How to Organize Your Homeschool Room in a Small Space

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You don’t need to have a ton of space to have a functional and organized homeschool room.  If you’re feeling  overwhelmed with how to organize your homeschool room in a small space, there is definitely a solution that will work for your family and your space.  

Reconfigure your rooms to give you the space you need

The first step in making sure you’re using your space the best way you can is to make sure you’re using the right space.  Is there a certain room in your house that isn’t getting used?  Or is it used for something that would make more sense somewhere else (storage, guest room, play area, etc.)? Think outside the box here, even if it means switching some rooms around.

When we first moved into our home 3 years ago, I was deep in the trenches of babymom life and immediately decided to use the “formal dining room” as a playroom.  Plus, it was carpeted.  A carpeted formal dining room with four kids under the age of five?  Um, haha.  What a funny idea.

That worked for the next couple of years until the kids started using the playroom less and less and I realized that we weren’t using our downstairs space very efficiently.  With a kid in 1st grade and a kid in Kindergarten, it became very clear that we needed a designated school space.

Project: Switcharoo!

I basically spent a whole month reconfiguring and reorganizing every room of our downstairs.  The playroom turned back to a formal dining room (minus the carpet).  The formal living room turned into the family room.  The family room turned into the playroom.  My kids got used to coming downstairs after nap/room time and wondering where the rooms would be this time.  Fun fun fun!

Most importantly, this overhaul of rooms gave us what we desperately needed: a designated homeschool space.  

Be willing to experiment here!  It might mean asking for help from strong people and it might take some time, but it’s worth the effort to find a solution based on your available options.

Our small homeschool space: the kitchenette

We had been using the small room right off the kitchen as our dining room, but as our family got a little bigger, it started to feel really cramped around the table.  It isn’t a very large space.  Our dining room table fit, but just barely.

Once we turned the formal dining room back into an actual dining room, this freed up the kitchenette space for me to set up a homeschool room.

Our school room is a little less than 8′ x 8′.  With two students, a teacher (me), and two preschoolers running around, it can feel pretty tight.  I thought through lots of different variations until finally landing on a great solution.

Determine the essentials you need for your homeschool room

I thought very long and hard about what I needed to make this room work and use the space as efficiently as I possibly could.

It was a little overwhelming trying to configure all that I wanted to fit in our space.  Because of the walls and windows and half walls, I felt like I was putting together a puzzle (and often forcing pieces to fit where they didn’t).

The finished product is wonderful!  We don’t feel cramped.  There’s not a lot of congestion and everyone has space to do what they need to do.

Small Space Homeschool Room Essentials

• A desk for YOU

  You need space, too!  My desk is where I park myself.  I’m present with the boys in case they have questions but I’m not at their work station.  You can have your laptop, printer, and supplies.  It’s YOUR space.

  • This is the desk I got.  Bonus! I was able to put this and the cube organizer together by myself.  I am NOT handy. So basically anyone can do it.

• Shelves or cubbies

  Especially if you’re homeschooling multiple kids, cubbies are great because each kid has their own space for books and binders.

  • I really like using storage bins and the Better Homes and Gardens Cube Organizers

• Student work space

  This is where you really have to see what can work with your walls and window placement.  Also, how many students are you homeschooling?  How many work spaces do you need?

  • The idea of individual desks sounded wonderful (aka no fighting/irritating/looking at each other as much), but in our small space that just wasn’t an option.  Instead I went with a simple table and chairs from Ikea (similar to this) and we have it set up so that one side is against a wall and the boys sitting facing each other.  And sometimes I will open up a binder and use it as a divider between them!

• Backpack station

  In our small space we have a half wall that backs up to the kitchen, so this was a great place to create a backpack station.  If you have a mudroom or other entry area, you might put this there instead.

 

• White board/bulletin board

  Small spaces easily start to feel cluttered and chaotic when there’s a lot going on with wall decor.  My advice is to keep it minimal and neutral with what you know you’ll use on a constant basis.  For me, that was a white board and a bulletin board.

  • I got a pack of four bulletin board squares so each kid has their own area for important notes, schedules, or reminders.

• Drawers

  The cube organizers are great for most things (curriculum old and new, reference books, etc.) but they aren’t that useful when it comes to storing small items.  I use one bin to store pencil boxes, and in each pencil box I have a different group of items, such as various kinds of stamps, tape, highlighters, paper clips, etc.  But having drawers is also really important for storing supplies.

  • I got a pack of four bulletin board squares so each kid has their own area for important notes, schedules, or reminders.

Tips for Efficiency and Organization

Lastly, here are a few tips I’ve implemented that have really helped me organize our homeschool room in our small space.

• Give each kid their own cubby at their height level.
• Organize your student’s work space with designated areas
  • Set up a “to do” work pile on one one end of the table and a “to be checked pile on the other end” so the kids always know what they have to do and you always know what is completed and ready for your review.
• Have a cubby for all your guides/test keys/references.
  • Teach the kids that this is YOUR cubby and they are not to get into it (like for example find test keys with all the answers–not that my kids would ever do that).
• Use hooks for memory packets.
  • When I say use space efficiently, I mean everywhere!  Leave no space unused!
• Use all the space in a cube.
  • Often the bins will be smaller than the bin, so you can actually use the space behind the bins for storing things you don’t use often like weighing scales and extra reams of paper.
• Use “in between” space for storage.
  • Really I added this because I want to tell you what I store in my “in between desk and cube organizer” space.  It’s my absolute favorite homeschool item and I encourage every homeschooling parent to buy one right now!  It is…the shopper.