Getting Ready for a New School Year

Getting ready for the new school year (which started TODAY). I took these pictures last week. The room is more, ahem, lived in now.

First: The magnetic calendar I am using with Betsie, my kindergartner.

Second: I took the computer off of this desk and moved it to the office. Now this is Mary's area for seatwork. She is in 4th grade this year. And no, I never do workboxes anymore. Though I still like them and want to use them. I just never get them filled up. Ugh!

Third: View of whole room. I got bored and rearranged the whole thing. It will likely look different by the time another school year rolls around.

Fourth: The super heavy bookshelf that I moved all by myself! I wonder how long everything will stay so neat and tidy there.

Fifth: Finally found a use for both the pocket chart and my art postcards! I can't promise we will study the artwork, but at least we can see it now!

Sixth: The book basket. A tried and true, easy yet effective way to learn more art, history, and science. Put the library books in the pretty basket (on sale at Hobby Lobby) and make the kiddos look at the books for 15-30 minutes each day. Also helps to keep one kid busy while I work with another kid.

School Room Tour

We are in our 6th year of homeschooling (7th if you count preschool). But this is the first year we have had the luxury of having a school room. We do hang out in this room a lot even when it's not school time, but we house all school materials here and this is where we do most schooling. There are a few exceptions like nature walks, but this is pretty much it. I figured I better take pictures while it's clean (not as common as I'd like). I've been meaning to give a tour for some time. Again, sorry for the blurry phone pictures.

On with the tour:

First the view of the whole room

From where I took the above picture, I am going to take you clockwise around the room. So turn left and you will see a desk with a computer. This is a computer that is on it's last leg, but for the moment it is still good for Teaching Textbooks math and a few other things. We haven't used that pocket chart in a while, but I am thinking of ways to use it. Those little stairs in the bottom left corner of the picture go to an office area and bathroom. Very handy things to have near the school room.

Next there is a little cabinet that is for the teacher only! I have supplies in here like sentence strips and resource books for me that I want to stay in one piece. And there are Betsie's workboxes. That USA map is laminated so we can write on it and erase. Near Texas we added Spongebob and Sandy because we figured she wouldn't be TOO far away from Texas...maybe Gulf of Mexico? Very educational stuff going on here folks. That little white desk is not in use most of the time. It needs a little chair and Betsie would love it.

Moving on down that wall and we have a couple of small white boards. These are magnetic as well. One of them has some Bible verses on it right now but we use these for lots of things, especially reading practice with Mary.Below one of the white boards is our book basket. It is usually full to bursting with library books to go along with whatever we are studying at the time. Each girls has to look at books for 15 minutes minimum each school day (in addition to our read aloud time, etc.). They get a lot of extra info just from this simple activity.

The world map. We are studying world geography this year. We refer to this map a LOT!

And on the next wall we have our bookshelf! Homeschoolers love bookshelves. Lots of great storage here.Rachel and Mary's workboxes are next.

The TV and armoire are in the corner at the end of that wall. And this would be one reason this room is nice to hang out in even when we are not schooling. The armoire provides storage as well.
Moving on down the next wall we come to our art and writing shelf. This shelf holds pencils, crayons, markers, glue, scissors, tape, drawing books, etc. Very handy as it is right next to our seat work area and the drawing table.

Next to the art shelf is our seat work table. We do some of our work here but we use the whole room really. Occasionally I am in that middle chair with two of the girls beside me working on an activity together. This table has been great for us.

Remember earlier when I said those few stairs led up to an office area? Well there it is. Jason and I hang out there and "discuss" how much money I can spend on homeschooling. Ha! (kidding)Looking into the school room from the office. We use that bulletin board for schooling as well. Mostly calendar activities and displaying art work. That door on the right is a walk in closet where I keep more supplies for crafts, etc. Some toys are in there as well.

From the other end of the room:

Here you can see that this room is upstairs and also up into the office area. And there is our drawing table and our sofa for reading and devotions and watching TV!

Another view of the whole room:

Thanks for taking the tour!

Long Overdue Pictures

Maybe you remember this post, where I said that we had pulled the carpet from the big girls' room and put up bunk beds. At the time my camera was not working so I couldn't post pictures. So this post is simply an update. Please overlook some of the messies in the picture. We live in this house!

Jason ripping the carpet out of the closet. There are hardwood floors under there!

Rachel helping

The bunkbeds are here!

And here is where they will go!

All set up!

And here they are a month later. Rachel has created quite a space up there for herself with shelves, memory board, a lamp, and who knows what else!

This is the rug I ordered after we removed the carpet. It is more purple than I expected so it may end up in Betsie's room after her carpet is taken out. (Her walls are purple.) But for now it looks fine and cuts down on the stomping!

Dead Camera Battery

Well, I really wanted to show you pictures of the newly decorated big girls room. However, my camera battery died and something is wrong with the charger...so no pictures. Bummer. I vaguely remember getting the charger wet so I am guessing this is my fault.

I was going to post pictures of their cute new bunk beds and hardwood floors.

Two years ago we moved Mary in with Rachel and the poor child has been sleeping in a trundle bed all that time. She thought that was just fine, but I am glad she is in a real bed now. She has the bottom bunk because her dog sleeps with her. And Rachel likes having her own little space that the dog and the little sisters can't really get to very easily.

Jason worked so hard to rip the carpet out of the room before we picked up the beds (we found them on Craigslist) and I must say he did a nice job. I have ordered a rug that will hopefully cut down on the echo factor. Imagine three loud girls and their squeals bouncing off the walls.

Since I can't show you any pics of their room, how bout a pic of their rug from the rug website?

Yep...hopefully I'll get that battery charged soon...