www.TheOldSchoolhouse.com
Making a place to keep books has been
especially important to me. We use a
Charlotte Mason/unit study type of cur-
riculum. My Father’s World has been one
of our main curriculum choices for sev-
eral years, but we’re pretty eclectic, and
I add in things here and there to fit the
kids’ learning styles and interests. All of
our learning is very literature based, so
I make a point of collecting good books.
I also don’t like to get rid of books. So
if we’ve stumbled on to a good book
through the suggestion of some curricu-
lum material, I won’t get rid of it after we
use it. Instead, I’ll add it to our library.
Shelves are in every available space
throughout the house, not just in the
schoolroom, but the schoolroom holds
my largest set of shelves.
I’ve never liked clutter. I like clean,
open spaces. But I’ve had to accept the
fact that our schoolroom, like the rest of
the house is going to be cluttered. We have
six people living in a small space, and we
are going to have things sitting around,
Besides my bookshelves, other shelves
make for good storage space in other ar-
eas of the schoolroom as well. We have
shelves for games, for hands-on manipu-
latives, for puzzles, and for each child to
store school books. Good shelving helps
us to make the most of our space by pro-
viding a way to store a number of things
in one place.
Plastic bins and boxes are another im-
portant part of making the most of our
space. The younger girls keep books they
are currently using in boxes under their
work table. Boxes can be easily moved
to get them out of the way or to carry to
another part of the house to do work. I
keep the current books we’re using for
our curriculum in a box as well. This way
I have easy access to them and can move
the box as needed.
Although our schoolroom is small and
is used for much more than just school
work, we’ve made a place where we can
enjoy working. And we’ve learned to
make the most of our small spaces.
Leah Courtney is a homeschooling mom of
four. Her days are filled with being a mom,
homemaker, and teacher. In her (very
rare) free time, she enjoys blogging, reading, and reviewing books and curricula.
These days she’s learning the joys of being
a mom of teens. You can read about her
family and homeschooling life at As We
Walk Along the Road.
One thing I’ve allowed for is my younger girls to have some
play spaces in the schoolroom.
