Good morning friends! It’s not unusual for my husband to come home to find our home rearranged, and today was no exception! I like to switch things up, give things a fresh new look, and clean out the accumulation of clutter that seems to infiltrate my homeschool room.
So after school the other day, we decided to do just that, and we tackled our homeschool room. It was starting to feel cramped and cluttered, and after the holidays I think everything just needs to get a good cleaning.
We started by pulling cleaning off all of our shelves, then decided to move our furniture around to give it a new feel as well as hopefully give us some more space.
Here’s a video tour of the new setup, I hope you enjoy it!
Below you can see our school desk setup. I have a whole post on our Ikea desk units you can check out. They discontinued the table tops I purchased, but they replaced them with the Linnmon Table Tops, white.
For my feathered friend lovers out there, here’s a closeup of our sweet budgies. Remi and Kiwi are doing well, and loving their new home! They still keep us company while we’re working, and like to fly around the room as well as play on top of their cage while we do school.
We leave their cage open all day so they have the freedom to roam around. But they mainly stay in the school room with the exception of a few random house tours every now and again.
And here’s an overview of the new setup. We’re loving the new space and I’m hoping that it’ll stay nice and organized for the remainder of our school year!
As promised, here are some links to the products mentioned in this video:
- Desktop Supply Carousel
- Ikea Kallax storage units
- Lakeshore Create-A-Story Tabletop Paper Center
- Chicka Boom Tree
- Polka Dot Manuscript Alphabet
- Polka Dog Cursive Alphabet
- Reading Bench Tutorial
- Reading Incentives Chart
- Geography Terms Poster
- Ikea School Desks
- Our School Room ala Ikea
- 1-100 Number Chart
- Days of the Week
- Months of the Year
- Calendar Time
- X-Acto Sharpener
- USA Wall Poster (Sorry, I couldn’t find the exact one, but we like this one too.)
- World Wall Poster (Sorry, I couldn’t find the exact one)
- 8×8 Clear Project Cases
I hope you enjoyed the new tour, and I’ll see you tomorrow!
We tried having the desks clustered to create more space, but my kids totally couldn’t focus with their buddies so close. How do you make the combined desks work for your children?
Hi Lauren,
I’m not sure, I guess they’re just used to it. The Ikea desks are large enough that they’re not running into other peoples spaces at all.
Your room is so clean! What do you do with your school books from prior years? Also, where are all of the books for reading? My school room is overloaded with books for the kids- picture books, literature, reference books, etc. I’d love to have a simplified room, but don’t know where to start!
Hi Jennifer, I only keep our current books in our HS room just to keep it as clutter free as possible. I still have too much in there LOL! Here’s a post on where I put the rest:
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2013/02/homeschool-storage-solutions-long-term.html
I love Ikea and I love your setup. We live in a tiny house with four kiddos, and I just couldn’t take doing school here another year. We were cramed in a nasty basement… My parents live close and are cleaning out a bedroom for us to school. I needed all of the kids to be within arms reach of me. It’s wastes time for them to be getting up and coming to me or me to them all the time to check their progress. I’m praying for the LORD’S provision to buy the workstation you put together. It would solve so many problems.
I had a question. Now that you’ve had the set for a while, could you tell me how the chairs hold up? Have you had any problems with them falling apart or the wheels gliding on the carpet or the nuts loosening from the seat? Do you find any disadvantages to this setup?
Blessings!
Hi Jessica,
The chairs are holding up fine, they do have some areas where the paint has chipped off from my kids turning them into the desks. But otherwise they’re still working fine and I’m happy with my purchase!
Wonderful,thanks so much!
Hi There!
Could you please tell me what you use to hang your posters on the wall? Thanks 🙂 🙂
This will be our first year homeschooling and I love the idea of the large shared workspace. My husband feels strongly that they need individual desks. I’m curious if you could split this set up into two separate workspaces if we discovered it didn’t work well? Also, how is the table top holding up? I’m very exctied to have found your site!!
Love the inspiration I get from seeing your room. For those moms looking for a carousel thing, I’ve recently seen a lot this past August (2015) at the Homegoods store (a brand of the TJ Maxx/Marshalls chain). They had pink, white, navy, some with print, some without for about $13.
I set up my school room similar based on your design so thank you, thank you. I have a question. How do you keep the desks together. Our tops slide all over the place and the draw unit is constantly getting out of place. Thanks!
I put flat metal brackets on the bottom. So they screw into both underneath sides of the desk units to hold them in place. If you use 3, one on each end and one in the middle they stay together well.
So I am beginning my homeschooling adventures this coming Fall with twin girls who will be in kindergarten. I was curious if the swivel chairs have been a problem with your kids at a young age? Is it distracting for them or too big for them to use? My girls are not small for their age but just curious if the movement is a problem for them. Thanks.
Hi Julie, I thought they would be an issue, but they haven’t really. The first day people were swiveling around, but they lost interest after about 5 minutes 🙂 The only issue I have with them now is that they often get up and their seats swirl into the desk. So the desks are fine, but the seat backs have some scuffing from hitting the desks.
Hi I like the November calendar where your daughter adds the date and wonder if you have a link where you got it ? Thanks.
Hi Erica! We are veteran homeschooler and just moved into a new home a year ago, we didn’t “plan” a homeschool room, but now my “littles” are in 1st grade and K and I wished I would have. My middles have been working in their rooms now for quite some time. Just for reference we have 7 all together, we call them the bigs, the middles, and the littles, lol! So one of my bigs will be flying the nest this summer and we hope to use her room as a school room. I do have a question leading up to all of this…as far as your desk set up goes, is the opening for the chairs large enough? Do your kids find it kind of confining? Just wish it could be organized with about 6 more inches added into either direction. Thanks for listening! Awesome room by the way!
Yes, I have the Jr. chairs and they fit fine with the drawer units set up like that.