Once your kids are out of the toddler stage and in school, their needs change. Suddenly, they are more responsible, can work and play unsupervised, like a bit of privacy, and have homework.
It's these differences we need to consider when updating their bedrooms. Gradeschoolers need a study area, room for their collections, and a hideaway so they can just "chill". These bedroom ideas for gradeschoolers can help create a space they'll love.
The study area in your gradeschooler's room can be a new furniture item or a cleverly arranged, well-equipped surface.
It's helpful to create a beautiful space where kids want to work and study. This is the age where a loft bed with a desk underneath would be a great space-saving investment.
After all, you don't have to worry (so much) at this age about them toppling out of the top bunk and harming themselves.
But if a new combo desk/bed isn't in your family financial plan this year, simply make sure a flat surface is accessible and pack it with the essentials: a mug filled with pens and pencils, scissors, a ruler, tape, markers, an eraser, and anything else your kid uses frequently.
Collected collections will make everyone look good, and gradeschoolers are no exception.
This is the age when collections begin. Also, at this age is when you can begin both encouraging and corralling your kid's collecting tendencies by creating space and a place in which to house the elementary treasures of life.
Start with the obvious: Drawers and shelves. They'll turn into dumping grounds unless you divide and conquer the stuff collecting inside.
Group similar items, such as hair bows, in small bins or baskets to be placed inside a dresser or a desk drawer. Egg cartons and oblong pencil holders are also handy for little things.
Self-enclosed shelves with ends so books and other items won't fall off, and hard-to-use bookends aren't required to keep things off the floor and on display. Over-the-door shoe bags work here, too, for the collection of baseball cards, yo-yos, and beyond.
From there, get creative. Install a corkboard along an entire wall to display artwork, notes, and ribbons. Anything flat and vertical can be wall art here. A garden trellis hung on the wall can corral cap collections and double as wall art.
Your only rules here are that items must be contained within the storage space, be it hooks, pegs, or push-pins, and easily reachable and expandable when used by your gradeschooler.
The cozy hideaway areas of your kids' rooms are easy. They're 99 percent imagination and 1 percent perspiration.
Usually no investment is required. This is good parenting stuff. Since kids love hideaways so much, why not get a bit creative in their rooms?
Maybe a popup tent in a far corner where he can keep favorite toys, whisper with friends, and even hide from the parents. It's grade school hideaway heaven.
My 10-year-old has a homespun version: a bunk tent. Because she always sleeps on the top of her bunk bed, the lower bunk has become her secret space. It's all covered around with sheets, a girlie haven. And it's here just in time to transition her to the more-space-away-from-Mom-and-Dad-is essential tweens.