Our {Home} Schoolroom | 2013-2014

Welcome to our 1st Grade Schoolroom!  Our schoolroom hasn't really changed much since last year.  It still doubles as the playroom, though with the girls getting older we have gotten rid of quite a few toys and made room for more books, games, and crafts.

On the left wall is my desk, our calendar wall, chore chart, whiteboard, and all about spelling board.  My desk holds my computer, printer, daily planner and then all my teachers manuals or test booklets we are currently using.

Our back wall has our flag for the pledge, our extra curriculum, misc workbooks, manipulative, craft supplies, toys, books, puzzles, and games. Even though the girls are getting a tad big, they do still fit their little craft table we got when they were toddlers.  It's nice for messy crafts or for subjects where they need to sit and face the whiteboard.

The right wall has both girls desks with our added drawers for this year.  We're doing a modified workbox system and each drawer has 1-2 of their subjects and it makes it easy for me to ready their schoolwork for the next day.  We also got a new 4 cubbie Expedit from Ikea which along with some new storage tubs is great for their smaller toys... like the lego city currently residing on the top.

It's nothing too elaborate, but I feel so blessed to have a room dedicated to our schooling and a space where the girls can focus and learn. 

 

Linking up this week iHomeschool Network!
Check it out for a ton of other amazing homeschool rooms!

Our {Home} Schoolroom

This is the full view of our classroom.  Our schoolroom doubles as a playroom so it holds all the girls toys, crafts, books, games, etc. We decided when we moved in and the girls were just babies that it made more sense to make our front room a playroom instead of a formal living room.  It's the first room you see when you walk in the front door, but we had no other space to hold the girls "stuff" so we felt it would be best for our family.  It's naturally progressed into the schoolroom so it's been perfect!

The majority of our classroom furniture is from IKEA.  LOVE!!!  We have a Billy Bookcase on each side of the window with ab Expedit Bookshelf on it's side under the window.  The girls and I all have the Vika Amon Table Top (mine is larger) and I have the Vika Alex Drawers on one side.  The shelf organizers are either from IKEA or Target's $1 Spot.

Now let's go on a tour of the room...

On the back wall I have my cute vintage alphabet cards.  I still can't part with the girls toddler table and chairs, becuase they still use it for messy crafts and it's so marked up I don't care about it getting ruined.  The left wall has my whiteboard, their toy bin, and our calendar area as well as my desk, printers, and craft/toy/dress-up cabinet.  The right wall has the girls desks, barbies, and doll house. 



The left shelf holds our school supplies, manipulatives, curriculum, workbooks, and some of my craft and sewing supplies.



The right shelf holds all our games, books, and toys on the bottom.



The Expedit hold all our craft supplies, puzzles, leap pens, library books, play-doh, and misc toys.  On top we have our roll of paper from IKEA which is great for the girls love of art and drawing.

My desk holds 3 IKEA magazine holders which house our completed worksheets and daily curriculum.  It also holds my lovely sewing machine, color printer, and my laptop which has my lesson plans.

Our teaching/calendar wall is still in the works.  So far I have our whiteboard, a pocket chart with our ASL alphabet, our day's of the week cards, our calendar, weather and virtue of the week cards.  I plan to add more to our calendar area, but wanted to at least have this for the start of school to get us started.




The girls do the majority of work at their desks, and then we do our reading time in the Family Room snuggled up on the sofa. It's the perfect setup for us and where we are at this point in our education!

Linking up this week with iHomeschool Network!
Check it out for a ton of other amazing homeschool rooms!

1st Day of Pre-K

Yesterday was our first day of school, and I'd have to say it was a success! I loved that the slight formality and structure of it made them very willing to switch modes, sit still, and be good listeners. I didn't want them to look back and feel like they were cheated by being homeschooled so they got a back to school outfit and we took pictures of their first day which we'll do every year.

Avalyn

Brinley

We started with the pledge, prayer, calendar time and weather. After that we had song time which they absolutely LOVED! We sang the alphabet, days/months, and then a Sunday School song which we danced and did movements to. We would normally go into Bible after this, and we'll be using their Awana Cubbies lesson each week and learning their verse during this time. Since they don't have a verse this week we just went into the rest of our day.



I got my curriculum from an awesome blog I found http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/ She came up with a great Letter of the Week and K4 curriculum that you can purchase on her site. It's super affordable and very easy to use. Since the girls are ready for writing and phonics I decided to go with the K4 curriculum and then focus on a letter each week since they didn't have a whole year of that previously and they could use a bit of extra focus along with the overall alphabet learning they will be doing.

I decided to start us with A so we talked about and wrote our upper and lowercase A's. We talked about the long and short sounds A makes and sang the vowel song. I mixed up the curriculum a bit to fit our needs and tried to focus at least 1 activity each day in the following areas (Bible/Letter Activity/Writing/Numbers/Motor Skills/Phonics/Language(Spanish & Sign since their uncle Josh is deaf)/Art/Reading (I read their library books to them for 20 minutes) It all fits into 2 hours and then we have lunch and go about the rest of our day.



I can't even tell you how many times they exclaimed "Mommy, this is so fun I LOVE having school at home. Does it have to end?" Makes my heart sing! I'm so excited about this and thrilled that I get to play such a huge role in their education. I think this is going to be great for our family and I can't wait to see how it unfolds!

The Schoolroom

The past few weeks have been filled with Ikea, Amazon purchases, and a myriad of homeschooling blogs. I've gone from feeling nervous, to excited, to... what the heck am I doing??? There is SO much information out there that it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially when you have never before looked into homeschooling (becuase ya know, it wasn't an option.) So now I'm trying not to sink as I tread the waters of all things preschool. I feel really blessed and lucky in a way, that we have made this decision now while I can't really screw anything up. I mean, preschool isn't even required so I have no doubt I'll do okay and worst case have them overly ready for Kinder. Best case though, we'll find our groove over the course of the year and work out the kinks so we can have a great Kinder year next year. But baby steps... one year at a time!

The front room of our house which should be a dining/living room has always been a sort of multi-purpose room. It started out as a playroom for the girls, becuase that was way more practical moving in with 2 babies than a formal dining room. The playroom has changed as the girls toys and needs have changed. This is the playroom after we ripped out the carpet and added the wood floors to match the rest of the downstairs a year ago.





The schoolroom/playroom is still a work in progress, but I'm so excited that it's coming along. We added bookcases to the back wall and a desk for each of us. It still needs to double as a playroom until they are older so I tried to make sure I accommodated both needs. I'll definitely be updating with details once things are a bit closer to being done, but it's on it's way!