Where Do You Homeschool?

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No matter how long we've been homeschooling, we are curious about how other homeschoolers do things. And homeschoolers who are newer to the game obviously have lots of questions! This series will try to answers some of the questions homeschoolers ask each other. Questions about how we handle some of the little details and about our opinions on different aspects of homeschooling. Questions that we all might answer differently because what works great in one family might not work at all in another. 

Where do you do schoolwork? Do you have a schoolroom or desks, or do you work at the table? Together or independently?

For the last few years, with only high school students, my position has been that I don't care where they do their schoolwork, as long as it gets done!

But seriously, for us the location for working on school has changed a few times over the years. My kids do have desks - or did, when they were students - but didn't always use them. We did have a sort of schoolroom for awhile, but before and after that era we used the dining room table when working together.

Remember the years when there were always schoolbooks spread
out on the dining room table!?

When we started out with my oldest, we sat at the table and I did my best to keep the younger two occupied safely. A few years later we moved to the house we're in now, and I made room at the dining room table amidst the chaos of boxes that took far too long to unpack so we could do something kind of like school. Eventually we got settled in enough to make a spare room in the basement into a home office/schoolroom, and that was where we did the majority of our schoolwork for a couple of years. I loved that in many ways, because we didn't have to move our books and projects in order to set the table for dinner, and I could put maps and posters and artwork up on the walls. The stairwell became our timeline and gallery too. Each year we'd make a timeline on butcher paper that stretched the length of the stairwell, and add details to it through the year. And we displayed artwork as well.

Eventually it became necessary to make that schoolroom into a bedroom, so homeschool central moved back into the dining room. But by that time, the older two boys were old enough to be working on most of their schoolwork on their own. My oldest did a majority of his high school work lying on the sofa in the family room. The second sat at the desk in his bedroom. As the younger two transitioned from doing school under my supervision in the dining room to doing it on their own, they found their preferred spots as well. The third son split his school time between his desk and his bed, as I remember. My daughter did her reading while lying in bed and most other things sitting on the floor in her room. Her desk occasionally was used for writing. Even now, the desk is more for storage and for working on art than for any schoolwork.

Desk in the boys' room a few years ago - on one of the days it
happened to be neat.

Desk in the girl's room - a few years ago before all the art supplies
piled up on it.

Sitting on the floor in her room, using a footstool as a desk.
(This was in 7th or 8th grade)

My policy on it could be summed up as 'prove that it works'. You want to lie on the sofa or in bed to study? That's fine, as long as you are proving that you understand the material.

Seventh grade or so - lying on the sofa to read.

I tried to avoid having my kids sit in front of a computer monitor for any longer than necessary while doing school. Each of them has done at least some internet-based curriculum, and they have also used the computer for research and for typing papers and that sort of thing, but I did not want them doing all - or even a majority - of their subjects while staring at a screen.

Sitting at MY messy desk to work on internet-based math curriculum.

There were always a few projects we could do outside, or in the family room. Read-alouds while curled up on a sofa beside the fireplace. Field trips and co-op classes. Sometimes I'd have the kids take schoolbooks along in the car, but that never worked out very well for us.

Classical Astronomy class often took place outdoors, because we
were observing the skies!

More Classical Astronomy - a project we had to do in the family room.

Each of my students has found their own comfortable place, where they can limit the things that distract them, and where they feel they can concentrate. It might not look comfortable to me, and it often doesn't look very traditional, but as long as they got the work done, I was okay with it!

Where do you homeschool? Leave a comment and let me know what works for you - or leave a homeschool question you're curious about.

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