Look! We're Learning!

Early Learning. Happy Teaching.

  • Shop
  • Printables
  • Homeschool
  • Crafts
  • Parenting
  • Blog

Homeschooling In a Small Space

September 11, 2017 by Selena Robinson 10 Comments

Sharing is caring!

176 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

We’re a family of six. We live in a 1600-square foot house (and that’s including the garage).

One of the major issues that homeschooling families face is finding the space to store their school supplies and we’re no strangers to that problem. As much as I would like to have a dedicated school room, we just don’t have the space or the money to have one. So, like many of you, we just have to make do with what we have.

If you’re strapped for storage room, take a look at how we practice homeschooling in a small space!

It is possible to homeschool multiple children in a small space! See how we make our small homeschool space work!

Homeschooling In a Small Space

Since our home is packed to capacity (two of us to each bedroom), we don’t have a spare room that we can convert into a “homeschool room”. I’d love to have one, but it’s probably not in the cards any time soon. So, we tend to keep our homeschooling supplies in a few strategic places around the home.

But – a note of caution: It’s really easy to just stash homeschool stuff all over the place. Seeing all that clutter around makes it hard for me to concentrate, though, so I tend to just avoid using the materials at all.

And that’s how I ended up with homeschool “storage zones”.

Homeschooling in a Small Space

Our dining room does double duty and serves as our school room most of the time. We have a bookcase on one short wall where we keep the items we use the most. Our anchor charts and educational posters get stored behind the bookcase.

Using a Small Homeschool Space

At the top, I keep our school printer, the kids’ microscope, a pencil sharpener, and a three-hole punch. Anything more and it turns into a drop zone for everything we have.

Storing Tech Homeschool Supplies in a Small Space

On the shelves below, we keep our homeschool materials according to grade level. Our two oldest children are using K12 this year, so we keep their computers and science supplies on the top shelf.

Storing Multiple Grade Level Resources Together for Homeschool

My two youngest children are still being taught exclusively by Mom, so their books and materials are on the shelves below. My third/fourth-grader’s books are on the left and the basket on the right holds the workbooks and printables for my kindergartner.

Storing K12 School Materials in a Small Space

The bottom shelf is used for the textbooks that were sent to us for use with our K12 students. As you can see, they sent us quite a bit. I try to keep it separated by grade level, but it’s a constant work in progress.

Using a Small Chalkboard for Homeschooling

On the full wall of our dining room, we keep a small chalkboard and a space for our educational charts and posters. I rotate that out, depending on what we’re studying at the moment. Right now, my youngest son is working on identifying the states, so that’s the chart we’re displaying.

Storing Homeschool Books in a Sma

This is our curriculum closet, which originally served as our hall closet. It already had shelving, thankfully, so it was a perfect place to put many of our materials.

As you can see, this space has to serve as a hall closet AND a homeschool storage space. I corral the household things in baskets and the homeschool things in separate stacks. The row at the top is textbooks for upper elementary grades. The lower shelves hold blank notebooks, lapbooks we intend to reuse, and storybooks we’ll be discussing with the kids this year.

I go through our books and materials every year and declutter the resources we won’t be using anymore. That keeps me from overfilling the closet. (Which is so very easy to do.)

Storing Homeschool Supplies in a Small Space

 

And finally, I use a clear hanging shoe holder on the backside of the closet door to hold writing instruments, flash cards, and small office supplies. As you can see, I have a tiny overbuying problem when it comes to markers.

I will not buy any more markers. I will not buy any more markers. I will not buy any more markers.

I should probably make myself write that 100 times today.

How do you keep your homeschooling supplies from overtaking your home? Do you have any tips for schooling in a small space?

Small Homeschool Space Organization Ideas

Need more tips for getting your homeschool ready for the new year?

Tired of falling behind on your lesson plans? Learn how to schedule a flexible homeschool year instead!

Think you're too broke to homeschool your kids Believe it or not, homeschooling doesn't have to cost a lot!

Think you're behind on homeschool planning You're not. You don't need a lot to homeschool, even if you're a newbie!

And see plenty of suggestions for organizing your homeschool supplies on my Homeschool Organization Pinterest board!

P.S. You can get homeschooling and parenting tips in your inbox each week when you sign up for our email newsletter!

This post is part of the Back to Homeschool blog hop from iHomeschool Network! Click over to read more tips for making the most of your homeschool space!

Back to Homeschool Blog Hop 2017

Notebooking Pages LIFETIME Membership

Filed Under: Homeschool Organization, Homeschool Planning Tagged With: homeschool organization, homeschool organization tips

Comments

  1. Erika ~ Prey Species @ www.preyspecies.com says

    February 25, 2013 at 7:58 pm

    Wow – I think I need a curriculum closet 🙂
    My husband loves the Winne the Pooh theme for the kids nicknames by the way – he wishes we had thought of it 😉

    Reply
    • Selena Robinson says

      February 27, 2013 at 6:19 pm

      You know what? It was pure chance that we ended up with a closet for our stuff. It just kind of ended up there at first because we had nowhere else to put it. Then, a few months ago, I finally gave up and just ceded that entire space to homeschool stuff. It’ll end up all over the house otherwise…lol.

      Reply
  2. Proverbial Homemaker says

    February 27, 2013 at 5:26 am

    We live in a small home – there are some great ideas I can glean from this. Thanks so much!

    Reply
    • Selena Robinson says

      February 27, 2013 at 6:19 pm

      Aw, I’m glad it was helpful to you! Thanks for the kind words!

      Reply
  3. Ticia says

    March 1, 2013 at 10:12 pm

    I have to admit my stuff is randomly all over the house. It’s mostly organized, but it’s all over.

    Reply
    • lookwerelearning says

      March 4, 2013 at 7:26 am

      That was us too! I’m not the most organized person in the world, by far. But when I ended up buying two of the same thing because I didn’t know we already had it, I realized it was time to put everything in one place…lol.

      Reply
  4. Naptime Seamstress says

    September 3, 2013 at 3:01 pm

    I like the idea of the over-the-door storage for markers and things…..has me plotting to get one for us! 🙂 And you’re not alone in your over-buying of markers….I am addicted to pencils, pens, all things writing!

    Reply
  5. Deb V. says

    October 2, 2017 at 5:39 pm

    Love your site! Thanks for all the tips. We have a small home too and these will come in handy! 🙂

    P.S. If you’re going to write “I will not buy any more markers” 100 times, do it in marker! That’ll use up that stash in no time!

    Reply
    • Selena Robinson says

      October 2, 2017 at 7:42 pm

      LOL!!! That’s a great idea!!!

      Thank you for stopping by!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Our 2013-14 Homeschool Room | Look! We're Learning! says:
    July 7, 2014 at 7:29 am

    […] see, our homeschool room doubles as our dining room. If you’ve seen our previous post about homeschooling in a small space, then you already know our basic setup. We did make a few changes this year, […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Hi! I'm Selena, a teacher and a veteran homeschool mom to four. I'm so glad you're here!
About Me Contact Terms of Use Privacy Policy Places I Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Instagram
Homeschool Printables Unit Studies Shop the Store
Copyright ©2023, Look! We're Learning!. All Rights Reserved. Design by Pixel Me Designs
176 shares