Home Office and Homeschool Room Tips

When you work from home and homeschool, your home becomes multi-functional. Not only do you raise your children here, but your house also becomes a workplace and a school, needing a home office and homeschool room. And that can prove challenging, especially if your family lives in a small space.

Yet it’s doable. Use these practical tips to create organized, effective and efficient homeschool and workspaces in your home.

This post is part of my Help for Homeschool Mompreneurs Series of 10 posts full of
valuable resources and tips for working homeschool moms.

Even if you don’t have a homeschooling room or home office for these two areas of life, you can still create spaces for each within your home.

Home office and a separate homeschool room

Some working homeschooling families have the space and desire for a separate home office and homeschool room. Yet you might decide you don’t need this setup.

It depends on several things—the type of work you do, the number of children you homeschool, and their ages.

However, many moms who work from home, myself included, like the idea of a dedicated space for work and business.

All the work-related home office items and important things stay in that place, making smoother work days. And I still occasionally conduct Zoom or phone interviews when working on my financial content business. So I like the option to close the door and shut out noisy kids!

It’s also nice to have a separate small room for homeschooling. A common issue I hear from other homeschool families without a dedicated homeschool room is that homeschool supplies like school books, art supplies, and math manipulatives get strewn right across the entire house.

And without some structure and a designated homeschool area, the entire house can become overrun with papers, projects, folders, pencils, crayons, and the like. You can close the door to that mess with a separate homeschool classroom setup.

Home office and homeschool in one room 

With a small home or simply less space, combining your home office and homeschool in one room can be an ideal option. This works well when you have an entire room to spare and can divide it up a bit. Use open shelving to separate your office from the homeschooling space in a larger area.

If you have a lot of room in a larger space and homeschool three or more younger kids, try repurposing an old dining room table into a homeschool table. Working together at a dining table gives each child a good work surface and can be a great way to maximize the square footage in

Homeschooling just one or two children? A small white desk with a whiteboard or bulletin board above it can make a cozy homeschool nook when you’re homeschooling in a small space. This will give you more space in the rest of the room for adding other homeschool room must-haves, like a filing cabinet, shelves with reading books, and extra organizational tools. 

If you’d like to keep an eye on your kids while they are working independently, it’s a good idea to place your desk in a corner. That could give you a bird’s eye view of a large space.

Put desks or a table across the room in the opposing corner so you can even see them with your peripheral!

Of course, there are a few pros and cons to sharing a home office and homeschool room, with the top being:

• It’s good if you homeschool older children who can work quietly in the study area
• Combining a home office and a child’s study space saves space
• Combined spaces also means you can keep an eye on your kids while they do their school work
• It’s not ideal if you are homeschooling multiple kids, especially younger in age.
• Sharing a space can be a distraction if you’re trying to work while your kids are homeschooling.
• There’s also the chance that your work area could be tampered with or cluttered with homeschool stuff.

When it comes to keeping these spaces separate, it’s totally doable even with the smallest of areas. Here are some practical ideas to help you do just that!

Convert a closet to a home office

Take a look around your house and examine each area of your home. Do you see a small nook or closet you could convert into a home office without much extra cost? This could be the perfect way to create a workspace in a small house. You don’t need to renovate or move furniture!

With a small table or computer desk and a few essentials that are stored on a top shelf or kept on a shelf, you’ll have a small area to call your own without using up a lot of space. 

Use part of your bedroom as your office

If you can clear out a corner in your bedroom, create a space for your home office. Keep it simple with a small table and chair, and utilize any wall space for storing office-related supplies.

Consider adding storage carts and containers that fit nicely under small tables for different ways to meet your storage needs.

Homeschool in your kitchen or living room

Don’t get jealous of the amazing homeschool rooms floating around on Instagram and Pinterest. It’s okay to dodge that trend and go for homeschooling in your kitchen or living room.

Invest in a few bookshelves or other storage solutions (think bins, boxes, and totes) and make an effort to keep everything homeschool related in those places. For the main school time, rally at the kitchen table, any flat surface – even the family room floor, as long as you have good natural light.

Use kid’s bedrooms as individual homeschool rooms

Older kids (from about fifth grade through high school) might prefer turning part of their bedroom into their own homeschool room, especially if you let them choose the color palette and give input on desk ideas. Or add a couple of bean bag chairs to create a reading nook. Teens appreciate the peace and quiet an individual space could provide. Especially if you also homeschool their noisy younger siblings.

Do you homeschool together? In our family, my daughters and I sit together at the dining table for read-alouds, Bible study, and some science experiments. While we do have a dedicated homeschool room upstairs, we also have a homeschooling area on our main floor. We are fortunate to have the extra room, and this setup meets our family’s needs.

I love the idea that learning occurs in the kitchen, dining room, or living room. And that when the girls prefer individual study time, they can head to their bedrooms.

With enough space, each child’s study space room can include a small desk and chair and one storage bin to keep their school supplies and materials. 

Organizing homeschool supplies

No matter how you’ve organized your home office and homeschool space, you must organize your supplies. And when it comes to supplies, clearly mark what is for homeschool and what is for work. Clearly label drawers, shelves, and cabinets so that everyone using the room can see what’s on and off-limits.

Finding storage space

With work and homeschool comes many tools, resources, and supplies. So add weekly decluttering to your weekly routine.

Search Pinterest for creative ideas to maximize storage space in your homeschool room and home office.

Storage bins, bookshelves, boxes, and totes work are great for organizing different subjects.

Consider these areas next time you’re looking to maximize your storage area:

• Storage space underneath beds
• Storage space under your desk
• Top shelves of closets
• Walls with little to no decor (add a chalkboard wall)
• Tops of bookshelves (the perfect space for soft bins to hold messy craft supplies)
• Corners of rooms (corner shelves are awesome!)

With these ideas in mind, creating and arranging your home office and homeschool space is easy!

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