School Room Tour

Welcome to our School Room!  I promised you a tour and I decided today that it was clean enough to go ahead and take some pictures to share with you all.  I also took a video which I personally think gives a better view of the room but I am having trouble uploading it so for now this will have to do.  

The first thing we did was paint the room this very beautiful blue color. I think the actual name was Surfer Blue which is why I love it, it reminds me of the ocean.

The brightly colored alphabet rug is a new find that I really love. I found it at Costco and it adds so much color and fun to the room. The large map is also great and I'm sure we will get a lot of use out of it this year as we study world History.

This 9 cubed cabinet was a very exciting find at Home Goods. It is home to all of our Curriculum and books on the top two rows. The bottom row is full of toys and activities I can have Fish do while I am teaching Peanut.  

This colorful cabinet will be for storing all of Peanut's work throughout the week until I can get it graded and filed away.  

I will put our weekly memory verse on the chalkboard. The large whiteboard will be for teaching lessons and the lower whiteboard will be for Peanut to use to do practice problems and work.  

This is our amazing closet of supplies! It is amazing how much I have been able to store here.  The pink and black bins are full of all of our art supplies from pencils to markers to glue to paint to construction paper. Everything has its own place and I really hope it will stay organized all year.  

This side of the closet is full of games, educational activities, and books! Lots of books!!

I love this quote from Dr. Seuss and I hope it will encourage my new reader!

A LOT of books here! The top shelves are for Peanut, middles shelves for Sport, and bottom shelves for Fish.  Fish has some toys as well to help keep him occupied while I'm teaching Peanut.

Well if you are still reading, I hope that you enjoyed this post!  I am very thankful to have a school room and a place to organize all of our school supplies.  Coming from a teacher background it is hard for me not to just put a huge whiteboard on one wall and desks facing it. I am trying to embrace homeschooling and the freedom that it allows me to teach a new way.  I am sure even my school room will change throughout the year as I get my feet wet and discover what works best for my kids.

One Month Away!

Oh my goodness, ONE month from today we will be starting our homeschool year and journey!  I have remained convinced that this is what God wants me to do with Peanut this year but that doesn't mean I haven't had my moments of doubt.  Oh, how much easier it would be to just enroll her in school, but I know my daughter and I really believe that this is what is best for her at this time.

There are a lot of very very passionate homeschool families out there where it is homeschool or nothing.  I am definitely not that person, at least not yet.  I see a LOT of value in it but I also have taught public and private school and have seen a lot of value in those educational resources as well.  So we are going to take it a year at a time, and kid by kid, to see if this is something we want to continue.  My middle son, Sport, went to a Special Education preschool this past year and it has done AMAZING things for his development.  Honestly, I do not believe he would be the kid he is now without his excellent teachers and the support they gave him.  I am very excited for him to return to this preschool for one year before Kindergarten.  I love him to pieces but I am pretty certain I will never homeschool him, and that is okay.  It is important to do what is best for each kid individually because God made us all sooo different with so many different needs and skills. My youngest, Fish, is 2 right now so time will only tell what schooling option will be best for him.  Because he is my baby I secretly hope homeschooling will be a good fit for him!

For this coming year I have signed up with a school called Calvary Academy to homeschool through.  It is associated with the school I used to teach at so I know it has a great foundation and belief system.  There will be monthly meetings, help with filing legal paperwork, field trip opportunities, meetings with other homeschool mom (yeah, support!!), holiday programs, and ACSI participation which I love!  In the older grades you can also be involved in the sports and arts programs at the main school.  I am very hopeful to make some friendships with other homeschool moms with kids my kids' ages.

We will be blessed to have a school room in our house to organize all of our school supplies and art supplies. I  have been working on cleaning it out the last few weeks.  My daughter is a bit of a hoarder when it comes to art supplies and plastic junk so it has been a process.  She places sentimental value on everything so I have to clean when she is not around.  Hopefully in the next few weeks it will be done and ready for our year and then I will do a post on our school room.  I know I LOVE looking at other people's rooms so I hope people will enjoy looking at ours too :)

As for planning, I have my first two weeks planned out and all the holidays marked off. That is as far as I want to do for now because I want to wait and see how quickly or slowly she works and get a better feel for how it goes in real life. This is all new so there is much to be discovered.  One more month!

Until then, enjoy summer!!!