Like almost everyone else, our school year is off to a vastly different start than what we could have ever expected. We opted to enroll the kids in our district’s virtual school option for the year. Before we came to that decision, we thoroughly researched homeschooling and considered what it would look like to send them back in person (if that were even an option). After a lot of discussion between Corey and I, with the kids, with my mom who is a teacher, and a lot a prayer, we decided that in order to provide a sense of predictability and still give the kids a chance to at least see other kids, enrolling in the virtual school was the best option for us.
Once we decided the kids would be at home for the year, we knew the first room we needed to tackle in this new house was the “flex room”. This is the first room in our house, right off the front door. When we first moved in, this was going to be the craft room. For a while we had a desk set up as a sewing table, our old kitchen island as a cutting table, and a wardrobe full of fabric and craft supplies. That was back when we thought two of the three kids would be in school five days a week and I would actually have time to use a sewing machine. Instead of a room that would be fully utilized on very few occasions, we thought the best use of this space was to turn it into an office/virtual school room/future homework room.
We started by building an almost floating desk. The desk wall is over ten feet long, so a true floating desk didn’t seem quite sturdy enough. So we added a couple of brackets underneath that are almost invisible. We also added three shelves to hold school supplies. The shelves are simply 1×12 pine boards that we stained and attached with black metal brackets.
We added three chairs that we already had in various places around our house. One for Cullen, one for Colette, and one for me in the middle to facilitate their lessons as needed. Corinne jumps in my seat sometimes and will use it more as she gets older. At each work station, we added some utensil baskets to hold supplies. There are a couple of cork boards to hold daily schedules and login information to help our school days run as smoothly as possible.
Along with baskets to hide supplies, we filled the shelves with plants, books (new and old), and a few vintage finds from @chelseamohrman.
On the other side of the room, we have a chair and side table for circle time and reading. A whiteboard turned calendar gives us space for calendar math, and has room to write down the important to-dos for the week. I brought in the IKEA easel from the playroom. Corinne loves to draw on it while the older two are in lessons and it gives us a large place for them to practice writing and work on other new skills without going through a ton of paper.
We also moved in the bookshelf full of kids books and the kids table for Corinne to play at. We added a clock with a school room feel and brought in some of our educational toys for some hands-on learning. Since so much of their day will be spent looking at an iPad, I tried to provide as many other screen-free learning tools as possible to reinforce their lessons and make learning fun.
We are only a little over a week into the school year, so I am sure that things will get changed around a little as we fine tune our school day needs. But so far, having this dedicated school space has been amazing. Even when are done with school for the day, they have been coming in here to read and play school.
I am beyond grateful that we had the option and ability to make this choice for our family. And I know we could have just as easily done virtual learning at the kitchen table like we did last spring. But it feels so good to give this room a purpose. I want every room in our home to be fully used and fully loved.
