When we moved into this house two months ago, we made a lot of changes. One of those changes was our schoolroom. My husband’s step-dad decided to build us a schoolroom in the garage and I was so thankful and so excited. He took the wood from the deck we tore out to help build the floor so that the floor would be level with the kitchen, instead of a few steps down. It also means that our schoolroom floor is nice, rather than a concrete floor and he gave us storage underneath the schoolroom! He also gave us a window and it is a very nice little room where we can do all of our learning and then shut the door on the mess.
Not that the rest of the house is free of mess at this time. Or any time.
Anyway, I would like to give you a little tour of our schoolroom. We also do school at the kitchen table (I like to read while the kids are eating and are therefore more quiet than at other times) and we do some reading cozied up on the couch.
This is where we do our “Circle Time.” Circle time includes practicing our verse or passage (right now it is Psalm 100), practicing our Spanish series (from Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason and Francios) or poem, and then an activity from our daily focus. On Monday, we focus on geography (right now we are learning the continents and the oceans of the world), on Tuesday, we focus on music (right now we are learning about Vivaldi), Wednesday is poetry day, Thursday is art day (Renoir is our current artist, as you can see), and on Friday, we read a chapter from Wisdom and the Millers. We finish Circle Time with reviewing our phonograms and playing phonics games.
Underneath the easel, I store GeoSafari stuff, clothespins for pinning cards to our clothesline timeline, and dry erase boards and activities.
Here is where I store our art kits and some of our school supplies. In the baskets we have a loom, door plaque kit, a flower box kit, perler beads, pony beads, a bracelet kit, pastels and special art supplies, an aquadoodle mat and magnet letters. In the plastic drawers, I have all the normal office/school supplies: dry erase markers, pencils, pens, highlighters, tape, printer ink, label stickers, notepads, a labeler and things like that.
The basket on the top has our phonics cards and things I use for Circle Time. And we love having an electric pencil sharpener easily accessible for all to use!
I sit here (right now, as I type this) often to plan, prepare, print, and pray. Underneath the desk is a lot of stuff that is only barely organized. I know where everything is, but it is not efficiently organized like I would like it to be. I just have not had the time to devote to that yet. Right now, I am keeping a huge box of stickers ,drawers with pens, pencils, and markers, a file box for school records, my laminator, a box of stationary and my three-hole punch.
Here are where my students sit. Each of my older two students have a set of drawers and a basket for their school supplies and books. The whiteboard is magnetic and the perfect size for our needs. The table was made especially for me by my sister-in-law’s ver skilled brother.
In this corner, we have our main craft supply cabinet. Way up at the top, we keep paper bags (for puppets), paint sponges, a wood working kit, and our math balance. The next shelf contains books, special markers, and a ship-in-a-bottle kit. The next shelf down contains our math manipulatives and supplies (for RightStart Math). The middle shelf contains a spice rack of little art supplies (including pompoms, googly eyes, sequins, brads, and glitter) and paper of all kinds. In the lower shelves, we keep paint, do-a-dot markers, big pompoms, craft sticks, stencils, pipe cleaners, and a puppet making kit.
I would really like our world map up here, instead of our USA map, since we are doing ancient world history this year. However, due to several moves happening between my last use of the world map and now, I cannot find it. Yet.
We also have a chore chart up here. I haven’t started using it yet, but it is up in hopes that I will be reminded to start that soon.
The pocket chart holds our preschool project. Z-urchin and I are going through the alphabet and putting stickers (from my big sticker box that is under my desk) on the cards for each letter. Z-urchin loves this activity and it is sweet time with him.
Finally, this is our wall of shelves. We have our nature shelf and nature board, ready to fill with nature things. We are focusing on learning about birds (through Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures), so we have some bird guides and pictures up, with our other science books and nature tools. Then all of our current curriculum and some art books are on the other shelf so I have easy access to them.
We also keep our Child Training Bible and Virtue Training Bible on this shelf. These are resources we love, designed by a dear friend from college. Her system reminds me very much of how she liked to study and our study sessions together!
We are now in our fourth week of school, using our new little schoolroom and it is great!
3. After looking through Usborne’s Ancient World at the examples of pottery we saw, we created our own Greek inspired pottery using clay planting pots and black acrylic paint.
5. We played a more modern version of an Ancient Greek version of hockey. That is to say, I read that they used to play a hockey like game, hitting a ball with sticks. So that’s what we did.
Following Footprints 