Our Learning Space...Take 2!

I blame Tracey Mansted and her Mansted Family Project and Stephanie at Ordinary Life Magic entirely! If they didn't have such a cosy, enticing, beautiful, thoughtful, colour-coordinated, organised homeschool rooms, I would have been quite happy in my messy dining room. 

Well, except I wasn't - not totally. It is frustrating not having anywhere to eat your dinner and also having the dining room so cluttered. We do have a "rumpus" room as you enter the house - which was highly under-utilised (not to mention messy)...

The "before" shot

So, theygot me thinking...maybe with a bit of decluttering and moving stuff around and resourcefulness, I too could have my very own enticing homeschool room! So, I left the children to their own devices gave the kids heaps of puzzles, Minecraft and documentaries to watch (with explicit instructions to bring me food and drink on demand - that's home science, isn't it?) and got busy.

As with all good moves, it looks worse (if that's possible) before it looks better...

But we now have a new, improved learning space!!!

The "after" shot!

New (old) workdesk - resurrected from the garage, new legs.

Already moved the printer, added our current workbooks,
 put up some visual cues (visual times tables, exposition essay planner)

We have multiple office chairs floating around and at a stretch, three of us should fit in there for "group work". We Hubby is going to put up a shelf (hopefully this weekend??) above the desk so that all the office supplies can get off the desk.

Inspired by Tracey - I sorted out all our coloured pencils, gel pens and textas - pretty!

TV (PS2, Wii etc), Reading bookcase, scrapbook supplies

Our "reading nook" (which doubles as the dog's bed)
complete with comfy cushions from Nanna!

Wombat Girl got out the matching quilt and now Max is the most spoilt dog!

Makes me want to read...or enrol in another degree...

Reference, English and Maths books

Science anyone? (and there are more further down)

Puzzles and logic!

Assorted Geography, History, Art, Dance etc

Non-fiction books (mostly gifted, homeschooling etc) and science equipment
(am going today to the Warehouse to get some more plastic containers)

Wombat Girl's keyboard and art supply cupboard (also where the printer now resides)

...also my Twilight corner :-)

My sister-in-law gave us this for Christmas...
now I have the perfect spot to hang the dog lead
(plus Halti collar) - walkies anyone?

I spent a huge amount of time sorting, throwing, arranging the massive amount of paper/books/crap I've collected over the years. Three degrees (Science, Teaching, Gifted) plus five years teaching earns you a lot of crap paper, but do I really need it in our homeschooling room?

I feel really good about our space. We have room to spread out, cuddle up, read, write, type and play. I'm hopefuly we will actually use a lot more of the resources I've hoarded collected over the years. I'm hopeful we will get a bit more done. I'm hopeful I don't blow our credit card limit the week after next when I visit Sydney and Ikea....

We of course will still use the dining table at times (old habits are hard to break) and all of our other wonderful learning spots around the house and the community, but it's such a good feeling to be decluttered and organised (at least for a while).

So, thank you Tracey, Stephanie and also the Aussie Homeschool Bloghop for inspiring me to sort our mess out. It has some tweaking (you know I'll share!), but I'm pretty happy with it :-) Now if you will excuse me, I just have to go clean up the dining room...