As of this morning, our homeschool “room” (actually a corner of the dining room) is finished! I’m always amazed by how much an educational poster or something like that can cost, but have been thankful to find or make everything super cheaply!

Here’s the rundown:

Top left: Super cute “yesterday was _”, “today is _”, “tomorrow will be _” signs and the days of the week came in a set at Dollar Tree (for $1.00, obviously!) I laminated them for a buck or two at the educational resource center, and used the art waxer to make it stick on the wall. [Those art waxers are great! It puts a thin layer of wax on the back, and it sticks to the wall without damaging and can be moved around endlessly! Love it!]

Left middle: A poster we picked up in Williamsburg when we were first married. :)

Lower left: See our felt board sticking out there??

Top right: Calendar set, also from Dollar Tree! The calendar itself, day numbers, and month headers were separate, so it came to a budget busting $3.00. Not too bad, considering I saw an ad last night for a teacher calendar set for $23.00! I art waxed the back of the numbers and month headers, and used some Command poster hangers to hang the calendar up. This is double coupon week at KMart, so with the $1.00 command coupon from last Sunday’s paper, those poster hangers were less than $.50!

Middle right: Nice, glossy, heavyweight US map also from… Dollar Tree!

Lower right: Remember the learning clock? Cheap to make and it has been marvelous for teaching AG to tell time!

That bin and cups on the table were my solution a while back to where to keep all of our crayons and markers and coloring books –

Nate cut a heavyweight box on an angle for me and I covered it with contact paper. The cups are just tin cans that Nate spray painted white! (we covered the rough top edges with duct tape first.)

Our dining room has a swinging door into the kitchen which we don’t use [we keep it open with these stellar door stops we found at Ikea! The only way we can keep LB from trying to break his hand in the door!] With it open it provides a bit of a divider between the “school corner” and the rest of the dining room, and it also gives me more space to hang stuff! :)

I found the pocket chart in the dollar bins at Target last year, and a few weeks ago I found another one there! I keep our daily schedule in the pocket chart on word strips, along with little clock cut-outs with the time. This is an outdated schedule… another item on the “to do before we start ‘school’ list.” ;)

The handwriting poster is also from Dollar Tree, laminated at the educational resource center, hung up with command poster hangers. It’s nice that it’s at eye-level for AG when she’s sitting at the table.

I am so thankful for the many ways God provides for us – coupons, dollar stores, dollar bins, free services… He is good!

For more “works for me” tips, head over to We are THAT Family!