are storage for the misc boy clothes none of the boys are wearing, our DIY Light Table, and a few empty boxes Jake uses when he ships out computers.

Now that’s not everything, if you remember I had TONS of bins and tubs with supplies. Where did they go you ask? Remember when I mentioned “cold storage” in my new playroom/sensory Motor room post? Well cold storage is exactly where they went, and boy is this room packed with stuff, but it’s locked up when not in use, and has not been trashed once since we moved everything into there YEA!!!

Here are lots of small storage tubs, I put 1 thing in most of the bins and have added a few things in a couple of them. The big drawers are in here for now but I need to pull them out and finish taking all the themed items out and put them into their appropriate tubs on the new storage shelves in the other area. I am planning on using the drawers for the kids snacks, and one for gloves, hats and scarves that seem to always pile up on the back porch.

Here is one of the built in shelves, it holds our science tote, our sensory bin tubs, extra paint, and other misc supplies.

Here are my drawers that hold our misc recyclable materials for projects, and most of my misc Montessori practical life items. There are a few bigger things stored on top of the drawers also.

Here are some pictures of what is inside some of the small containers.

That was a look into our new schoolroom, and how we are storing our school items. We have had our school room this way since the beginning of December and it has been working great, so I’m pretty sure that until we get each of the kids their own school desks in the room it will stay like this.

What tips have been useful to you as homeschoolers in helping you arrange your school room? Leave a comment letting me know, if you have a link to your school room I would love to see it to!

Did you get a chance to see our new Playroom/Sensory Motor room yet? The kids love this new area, and so do I now that cleaning has been made so much easier for the kids!