Homeschool Room Tour and Setup Ideas [Video]
September 11, 2024 • Treehouse Schoolhouse
We moved into our new home earlier this year and one of my dreams has come to life – a fully dedicated homeschool room. Over the years I have homeschooled in small spaces, doing lessons at our kitchen table, and storing our homeschool supplies around the house wherever we can tuck them away.
I am so excited to share a tour of our homeschool room with you, including how I set it up and how the space functions. I hope this tour of our homeschool space gives you ideas and inspiration for how to setup and organize your school area.
Related: Homeschooling Setup and Organization for Small Spaces
In this blog post:
- Homeschool room tour [Video]
- Bulletin board display and daily storage cabinet
- Built-in cabinets and closet storage
- Display wall
Homeschool room tour [Video]
In our new home, we are so grateful to have a homeschool area set up in the heart of our home. Our homeschool room is off the main entryway, with access to the kitchen, living room, and outdoors.
Many of the items in my homeschool space were sourced from Facebook Marketplace, from antique stores, or were custom-built by my husband. I have included links to items in my homeschool space (or similar) below.
At the center of our homeschool room is a school table with enough chairs for me and my children. This is where we come together for Morning Time or our daily lessons. I found the table in our homeschool room from Facebook Marketplace for $5.00 and we love it! See the rest of the details in the walkthrough of our homeschool room in the video below:
If you’re curious, here are some design choices we made when building our homeschool room:
- Wallpaper: Forest Friends from Wallpaper Direct
- Trim and door paint color: Benjamin Moore Vintage Vogue
- Wall color: Sherwin Williams Greek Villa
- Cabinets color: Benjamin Moore Baby Fawn
Bulletin board display and daily storage cabinet
I love using a large bulletin board as a landing place when we are in the middle of a project. This is a place where we can set aside our projects, like our weekly notebooking pages, and easily access them when we are ready to get to work.
Related: Notebooking in Your Homeschool: Why and How?
I also have a cabinet where I keep a bin for each of my older children. These bins host everything they use for their independent work. This includes their pencil boxes, headphones, laptops, computer chargers, grammar workbooks, and current reads from Mom’s Library. I like to keep everything in a lightweight, portable bin so that when it’s time for their independent work, they can grab their bin and go outside or wherever they want to sit to work on their studies. I also like having a magazine holder to keep their workbooks from getting bent or damaged.
Related: Favorite Homeschool Curriculum for 4th Grade and Favorite Homeschool Curriculum Choices for 6th Grade
In this area, I also keep go-to items like dry-erase markers for our weekly chore charts, and our Bluetooth speaker for playing music or audiobooks. I also have a sign where I display our daily rhythm cards. They are attached with velcro strips so we can easily move them around as our days shift.
Built-ins and closet storage
My husband recently completed built-in cabinets for our homeschool space and I could not be more excited. This is where I store our curriculum, reference books, school books, learning tools for my younger children, and so much more!
Admittedly, I am not a naturally organized person. This is an area that I work hard to maintain in a clean and organized way so that I can easily find what we need as we homeschool. I like using a label maker to designate a space for everything we use and help keep me on track.
Here are some categories of things I keep in our built-in cabinets:
Early reading books and activities
I have a shelf where I keep the early reading books for my 6-year-old son. Some of my favorites are Explode the Code, early readers from Dash into Learning, and the Wonder of Nature Early Years Alphabet Cards.
I also keep hands-on tools like a Montessori movable alphabet, sight word flashcards, word family flashcards, and these wooden letter builders from Handwriting Without Tears.
Related: Homeschool Kindergarten Daily Rhythm, Favorite Homeschool Curriculum Choices for 1st Grade, Hands-On Alphabet Recognition and Formation Activities
Daily items and reference books
Each morning we all start our day sitting at the table for Morning Time. During this time we connect over a read-aloud, nature study, or other learning activity we can explore as a family. During this time I always read for our Morning Time Menus, which I use with dry-erase markers and a restaurant menu cover.
Related: Our Homeschool Morning Time
I also like to keep dictionaries on hand so my children can look up the meanings of words as we study, and my picks for “Mom’s Library.” “Mom’s Library” is a rotating collection of books I set up for my older children that they can choose from for their independent reading.
Related: Best Sources for Preschool & Elementary Living Book Lists
In our cabinet, I also have a shelf for all of our Bible study items. Each of my children has a Bible they read from and a 3-ring binder where I keep their Bible notebooking pages from Rooted Family Bible Curriculum or other Bible studies we work through.
I keep a section of supplies we use for Mail Monday, a practice we do each week. I keep these supplies in a large caddy, including pens, wax and a wax seal, stationery, and letters my children have received.
Related: Mail Monday: Language Arts through Penpalling
Mama area and lesson prep supplies
Much of our storage is dedicated to items I use to prepare our homeschool lessons. This includes office supplies like paper clips, push pins, my laptop, a 3-hole punch, paper cutter, clipboards, and other office supplies. I also have my computer printer tucked away for printing worksheets and curriculum. I also store other supplies like glue, printer paper, card stock, watercolor paper for notebooking, and more.
On display, I have a world globe and our most used items – pencils and thin Sharpie markers. I also keep my “Mama Book Basket,” which holds my homeschool planner, teacher’s guides, and read-aloud selections from Treehouse Book Club.
On my bookshelf, I also have books we use regularly, like Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman, and the Smithsonian Natural History book.
Related: Homeschool Planning 101
I also have a notebooking basket where I store everything we use for notebooking. This includes lined stencils, sketching pencils, paint brushes, rulers, watercolor paint, paint palettes, and 8.5 x 11 watercolor paper. I like simply pulling out a basket when we are ready to work on our notebooking pages which has all the items we use in one place.
I like keeping colored pencils in a silverware organizer, and I use decorative baskets I buy second-hand for all sorts of things.
Related: Homeschooling Supplies List by Subject
Storage closet
I keep a lot of items tucked away in my storage closet. Many of these items are organized in storage bins, and some are stored on lower shelves so my children can choose what they want and pull it out independently.
In the bins my younger children can reach, I have items like stacker toys, Brain Flakes, and pattern blocks. These are things my youngest daughter will reach for when her siblings are doing their schoolwork, or while we are having read-aloud time. She knows to get out just one bin at a time and put the bin back in place when she is ready for something new.
She also enjoys activities like magnetic puzzles, counting bears, Plus Plus toys, Water Wow! (we use water and a paintbrush instead of the pens), foam alphabet, letter writing puzzles, addition and subtraction puzzles, magnetic cars board, and her busy book. Sometimes I rotate these items out so she has new activities every so often as we do school. As some of these items are bigger, I love being able to tuck them away in the closet, out of sight, when we aren’t using them.
Related: 40+ Ideas to Engage Children During Read Alouds
On the higher shelves (and out of reach) I keep other tactile items my children love, but are more involved. This includes trays for Play-Doh, polymer clay, wax sticks, Kinetic Sand, and foam geography puzzles. I also keep bins for their projects and handcrafts they are working on, like a crochet kit, their lapbooks, and other drawing and coloring materials.
Related: The Best Handcrafts for Kids (+ Tips to Teach Them)
Display wall
Finally, a big part of our homeschool room is dedicated to a display wall where we have a Samsung Frame TV we use almost every day! We use it to pull up drawing tutorials on YouTube or other videos that add value to our homeschool lessons. We also have open bookshelves for displaying picture books and other items, and another shelf where we can pin up notebooking pages we are working on or display sheets from our curriculum.
Related: How We Use Technology in Our Homeschool
Just as a reminder, I believe you do not need a beautifully decorated space to have an efficient homeschool day. I have homeschooled in many small spaces over the years (including an RV!). My homeschool space is mostly a space to store everything, and I wanted to share in hopes that you find some inspiration for your homeschool. Let me know any questions in the comments below.
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