From photo studio to school room
Throughout the spring and summer, as it was becoming more obvious that the pandemic wasn't going anywhere, it seemed like every week a little more of my photo studio would end up in storage, and more crafts, games, and puzzles would end up in my studio. When we decided that Nora and Conall would be homeschool learning for the entirety of the upcoming school year, we decided to shut down the studio for the year and really do a classroom overhaul.
First, anything that had to do with Baby Bear - lighting, props, baskets, etc. - was put into rubbermaid bins and placed downstairs on shelves. With an empty room, I painted it bright white. I wanted paintings and pictures to be the showcase of the room, so I didn't want a flashy wall color to detract from that.
Hooray for organization!
Next up was shelving. I didn't have a huge budget, but we know we would be saving money that we would have been spending in Conall's monthly tuition payments. I purchased various shelving units from Ikea that, when set up next to each other, looked like built in shelving. As you can see, I had no issues filling them up!
All the things
As you can see above, I wanted all our school supplies to be visible and accessible for the kids. All drawing/writing utensils were put in jars and placed within reach. Puzzles and alphabet blocks and sticker books were able to be easily retrieved. Each child's coloring books were put in a labeled file folder. Clips, beads, and counter tokens were all in jars at their height. I also set up two different tables - a small dining room table that I could keep my plans on and work at, and a small child size table and chairs that the kids could sit or stand at while doing worksheets and crafts.
My favorite part of the classroom, which was appropriately put in the middle of the wall, was the gigantic chalkboard that came from my grandfather's time while working as a master machinist - this thing is probably 70 years old!
I purchased a few wire picture hangers from Ikea - I use one to hang art projects, and the other I have hung all different kinds of fact sheets - weather, shapes, etc.
Something that I hadn't thought about until I started filling my shelves was that I need a space for MY stuff - you know, teaching supplies and worksheets. I bought a little three-drawer organizer so that I could quickly grab any kind of cardstock/construction paper we needed for a craft.
My main goal in setting up this classroom was to make a designated space that, when you entered, was obvious that you were going to learn and have fun!