Ack! Ok everyone, I’m just trying to keep it real here and show you what kind of disaster occurred to my beloved school room over the summer. The kids playing in here definitely took its toll and I was procrastinating even going in there!
But fear not, this is definitely the BEFORE picture!
And after several hours complete madness one evening…ahh, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. Everyone left me alone while I was working on this, I think they could sense the urgency. Here’s the AFTER picture:
Is it wrong that I don’t want to let my kids in here now?
I organized all of our manipulative containers in shelves along the back wall. I tried to put all the pre-k stuff on the pink shelves and then the math stuff and older kid’s manipulatives on the blue shelves.
The only dangerous thing here is that the Teeny Tot can easily get to all of this, but then it will also eliminate the climbing that was going on before, so…
The blue and white drawers contain puzzles, coloring supplies, blocks etc.
Here is my armoire it contains all my teacher supply stash. The white shelves next to it have some games and our Expedition Earth Geography supplies and books!
And here are our desks, they are on opposite walls, older kids on one side, smaller ones on the other. Wondering what the drawers are for? We use the Workbox System and LOVE it!
Click here to read more about Workboxes including workbox printables!
Where’d I get that?
- Workboxes: I got mine at JoAnn’s on sale for 50% off, that makes them about $30 ea. A reader just let me know that they are now at Sam’s club for $30/ea too!
- Student Desks: Purchased from a church school closing for $5 ea! I suggest you check Craig’s List for student desks list before paying full price!
- White Board: Purchased from a church school closing for $5 ea! I suggest you check Craig’s List for white boards before paying full price!
- Student Chairs: These were our play chairs from Pottery Barn, they were overpriced and I would not buy them again! Check Craig’s List again!
- Alphabet Tree: I purchased it from Lakeshore Learning, it was a bulletin display! You could probably make a cute palm tree from construction paper for free!
- Animal World Map: I purchased this from Costco for about $8
So that’s our room for the start of 2010-2011. Hopefully it stays all nice and pretty like this, but I’m not really holding my breath on that one.
What a great room! I love the keeping it real picture!
Great room, and great job on getting it all ready to go! Your "where did I get that?" sounds very similar to mine.http://homeschool-diva.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-homeschool-room.html
So jealous! I'm a organizing freak but I haven't had a chance yet to put together of school "area" yet. I have a 3 1/2 yr old preschooler (yea she is a firecracker!) a 18 month tot and a newborn. I'm a homeschool grad and love you letter of the week plan! We visit you blog almost daily!
Honestly, your before pictures were pretty tame compared to some of our messes…but your after pictures are definitely marvelous!! There's no feeling to compare with an organized room :o)Blessings from a fellow crew member~
Got distracted by the very nice wall organizer for your paint, craft material and ribbon spools…. Ok, back to look at the school stuff 🙂
Beautiful and organized! My two kids have desks IN MY LIVING ROOM. You can imagine how well this works. Wish we had a dedicated space.Just stumbled on your blog and I'm so glad to find you. Looking forward to reading more.
I did a post last week on our school room too. Isn't it nice to have it all clean and organized?!
LOVE the room makeover — and how organized it looks. So nice you were able to finish in one evening without all sorts of little helpers! I just purchased KidKraft Avalon style chairs from Walmart online, very similar to yours and have a 14" seat hight, in case other readers need a similar chair for their desks.
Hello,I was wondering what type of paint you used on these desks and how you went about painting them. I purchased a couple from a church for a lovely $10 each last night. I plan on homeschooling next year and stumbled upon your site! Your ideas are awesome and I cannot wait to purchase your Letter of the Week when I start putting together my curriculum!
Barb: I just used indoor/outdoor spray paint. I taped around the edges, then turned them upside down and painted away! I did it outside of course :o)