A Warm and Cozy Place, Episode 1

We are a bit like goldfish, my husband and I.  Back in 2006, due to a flurry of family emergencies, we were in a hurry to find a new home for our family.  I remember looking around our present home, just one of many we had checked out that particular day, and thinking, "this place is so huge!  There's no way it could be ours."  Fast forward five and a half years and three kids later and no, it doesn't feel like that anymore.  Neither does my van that seemed so spacious when we purchased it around the same time.  You could faintly make out an echo when we hollered back to a little Coop.

So we've grown and grown and grown.  There's no "new" space in the house.  No place that has not been conquered by someone and all their... stuff. 

Except one.  It looks like this:

We've called it 'The Classroom' for the past two years.  Before that, it was the 'Massage Room' and no, it didn't really resemble that either.  But I am bound and determined that it WILL actually be a 'classroom' by August 1st.

When I first began this crazy homeschool journey, I began Googling and researching 'home classrooms'.  Yes, because I am a nerd.  ...But also because I really don't have any design smarts.  Whatsoever.  My design plans usually include a lot of sporadic 'throw-that-over-here' and 'doesn't-that-look-purty'.  Anyhoo... the Googling was really interesting and made me begin dreaming of huge decorated bulletin boards, maps, posters and cute little desks all in a row.  Then, I ran into articles AGAINST  making a homeschool classroom in your home.  Shtuff I hadn't thought of.  The line of thinking was this...  if you're going to take your kid out of the public school environment... the 'sit-down-shut-up' environment... then why would you sit them in a desk for hours in your home?  So my brain scrambled itself for a while and continued to just throw junk in the junk room.  We 'do' school everywhere in our house...  the couch, our bed, homemade tents, our back porch, a whole bunch of it at the dining room table and we've really enjoyed it.  But in our goldfish way, we've spread out and gotten noisier.  A LOT noisier.  When the Coop is trying to learn phonics rules or complete math problems, it's just too much.  Here's my new theory then...  time for a classroom for quiet time and the rest of the house for... the rest of it. 

 

Over the next few weeks we're going to try to transform this pig sty into a warm and cozy place to read and be 'alone'.  As alone as possible anyway...  (I don't get to pee by myself, let alone read so I may have to use the space myself!)  With the Coop getting older (2nd grade) I will need an area that he can retreat to after I've given him his initial lessons. I do believe the Z will need more of my time too as he is wanting to learn everything under the sun and has nearly conquered his letters and their sounds.  Oh, yeah... and I'm going to pop another baby out in September... anything I can do to promote a little quiet in this hizzy is going to come in handy!








Now if you're here with a big interest in homeschool classrooms, I've Pinterest-ed (yeah, I made that a verb) some classroom decor I've liked.  Feel free to check 'em out.  There isn't a bunch there... and most of it's just dreaming, but I'll keep pinning!  I'll also post how we're gettin' along on our journey every so often so you can be jealous, jealous, jealous of my new space!  (or rather, hold me accountable...)