Our Homeschool Room!!

Hi again,

Is it just me or is this year just flying right on by? I can't believe we are over halfway through the year, school will be starting in a month, and before I know it, all my babies will be turning another year older! Kailyn will be 6 in a month, Asilyn will be 8 in four months, and Justin will be 12 in 4 months! I feel like my life is a blur!

Speaking of school... this will be the first year I home school all three of the kiddos. I've had a year under my belt with homeschooling my son, that way he is accustomed to it as well as myself and I'm super excited to bring my girls home. I've had a mixture of emotions, mostly excitement and "nesting", but then there are days of doubt and uncertainty (of the unknown)... I'm sure once we get into a smooth routine, those fears will be forgotten. One day in my future I'll come back and read this blog and laugh at myself for my over analyzing. But at the moment... I'm doing all I can to prepare. The more I prepare the more confident I feel.

So, how does one prepare for something that one only has a vague knowledge of? Well, reading other homeschooling mom's blogs helps for sure. Getting ideas and kind of meshing those ideas to fit to our individual needs goes a long way as well. I won't fully know how these systems will work until we actually delve in, so anything I post doesn't come so much as a recommendation, more out of "hey, this is what we're trying... I'll let ya know how it goes".

My first and foremost priority was to get our schoolroom prepared to adding 2 more. So we went out and got identical desks to that of my son's (I've got to be matchy-matchy that way), putting them together as well as the chairs (I purchased the standard desk chairs that swivel... after having a few summer school lessons, I totally am starting to rethink that idea... oh, the rotating and rotating and rotating!)

My daughters' desk arrangements vary slightly from my son's, as he will be entering middle school (6th) this year and his lessons will require a different setup. On my girls desks, I have 2 filers that they will put each lesson's work in as they go. At the end of the school day, I can collect these papers, grade if needed and insert grades and school hours online. Best to focus on them during the day and all the admin work after. These particular desks have a shelving unit on the side, where the girls math cubes and helps are on the first shelf, and a fabric bin holding all of their literature needed throughout the school year (random books sent to us by their online school that aren't used on a daily basis- each girl has at least 20 aside from their regular lesson materials). This was a great way for me to not only separate each child's individual reading books, but to also keep them from getting mixed up with my own library of books (these will have to be returned at the end of the school year).

Take a look at Asilyn's desk...

...as you can see, she has her full name right in front of her, although she knows how to spell her name, she has misspelled her middle name a time or two, and this also marks this space as her own. It's also laminated, so it won't be easily ripped. Her 2 filers (which is holding her "summer journal" at the moment) which, as I said above, will hold her completed papers as she finishes each lesson. The 2 shelves on the right house the math cubes and helps and you can see the bottom fabric bin that is holding all of her "small" books she'll need throughout the school year. She also has her own trashcan. In all of the drawers, they each have a few sharpened pencils, an electric pencil sharpener, and an extra eraser. Pencils breaking or not being able to erase is probably their number ONE reason to get out of their seats multiple times an hour. This eliminates that excuse. :)

Here's Kailyn's desk:

Nearly identical. I have put the girls on opposing walls, so that their backs will be to one another during lessons. They are each other's own distraction. Her setup is the same including her own trash can. (On the very right is my teacher desk setup... it's currently a mess with papers that I have been going through and sorting that the girls brought home on their last day of public school... sigh... needless to say, my desk will be a post for another day.) I should also mention that beneath each desk, I have chair mats for their rolling chairs. They were a steal at my local bulk club!

And last but not least, Justin's desk:

His desk is slightly different. No filers for him, as the majority of his work will be done online, although he will have some book work, however he will have notebooks for each subject. He has a laptop to do his work on, uninterrupted by the girls when they have to do their online lessons (on my computer sitting at my desk). Again, his own trashcan as well. I haven't gotten his books yet so that's why his desk looks so lonely and empty inside. :) Not for long! For Justin, I obviously have not put a name tag above his desk... he's going in 6th... I'd be worried if he didn't know at least that... but we are utilizing the wall in front of him for helps. He still has last years items, however I don't think I will take them down just yet until I see his math load this year. He has a multiplication chart, a "Types of Graphs & Charts" chart, a Prime & Composite Numbers and their Factors chart he had done in 5th grade, Formulas/Definitions of Range, Mean, Median, & Mode, and finally, Formulas used to find Perimeter, Area, and Volume for several shapes and figures. Good helps to keep in front of him. He's got a photographic memory, and seeing & using these day in and day out will forever inbed in his memory (I hope).

Next we worked on the "library". I have been collecting children's to pre-teen's books now for 12 years. I've given about 500 of the younger aged books (as my daughter's grew) to our local nursery school... which helped in being able to house the rest of the books... But we are still pushing the limits on space. My "library" consists of a simple 5 shelf standing bookcase (that I have had for 15 years... and counting), and I have categorized the books as best as I can with so many. Here's a look:

The top shelf has Arts & Crafts books and materials, as well as small dictionaries & thesauruses ranging from kid's age to a pocket Webster. The second shelf is arranged with reading books, mostly in order by age/level range. The third shelf is comprised of a good bit of books that children would normally find and check out of their school library, again ranging in age/level. The fourth shelf houses interactive books, coloring books, educational workbooks, books of questions and answers as well as a large WildLife Fact-File (good for reports on specific animals or just to read about them). And the last shelf has a lot of their Bible materials, valuable Children's Books, as well as an eclectic mix of some very old original classics. Put a label above, and wa-laa, my library!

Next was creating a materials center. With homeschooling comes materials. Scissors, glue, crayons, markers, colored pencils, pencils, erasers, headphones, paper clips, tape, pens, paper (writing, notebook, loose leaf, construction, printer), staples & staplers... I mean if you just think about all the things that come with the responsibility of homeschooling... it can be overwhelming. So I needed to create a space, specifically for the kids, that they could have access to at any given time to get materials, especially without bothering a sibling who may be deep in concentration.

Here's what I came up with:

This is a simple, inexpensive shoe organizer. I had originally bought this to create a workbox system for my son last year and by the middle of the year, we had stopped using it. So I recycled. :) I had also bought some fabric bins that fit the shelves. I created tags with pictures of different materials, printed, laminated, and cut them. Then using sticky-back Velcro dots, I attached each tag to the box in which these materials would be.

For example,

The tags show a box of crayons and markers splayed out into a circle. Inside they will find.... markers and crayons. Can't get any simpler than that.

Another example,

Paper... my tag actually looks like a miniature piece of paper. I thought about using words... but since my children range in age (from one just learning how to read to one who has been reading since he was 3), I figured it would be best to begin with pictures.

And now, we move to the last part of my schoolroom that I'm going to show in this particular post. Our "morning board". I have seen some amazing morning boards on blogs from other homeschooling mom's! And while I think to myself (that would be awesome!) I have to keep in mind that I have varying degrees of ages and while making the date out of coins, or adding the numbers together may be fun to my youngest two, I could potentially be wasting valuable time with my middle schooler. Our morning routine (aside from the morning chores of making their beds and personal hygiene) will consist of choosing the helper for the day (who will pass out any papers, help with cooking lunch, help mom), changing the date, checking the weather, having a Bible lesson, memorizing a Bible verse together (one a week), saying our prayers (including praying for our sponsored child, Wilmita, in Haiti~whose picture is up on our board for us to remember), going over our address & phone number, as well as 911, and then saying the pledge of allegiance. That should be enough time used to put us into school mode... as well as giving God our first 10% of our day. :)

So here's my morning board, so far. It will probably look different by the time school actually starts, but this is it for now.

You can see Wimita at the top corner on the right, as well as our personal information (which I covered for the sake of our privacy on this post), and an actual calendar to help us see in advance events that may be coming up. At the bottom corner of the board is our weather tracking and below the entire board is our date, which I got the idea from another website.

A closer look:

As you can see, the first set of cards has my daughter's name (I can flip through the names each day to change the helper of the day). This will help everyone to remember who the helper of the day is. No arguments. Of course, we have the day of the week, the month, the date and the year. The helper will be in charge of making the changes to the morning board. You can see a closer look at the weather. Justin and I used this last year and he really seemed to enjoy taking note of the weather each morning on the way to take the girls to school so that he could make the necessary changes when we got home. So I think I will keep that up since I am positive my daughters will enjoy it as well. The helper will also be in charge of saying our morning prayer, as well as leading us in the pledge of allegiance.

So that's my schoolroom. A closer look at it anyway. Maybe tomorrow or sometime later this week or next, I can go over the system I am using to keep the kids on track and independently work on their lessons!

Overall, I am excited despite the few nervous jitters I get. I hope it all goes as smoothly as I want it to and I will definitely be keeping up with it. :) I will get the links from where I got the weather printouts and the date printouts when I get a chance and add it to this post. In the meantime, happy Wednesday everyone!

Until Next Time,