A Small Sonlight Schoolhouse {No School Room}

We have homeschooled for fifteen years. This will be our sixteenth year homeschooling, with twelve more years ahead of us. We have always homeschooled in the house we are living in now– 800 square feet of blissful coziness. {Yep, you heard that right~ 7 people living and learning in 800 square feet!}

{By the way, some of the links below are my affiliate links. If you buy through my links, I will earn a tiny bit. However, if you buy through my Sonlight link, you can save $5 on your order.}
 

To further complicate the matter, we are literature-based learners and have always used Sonlight Curriculum. This means that there are lots and lots of books that have taken up residence with us in our 800 square feet. We love them!
 

I have found that schooling with Sonlight has made our learning space look and function differently than many of my homeschool friends.

The small space with no homeschool room brings a little more challenge to our homeschooling.

This really comes to down two things: everything must have a place and the places must be very creative.
 

With so many books, book shelves are in high demand. Hubby built-in wall-to-wall bookshelves in our living room about ten years ago. It really saved our lives!

Of course, a few years ago we had run out of space on the book shelves and had to add two sets of book cases. These will likely hold us a while since we now have all the Sonlight Cores we will need for first grade through high school. {A lot of books!} That means that we have Cores 1 through 300, but two of those cores are not complete. I only own portions of Core 1, Four Civilizations (comparable to the new Core B). We always get the rest from the library. And we only have the history portion and a few other books from Core 5 (now Core F), Eastern Hemisphere. Next year I will likely be acquiring the rest of this core, so I may have to eat my words about the need for more bookshelves. {Eek!}

The additional book cases we added have actually become homes for some items that would not have had a home otherwise. The computer that runs our Homeschool Tracker for assignments and record keeping lives on top of one of these bookcases. The other book case is home for some of the current Instructor Guides that need to be accessed for assignments or study guide questions for the high schoolers.

One of the things that I love about literature-based homeschooling is that we have very few quizzes or tests. Instead, we do map and timeline work together. We talk about what we are learning, and I ask questions. For this reason, I know what they have learned and what they have not. Of course, the high schoolers begin taking more tests and writing more papers for me, but until then we have lots of discussions and they tell Hubby what they have learned over dinner most nights.

This means that we have lots of notebooks, paper, glue, scissors, and colored pencils to store! Hubby built a desk for me several years ago. When we designed it, we purposely made it the correct dimensions to house 6 Sterlite stacking drawers on one end and four on the other end. One end of the desk houses two milk crates that house our timeline notebooks, map notebooks, and other binders for notebooking. This has truly been perfect!

Each child has a drawer for all of their school supplies and current notebook or spiral notebooks. We have a drawer for coloring books, one for markers, glue, and stapler, a drawer for extra paper and spiral notebooks, one for math games, one for language arts games, one for play dough, and one for construction paper scraps.
 

There is just enough room on top of the drawers for a letter tray. These trays hold drawing paper, construction paper, extra folders, and scrap printing paper. Between the letter trays there is just enough room for the three-hole punches.

This is our small Sonlight schoolhouse. We have lots of time on the couch together reading books aloud and enjoying the time together. My little ones snuggle with me or with one another while we read. We have lots of discussions and conversation about what we have read.
 

We watch lots of educational programs on television together. It's fun to supplement our history and science with wonderful History Channel, Nova, or Nature programs. We have fun watching movies based on the historical events or time periods that we are studying.
 

This is our small Sonlight Schoolhouse, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm linking up with the 5th Annual Not Back-To-School Blog Hop over at iHomeschool Network. We'll be having fun linking up all kinds of back-to-school themed goodness this month. This week is School Room Week! Be sure to link up and visit some other folks who linked up. It's great inspiration and idea finding!
 

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