Children of The Church: Our Homeschool Room Tour

I gave a tour of our homeschool room last year, but a few things have changed since then so I thought I would give a quick update!

We are blessed to have turned our basement into our school and playroom. We have learned that we definitely do not do all of our learning in our basement (sometimes we are outside, at the kitchen table, etc) but we love having such a great space to store everything and have a fun time learning!

Reading Nook

When you first come downstairs we have a reading nook with our big comfy chair and also all of our chapter books that we have been starting to collect for read aloud time. We are thankful to have received a lot of the great classics from my parents that were my books growing up like the entire Boxcar Children series, Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, plus a lot of extras like Charlotte's Web, The Hobbit, and more. We also have recently started collecting the Magic Tree House series that our oldest son is starting to read. Also in this area we have a Busy Block and our big Wooden Blocks in a basket for our 2 year old to play with while we are reading in this area.

Mom's Desk and Organizational Area

Across from that we have a desk and organizational bins set up for me to use. I have our busy bags and laminated theme packs in these bins along with extra paper and supplies. This is also were our computer is if we are doing any computerized activities together.

Storage for Puzzles, Games, Musical Instruments

and Learning Toys

Next to our reading nook we use our old TV cabinet to store all of our puzzles, games, musical instruments and learning toys! We have them all labeled and in bins to help it make it really easy to clean up and move to the next activity!

Some of our favorites are our Talking GeoSafari Globe Jr., Melissa and Doug Abacus, Melissa and Doug Floor Puzzles, Grimm's Rainbow Stacker, Melissa and Doug Lacking Sneaker, Melissa and Doug Stack and Sort Counter, and games like High Ho Cherry O, Chutes and Ladders and more!

Schedule and Curriculum Storage

Continuing down the room we have a bookshelf with all of our current educational books that we are using from Seton, CHC, Making Music Praying Twice, Catholic Mosaic, etc. It is great to have all of these books together for when we want easy access! Also, down in the red bin at the bottom we have all of our flashcards that we use for Numbers, Letters, Addition, Subtraction, States, Presidents, etc.

You can read more about our Curriculum Choices HERE!

On top of the wall shelf we have a magnetic white board where I made and laminated different activities that we do throughout our day (brush teeth, prayers, eating meals, play time, school time, bath, bedtime, etc). I love that it is laminated separately because then our children have a visual picture of our day that we can move and rotate around when our schedule changes!

Learning/Study Area

We have added and changed this area a little bit this year with the biggest change being the addition of my sister's and my old school desks. These desks were actually my fathers when he was a child and then my sister and I played with them all of the time when we grew up! It is so much fun to be able to add them to our learning space. Our boys still really like doing a lot of activities at the table together, but I like having the individualized space as they get older. Plus they are the perfect height for little ones to work on proper penmanship!

We also recently put in new French Doors in our walk out basement which let in a lot more natural light into the room which we love! The fun United States rug we found this year at Costco!

Printer and Supplies

We store our printer and other supplies in my husband's old computer armoire. I keep it locked with a baby lock so little hands are not getting in there when they shouldn't be! We also have our Lego's stored above this station so that they are easily accessed but not available for our little ones. We also have our Melissa and Doug Easel and our ABC Saints Poster in this area!

Art Storage and Puzzles

I love that we have a tiny "wet bar" or sink in our basement space because it has been wonderful for doing crafts and art projects. All of our paint, playdough and art supplies are stored under the sink and it is so great to have a dedicated space to rinse off paint brushes, etc.

On this bookshelf we keep all of our Before Five in a Row, BOB Books and leisure board book reading. We also keep all of our Melissa and Doug puzzles on a fun wire rack for easy storage. On the bottom two shelves we have chunky puzzles and activities for our 2 year old that he can easily reach and access on his own!

We also do have couches and a small TV in our basement where we can watch learning movies or cuddle up all together for Read Alouds! Our favorite videos lately have been CCC's Saints, Leap Frog Videos, Magic School House and Liberty's Kids.

Playroom

In our basement we have an extra bedroom past the TV area. I enjoy having this separate area with our toys set up where we can shut the door if we are focusing on school time or our little ones can play in their and still be close enough to hear if I am working with older kids. We continue to try to go through our toys to keep what is the best quality and most promotes independent and learning play. Some of our boys favorites are wooden trains, our Melissa and Doug wooden castle, Wooden Kitchen Center, Lego Table, and our Little Tykes Trampoline. We also have a small plastic desk by Step 2 in this area that is great for the little ones to use and not worry about it getting crayon or paint all over it!

We also have our over the door shoe holder in this room with the alphabet letters in it which is an activity with Seton Pre-K. It is still one of our kids favorite games to go around the house and find items and figure out which letter they start with! I always find fun objects in the holders!

Fun Art and Decorations

Finally we have added some fun art and decorations through out our room to keep it fun and enjoyable for us to spend our time in! We made a simple Behavior Chart that we use throughout our day as well. We have each of our names on clothes pins that move up and down throughout the day as a visual to see how everyone is doing! We also like to display some of the fun art projects that we do throughout the year!