I have been told my house looks like a 'mini preschool'. Hopefully, a classy, aesthetic one. But definitely a lot of preschool. That's by design. I wanted to make my home as toddler friendly and educational as possible.
So, I thought I'd make a walk through of my living room and dining room, where most of the preschool elements are laid out. There's also the downstairs play room, but that's a whole different post.....
1: Storage areas
I intentionally chose a coffee table with baskets just because we sit on the couch and read and I don't like to get up. I'm secretly very lazy. This table is perfect because one basket hold the library books for the week, and the other one holds themed materials that we will be frequently coming back to, and work books that we are currently using. They're easily accessible during our morning reading time.
I chose our TV stand with the same goal in mind. Also because I like how the doors hide clutter and make it harder for Beans to dump out all our DVDs. But I knew when we got it I'd dedicate the shelves to our more 'school' like books. So here we keep our books on historical figures, geography, science and biology, art, and poetry. Each day it's super easy to just pull a few out and read them, along with our library, unit, and randomly chosen books.
Some of the books we have up here are:
We are fortunate to have built in shelves in our old house. So I keep a giant basket to hold all of Beans's random toys. You know, the little things that don't really have a place. She enjoys quietly digging through it and playing with random stuff. Beside the basket I keep our preschool games (mostly Peaceable Kingdom, all from the thrift store) so we can grab them whenever we feel like it.
2: The dining room
Beans has her very own table in the dining room. Sometimes she eats there, but more often it's her place to art or science activities. I keep educational posters and art work on the wall next to it, so we can casually look at it and talk about it. I change out what's hanging there every couple of weeks.
Then there's our designated preschool corner. I love this spot. The shelving unit itself is from Amazon, the fabric totes were from dollar tree. The chalkboard was bought from Michael's for $15! Smaller ones on Amazon go for $30 to $40 so shop around if you are in the market for a blackboard. I got a set of chalk pastels from the thrift store that I use to do the artwork. The garland is simply wire twine stuff from dollar tree with some clothes pins. I use it to display flashcards, usually.
There's a book holder from a thrift store, where I prop up whatever book we're using most often in our unit. Otherwise what sits on top of the shelf changes with whatever we're doing. Sometimes baskets of activities, puzzles, models, things we've found in nature, etc. Our small globe stays there, which we found at Five Below of all places!
The totes stay pretty much the same. The first one has some art supply in it. Glue, paper scraps, crayons and markers, safety scissors. Work books are stashed to the side. Beside that are 2 thrifted totes that hold more art supplies and one has stickers. And on the third shelf is a tote that has all our playdoh and kinetic sand, and all our materials that go with them.
Bottom shelf, our poetry books and microscope. Each day we read out of the "Sing a Song of Seasons" book and I'll often pull out another one if she asks for more. On the next shelf is the third tote, which has various preschool activities. We have....
What do you have in your preschool spaces?
-Danielle J
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