Learning Space Redo

This space stopped working for us because Oren was constantly in everyone's stuff. He still is, but now I can distract him easier and hold his attention with something else.

I started by taking apart the wooden easel and putting the dry erase and chalk boards from it on the wall. Oren can easily reach both boards and spends a great deal of time markering. His chalk privileges were taken away because he was eating the chalk.


Then I had my dear husband hang two shelves. The shelf just above the marker board holds all of our supplies. I painted tobacco tins with chalkboard paint so that we can easily change out the label if we need to use them for something else. I love chalkboard paint and had to restrain myself from using it on every surface in my house. Maeve and I are constantly using things and misplacing them so I hope this helps us keep tract of our stuff.

My husband also put a shelf that is just as wide but a bit deeper even with the tops of the windows. This shelf will hold all of the various school books that I collect and I'm hoping that one day soon I will have everything organized by subject.

I used the chalk and marker trays of the easel as book holders. My kids like being able to look at their books and even Oren has been interested in reading. I plan to change the books every week and will coordinate them with whatever we are studying. Yes, the walls are still two colors. Someday I will finish painting over the blue. I do love that color of green.

I moved Oren's table and workboxes. He doesn't care about either unless the chairs are pulled out far enough to allow him room to climb on the table.

I organized the closet too, although you aren't lucky enough to see it. The bottom shelf is for Oren  aged learning toys (blocks, ball pounder things, dominos, puzzles), next up is a shelf of games, then preschool/school aged puzzles and manipulatives, then my craft stuff and extra supplies and the top shelf is for adult games.

 Finn's workbox is now next to his work station. He doesn't care. He uses his workboxes to hold important things like golf balls. All of the various papers (construction, white, envelopes, notecards, notebooks) are in the wooden square thing. On top of that is a math activity.


Maeve's work area and my work area are the same. A bit more organized, but the same nonetheless. And if you are wondering, our learning space is never this clean. It will be trashed as soon as everyone is awake and moving tomorrow.