A Little Homeschooling Snippet

I've been meaning to post about our homeschooling for some time--partly as a way of reminding myself what we've done, how far we've come (hopefully), what has changed over time, or what I discovered once and might have forgotten. But between my wordiness and interest in all manner of philosophy and practice of education--and the varied things we actually do--a "homeschooling post" seems overwhelming. So I never sit down and type one out.

But I intend to change that by doing shorter posts--just snippets of what homeschooling is like in our house right now. Hopefully these posts will add up to a more complete picture and record of what we've done once a year is through.

This first one is about logistics: how does one manage and contain home schooling supplies in a small house without a dedicated school room?

In other words, how do we combine bibliophilia + small house + four children + a tendency towards disorganization + lack of time without degenerating into complete mess, crazy, and chaos? Ha, I don't really have an answer to that.

But I'm making small steps of progress in organization, and I'm pleased with how our homeschooling cart is helping in this endeavor. For now, it's a great solution. It's just a small, wheeled, metal cart from Ikea:

I pull this cart into the dining room at breakfast time so we're ready to go for our morning time routine when everyone finishes eating. After memory work and Bible story, I pull from the cart our calendar, book of nursery rhymes, poetry book, Aesop, Explode the Code, and flower or bird flashcards (depending on how far we get in morning time before Clara needs Mama time!).

Later I push the cart back into the computer/Lego/Clara room, and Josiah and I often work for a bit together there--perhaps on math or reading/phonics while the girls play elsewhere. It's also easy to access the current literature and history if I load them onto the cart, and then I switch them out when we're done with one book and replace it with a new one from our bookshelves. I like that the big kids can push the cart themselves and so fetch or return it for me, too. (Unfortunately, they are tempted to ride on it!)

It doesn't seem like it should be a big deal to take a few extra steps to fetch things from another room in this small house, but having everything I need on the cart within reach has really helped our school mornings run more smoothly.