When my daughter's Pre-K classroom stopped over the spring, I started doing some unofficial homeschool work with her from home. I learned a lot in the process of what did and did not work in our "classroom" environment. We put a desk upstairs in our playroom. I quickly realized that the play environment with all of her toys was very distracting. This may not be the case for all children but it was for us.
Next, we tried doing all of our work at the kitchen table. This was working better than the playroom, but my husband's office is right outside the dining room and all of the noise became distracting for his meetings. We ultimately decided to take the bed out of the guestroom and turn the space into our classroom. The set up is simple and it is working out great for us! I think the combination of this simple space and our easy kindergarten schedule is really helping things go smoothly. Below you'll find pictures with descriptions of what is in our space and how we use it!
The most important item that we needed was a table! I am SO happy with the desk we bought. I wanted something that I could sit next to my daughter at but that wasn't super huge! This is such a great little table! We had two extra chairs from our dining room set so we are just using those!
The white tables were actually end tables for the guestroom, but they are serving as great storage spaces for frequently used teaching material! We keep our Good and the Beautiful Level K math box inside, sight word flashcards and a small dry erase board! The other desk has sensory toys in the drawer that she can use whenever she needs a quick brain break! We love diffusing relaxing scents in our classroom, so that sits on top of one and we have a pencil sharpener on top of the other!
My daughter is a busy body and we incorporate movement into a lot of our day. We have a yoga seat with legs in the classroom at all times. She does not sit at it when we work at the desk. The ball is not a good height for sitting at the table, but she sits on it when we read or she puts her feet on it and rolls it around when we sit at the window seat!
I looked long and hard for a poster set that I really liked to put on the walls for quick and easy reference. I think these visuals are a must have for any Kindergarten classroom. I especially liked this set because it came with all of the essentials and it didn't have xylophone on the alphabet chart for x! I much prefer having a word that shows the letter x sound we teach! :)
I love the book display that we purchased from Amazon! It was such a reasonable price and we put new books in it each week that match our theme.
We bought a storage shelf so that we can put all of materials in it for the next school day! We have a language arts cubby hole where we keep out Good and the Beautiful material plus any hands on materials we might mix in like letter tiles. Our math cubby whole also has her Good and the Beautiful book, calendar and whatever hands on material are in the lesson for the day. We keep a plastic base ten set out and use it alongside our math lessons to keep track of how many lessons we have completed.
The rest of the selves get filled with learning materials that match our theme for the week. This helps keep the amount of materials we have out minimal and it also builds interest for our weekly theme! On top, my daughter has a basket with supplies that we might use like crayons, scissors, glue, dice, game pieces and a notepad.
Last but not least, we have a white erase board. I also found this one on Amazon for a very reasonable price and it is working out great! It has an adjustable height and comes with pens, magnets and a eraser. We use this all day long!
That's it for the classroom! I'll post specific supplemental items that we use during each theme but so far, these basic items are all we need! We spend about 30 minutes at a time in the classroom and then break things up by going outside, having dance breaks and free play. Make sure to check out my Easy Kindergarten Schedule if you are looking for a way to cover subjects throughout the day by doing a little at a time.
Happy Homeschooling! :)
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