Monday, October 14, 2013

Weekly Homeschool Report

I decided to change the title on this weekly post.  I was tired of typing the other one :-)

We did not have school this week.  Next week is actually supposed to be our week "off" but due to lots of things I decided to make this week our week off.  Between my husband being off work, me being gone at the end of the week last week, and really nice weather, it just seemed to fit.  I just told my husband a few days ago that I am officially sold on the 6 weeks on/1 week off because this week has been a wonderful break.  Even Josh, who loves school, was happy to have the week off.  When we have school - my entire morning it taken up with setting up for the day, teaching, and then cleaning up.  By the time I finish, it is usually time to start getting lunch ready.  So, to have a week where I don't have to do that, well, that is nice!

I thought I would show you what our "classroom" looks like now that we've lived with it for awhile and I've cleaned up and changed a few things.  I'm living with it like this for now to see how we really use things before I figure out what I want to get from Ikea.  I have a few ideas that will make it look "cleaner" when I can get the things I want but considering the fact that I have already changed, moved, and downsized some things, waiting is good.  Plus, I will be cleaning out my books and selling them to a Christian Bookstore that sells used books and then those shelves in the basement will become my school shelves where I can store things we aren't using on a given week.

 Our "wall".  This wall is where all of our daily items are posted.  From the calendar to our clock to sight words.  It is in easy view for the kids to refer to and also to review throughout the day.

 This corner is "command central".  The table houses the stereo, my cricut (since I use it for school projects too), carts with supplies, the kids baskets/bags with crayons and markers, bookshelf and games plus the yellow table holds their computer. 
This is hard to see but I moved our family photo wall to this small wall.  It also houses our American Flag :-)

Since our dining room is used for class and for meals it takes a lot of effort each day to keep it "up and running".  I finally let go of keeping something pretty on my table since I was constantly moving it off to do class or eat meals.  No more table clothes for now either since they make it difficult to do school work.

I also thought I would share what our playroom looks like too.
 From the doorway. 
 The main area.
My "closet".  Right now the closet houses my crafts, school stuff and scrapbooking stuff.  I'm really leaning towards moving most of this down to the basement on storage shelves once I sell those books.  Then we can use the shelves to house kid stuff, like games and puzzles.

I also have bigger storage plans for this room, again, from Ikea.  That will help with Lego storage, Lincoln Log storage, cars, trucks and other fun stuff.

So, that's our daily life in school.  That dining room table gets a ton of use . .. we looked at replacing the chairs this year because they are so uncomfortable but have yet to find what we like and we sat on a lot of chairs!!