Pictures of our Schoolroom

Our School Room

I thought I'd drop some pictures of our school room and suggestions of what we use.  Liven it up a little with some photos.  I've read and seen others who have whole rooms and shelves dedicated to schooling at home.  I aspire to have one of those lovely rooms someday, but in the meantime.  This is what we're working with and it's just enough for us so far.  I'm sure as the years go by, I'll accumulate more "stuff" and a shelf to stick it on.    We have school in our dining room, under the sunny kitchen window at a little bar height table.    We use a converted shelving unit that my husband put caster wheels on as the central nerve of the operation.  It holds all our workbooks, supplies and my teacher's manuals.  On the back of the shelves I attached a foam board to hang our morning board from.  So first part of the day I pull this out of the corner to turn around and we go over our morning board routine.  I copied the general idea from here and then tweaked it to my liking.

Our Morning Board

We read our devotionals first.  A dear friend gave this book to me and I really have loved starting our school day this way.  We talk about the days of the week, month and date.  The date cards are hanging on three different hooks.  There are up coming holidays cards and they have their own hook and "special days" such as birthday, field trip, etc have their own hook too.  You can't see them very well, cause they hang sideways.  I got the date cards, the months, days of the week, the weather wheel and graph from a close out teacher supply store online, they literally were going out of business.   They came in huge poster like size, but I cut them down to manageable sizes for the board.  I got the clock from the Dollar Tree.  It came in a big poster size too and again, I cut out just the pieces I wanted to keep.   I saw the "Make the Date" idea but couldn't find a print out version so I just made one of my own on Wordpad.  I put a large piece of velcro under the title and then used real money and put corresponding velcro dots on the back of the coins with another long strip off to the side to keep the extra coins.   Here's a video from 1plus1plus1equals1 explaining it.  I printed off the Days in School at Homeschool Creations.  Thank you Homeschoolcreations.com!  We are using My Father's World curriculum for 1st grade.  So we also do the number of the day and bean counting, on a popsicle sticks to teach place value.  Kindergarten Crayons does a very good job at explaining it.  We do this along with our Days in School manipulative.

Make the Date & Days in School

I got the pledge of allegiance off of a Google image search here.  Just noting quickly, there are some
copyrighted images in that search.

Godly Character Traits from Sarah's Sweeties

I loved the idea of working on Godly Character Traits, but the link supplied from Homeschoolcreations was a little pricey for my budget.  So I found these from Sarah's Sweeties    for the cost of my own printer ink and they're perfect!  There's even a whole curriculum designed for these here at Hubbards Cupboard.  We've been working on one a day, I made the title again on Wordpad, printed it and mounted it on a piece of construction paper and then again used velcro to attach the cards to the board.  I would like to add most of the manipulatives  are laminated.  But if you don't have a laminator or access to one then just use card stock and contact paper or clear packing tape for the smaller pieces.  I've heard they hold up just as well.

We're use the Skip Counting sheets that I printed from Homeschoolcreations again, and they are stored in a page protector that's glued to the foam board.   I love the way she put her morning board together.    But there are many sites that utilize great ideas and layouts.  Here are a few more sites that I like and took inspiration from.
Mama Jenn's Website
Confessions of a Homeschooler Website
1plus1plus1equals1
homeschoolparent.blogspot

A re purposed kitchen cabinet turned bookcase/dry erase board

My Fater's World focuses on one memory verse a week.  Usually a Proverb and I've incorporated a Charlotte Mason system to memorize and review them.  You can review it here.  I write them on the board and then I've also printed off from Mama Jenn.  for the board as well.  I just haven't put them up yet.  I only found them a few days ago.

I've got a bookcase that is an old re purposed kitchen cabinet that I turned over and now it also is a great space for the dry erase board.  My husband got it at one of the big box stores.  I  just leaned it up against the wall and the turned over cabinet makes the perfect ledge to catch and hold the board and all my dry erase markers and erasers.  I originally wanted to put it on the rolling bookshelf somehow, but I think this way turned out much better.  This is where I got my bookshelf inspiration from A rolling easel, isn't it awesome?  My husband did a good job on ours and it wasn't nearly that expensive.  I wish it had one more shelf, I'll have to talk to him for an addition.
(The aloes look pretty pitiful in this photo.  Between the cat chewing on it and us using it for cuts, burns and homemade soap, it doesn't stand a chance.)
That's about it.  Our morning board routine and a glimpse into our school room.  It's meager but it works and we're making memories.

Blessings onto you,

Officially Homeschooling!

We are official.  We're a couple weeks into our curriculum, "My Father's World" and enjoying it immensely.  We're made clay jars that hold scrolls, a worm terrarium, growing sweet potatoes and beans from seeds.
I'm teaching them how to draw and we've created many works of art so far.  My girls are also a lot smarter than they let on.  I'm finally beginning to understand how much they learned in Kindergarten, and I can confidently say their previous teachers have done an excellent job.
It's been trying at times, as usually most new things are, but I think with lots of prayer and a stickler for routine, we've found our groove.  I can say I've truly enjoyed these last couple of weeks....we're on school day #17.  Today I drug out "66 thin books" to help the girls visualize how many books are in the Bible.  They both agreed they'd much rather carry around an actual Bible than all those books.  It was entertaining watching their eyes bulge while trying to pick up a stack of books.  They are enticed by our science projects, they remind me when we need to check on the beans or sweet potato that we're growing.  The worm terrarium did not wow them so I'm going to see if I can send away for some ants instead.  We are also studying how things grow while enjoying the fruits of the garden we planted this spring.  Strawberries are sweetening on the vine, the potatoes are ready to be harvested and I have quite a few onions, bell peppers and even a few cucumber for pickles that need picked.  Ummmm, refrigerator dill pickles!  I'm gonna try my hand at canning this year for the first time and am looking forward to making my own salsa and spaghetti sauce.
So back to the kids.  I really wanted to share my insight on their anxieties and speech interactions.  I've asked them if they like having school here at home and each child has said yes, they're not interested in going back to public school in the fall.  They've been pretty resistant to the idea of starting the Co Op on Fridays this fall as well, but that's one thing I'm going to stick to for certain.  They need the social interaction whether they're comfortable with it or not.  Some of that cognitive behavioral therapy stuff.  I called the school district yesterday to make sure they're ready to go for Speech therapy through the school district and I'm even thinking about making them take the music and art class at their old school.   The school they used to go to will allow their participation in 'elective' classes which I found quite interesting.   I haven't sprung this on them yet, but I think I've noticed a calm that has overcome them this summer.  Wishful thinking?....maybe.  Maybe not.  I'm hoping and praying God sees us through this and that He can lead me to help strengthen their confidence and find their voices.