This week I thought I would share our classroom. When my husband and first started talking about homeschooling one of the concerns I had was that I had no where to set up "class". Using the dining room or stealing a corner of the living room seemed the only option but, it just didn't seem like it would work. We thought about it a lot and finally did something we had talked about several years ago - we even talked about it before kids - we switched rooms. We took the medium sized room which is actually right next to the bathroom so it is ALMOST a master suite ;-) The boys are now in what used to be our room - the biggest room. We turned the tiny bedroom (Nate's old room) into the classroom and we love it! The boys love hanging out in there (but we are still working on how to treat some things in that room . . it's a learning process for sure!)
Here we go!
I moved this book case from the dining room into the classroom. It is still, quite honestly, an organizational work in progress for sure! The top of it houses things that just don't have a home or I need to evaluate (i.e. - I have a bunch of "old" 12x12 size pages . . I need to go through the old albums and make sure they are all done - if so, I need to get rid of that stash once and for all). The first full shelf houses my current/in progress scrapbook albums. This makes them easy to get to to work on. The rest of the shelf houses the stereo (which Josh loves), my sewing stuff, craft stuff and, on the bottom shelf is our file box. Which is kind of ironic . . I had emptied my filing cabinet so I could move it into the classroom but . . I forgot about that until right now . . maybe I can move that stuff from the file box back into the filing cabinet and free up a shelf!
This is a shot looking into the classroom from the door. The table that is under the window is my area. It houses scrapbooking supplies and my current pages, my cricut and laminater and, of course the school books. Under the table I'm able to store all of my scrapbooking bags. The table on the right of the photo is the table the boys use. The posters are from our "All about reading" curriculum.
The storage closet :-) The top shelf is where my scrapbooks are now all housed. The second shelf is also a work in progress but it is where I store games and activities I don't want the kids getting into. Then I moved our 9 cube storage shelf into the closet and this houses books and other activities the kids can get to - but they are learning that those items need to stay in the classroom.
This area is specifically Josh's work area. The white board is his weekly learning board that has all of the info from his RRSP lessons. Yes, that is a computer - it is our old laptop that still works well (It was my baby shower gift from the group my husband plays in - they gave it to me while I was in the hospital for 7 weeks - it was perfect!) He'll be using the computer for power point lessons at this point.
This is our calendar wall. Starting from left to right - there is a bulletin board which has some daily songs and also will have photos of people we are praying for in class. (Right now the photo is of John and Betsy Wenz - Betsy was diagnosed with a brain tumor recently). Underneath that is our white board. We'll use this for class a lot :-) Then, you can't see it but hanging just above the calendar is our "We Choose Virtues" poster. Obvious, the calendar is the big blue thing in the middle!! Finally the board on the easel houses our weekly items - song, verse, color, shape, weather charts, and some obedience poems we are working on. The Zebra on the top is from our "All About Reading" curriculum.
This photo was taken of Josh while the room was in process. I found him sitting in his chair with his head leaned back listening to the CD in the CD player that HE can turn on all by himself. I will often here the music playing and find him in that room.
And, just as an FYI - I mentioned in my post last week that we would be starting piano lessons. Well, Josh has already moved his lesson book to the piano and I often see him flipping through the pages, "playing" the songs. He is going to be THRILLED when he can play his favorite song .. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" ;-) (Granted, right now, every song he sings has the word poop in it - just keeping it real.)
