New School/Playroom

As I've mentioned, we recently moved.  One of the things I absolutely love about the new house, is that it gave us room to have a dedicated school/play room (we gave up having a formal dining room for it). It is where we will do learning shelves with Archer, where we put Xander's desk and where we will leave a big open area for building and playing.  The "work" on the shelves will rotate, as well as the toys stored in here.  I find toys get played with more if I don't have them all in sight at the same time.  The rest of the toys are in the basement. 

The woods don't all match, but I was trying to go with what we already had.  The only furniture I purchased for the room was the white IKEA BESTA shelves on the left that we will use for Archer's "work."

For now, we have the baby gym and crawling track out in the main area.  We have the stimulation cards in the crawling track and it is elevated using a Hilltop (I bought these on super sale intending them for Archer in the future, but Xander plays with them quite a bit too).

The far wall has our old shelving unit with bins for toy storage.  On the open shelves I have a bunch of board books.  The two light colored shelves are IKEA TROFAST shelves we used previously.  The one on the left has mostly sensory bin tools and some empty space I am sure we will fill.  The right one has school supplies, Xander's workbooks and worksheets, some activity books and Archer's stimulation cards.  The top has a white board  I got on clearance from Target a while back.

To the right is Xander's desk.  Although, to be honest, he's getting a bit big for it.  Soon, I'm sure he'll do most of his school work at the kitchen table and Archer will take over the small table.  Next to the desk are our Magna-Tiles (and a bunch of other accessories from other brands).  That tub won't live there always, but we brought it up from the basement since Xander has been using them a lot lately.  The baby gate blocks off the kitchen and stairs, so that the dogs can't get in to the play room and the baby won't be able to get out.

The playroom leads into what Xander calls the "Library."  It is intended to be a formal living room, but we made more of an office/library.  My desk is in there, so that I can use the computer while the boys play (or at least that's the intention once Archer is playing more independently).  It has two sets of IKEA BILLY bookcases, where we still our books like I talked about in this post.  We've had to add a third bookcase to the basement, in addition the books in both of the boys' rooms.  Some women buy designer clothes/bags, I buy books for my kids. Luckily my husband is a nerd too, and encourages the book buying.

I'm sure I'll adapt these rooms as out needs change in the future.  I feel beyond blessed to have the space for the kids where we can focus on playing and learning together.