School Room Week

New house equals new school room for us.....I miss the size of my other school room but this is working. We have never really sat all day in our school room anyways to work.  It is just kind of a starting place and then we hop from desks, to kitchen table, to couches and even the floor.  Still I like a place to house all our stuff and for hanging things. ;)

Our school room is now in what would be a formal dining room.  It is a much smaller place but it works.  The girls desks are upstairs in the hallway.  Now ask me if they every sit at them to do schoolwork. LOL  But I am not willing to part with them yet.  They like to play at them and store "stuff" in them.    Joshua's desk is in his room but he prefers the kitchen table.  Anastasia works in her room most of the day.  It is downstairs right next to the school room. So it is quiet for her but close enough to still be part of things if need be.

Here is a picture of my school room on a typical day.  I didn't clean it up for the picture.  Uggh...maybe I should have.  :)    I still love workboxes but this year I have changed things up a bit to work better for us and the space we have.  The shelving unit on the left is one of those Ikea Expedit cubbie shelves it is a 5X5.  Anastasia and Joshua house their school work in one of the cubbies this year.  They have enough extra work and like to do things in order so they have assignment check off sheets that I made up. Joshua likes to pile or stack all of his work on the table and then work through it so a cubbie works much better. The other 4 still have workboxes.  Natasha and Jadon still each only have 6.  (Theirs are in the back under the window, between the couch and blue book shelf)  I MUST fill Natasha's EVERY day or she is not happy!!!   She loves doing school and her activities.  And she flies through them.  It is hard keeping her busy!!  Jadon's is filled with activities  that one of his siblings can do with him when they have a break or are waiting for me. Savannah and Alexa's workboxes are side by side at the end of the school table .  They each have 12 but usually only 9 are filled.  Also this year the first 6 stay in the same order according to our routine and then I add some in the bottom ones as extras.
So that is our school room for this year.
Check out others at www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com 

Workboxes

I have been busy in the school room the last couple of weeks. As you know I love work boxes and last month I was able to participate in a live webinar seminar by Sue Patrick. It was like attending one of her workshops live through the internet. I have owned her book and have been using her work boxes for over a year now so this was a great chance for a refresher and to learn how to integrate more things.

So all the kids have work boxes now and we are going to even start Natasha with some. Savannah has her own rack now and Alexa and Natasha share a rack with 6 boxes each. I made all of their tags, --Anastasia's are Twilight, Joshua-Star wars, Savannah-gymnastics, Alexa-dance and Natasha- Dora.

These are their schedule strips (Natasha won't use a schedule strip) We do a lot of schooling at the kitchen table and on the floor but the kids also need their own space where they can sit and concentrate. Well I found these desks on craigslist for only $5.00 each!!! I love craigslist! The people I bought them from buy things in bulk from business's and things going out of business. So I got Alexa one as well.

This is Joshua's set up with his desk and work boxes.

We are going to officially start back to school on July 27th (at least for 2 weeks and then we will be taking another camping trip! :) I will let you know what we are putting in the boxes.

Our School Room

I am So Excited!!!  After waiting patiently for almost a year I finally got the shelving unit I have been wanting.  It is the 5x5 cubbie unit shelf sold by Ikea.  At Ikea the shelf with the desk is $250.00 so I have been looking for it on craigslist.  Well there was one listed finally when I had the funds.  I was able to buy this unit practically brand new for $100.00.  Whoo hoo!  My dear hubby borrowed a trailer and helped me go get it or rather I helped him. 

This "little" project took 3 days to complete.  The three bookshelves and a two door white cabinet that were in the school room got completely emptied out and the shelves got moved up to our craft room.  So this started me sorting and deep cleaning everything in the school room.  It was long and tedious but ooohh sooo worth it.  I love it, love it love it!!! 

I didn't realize how closed off the school room was before and now it is so open and we have a lot more floor space.

Here is the shelf.  I couldn't back up that far to get a straight on picture.  On the far right I moved all their tubs.  I need to get one for Tasha now.  (They still need to clean out their tubs)

This is a view into the room.  Jay also finally hung my white board.

This is to the left as you walk in.  We got rid of the computer desk and just use this table now.

This is still the same I just moved their tubs off of here and put the puzzles and other stuff.Anastasia and Joshua's workboxes

A view going out of the room

Savannah and Alexa's workboxes.  (When Savannah starts kindergarten she is going to get her own shelf and then Alex and Tasha will share)

My next project now is to put rain gutter bookshelves under the white board.  Have you seen these before?  Check out this Site and you can also google "rain gutter bookshelves".  I will post pictures when they are done.

Our New School Room and Workboxes

I know most of you are winding down for the school year and getting ready for summer but we are getting ready to gear back up.  With packing and moving and unpacking the kids have just been barely doing the basics for the last month and a half so we are going to continue schooling this summer.  It is way to hot to go outside anyways except for swimming.  I also want to school this summer because we will be taking a week off in September for our Disney trip and the new baby is due the end of November which means we will be off school from Thanksgiving thru Christmas.  I have to say this is such a great benefit of homeschooling is deciding and fitting our schedule around our family needs. 

So we finally got the school room painted and my bookshelves painted thanks to my great hubby.  I love primary colors so the walls are yellow and the shelf is red and blue.  I have another white cabinet that I would eventually like painted green.  Our school room is right off of our family room and kitchen.  I doesn't have a door just an open arch way.  So we keep the school stuff all in there and work in there but also the kids "spill" out into the family room. 

I have so many books and curriculum (what homeschool mom doesn't? lol) and I don't use them all all the time but I can't part with them.  So I put them into banker boxes and on the front of each box I put a number.  Then on a piece of paper I listed what was in each box.  Now as long as I don't lose that paper  I can find the stuff in the boxes easily.  I put these boxes on a shelf in the garage.

Now I have a place for everything and everything in its place. Although this is a great saying it never works with a two year old in the house!!  Here are some pictures of our school room and I will tell you all about the workboxes in my next post.  They are soo cool and you might even want to incorporate it into your schooling next year.

 These two pictures are just to show you what the shelves looked like in our old house.  (The white shelving in the back of the pics)

And here is what they look like now after some spray paint and a handy hubby:

I just love them!!!  Inside the red cabinet I have paper, centers, activity bags and what ever else I could put in there. 

Now I will do a seperate post about the workboxes.

After Pictures of Our School Room

We finally got the schoolroom/playroom done. It turned out to be a bigger project when Jay wanted to start moving furniture around but it looks great now. We actually have three seperate areas now and the sewing stuff is not all piled up anymore!!! You can go back and look at the before pictures although I didn't take a picture of the big white cabinet and book shelf it was on the wall at the end of the hide a bed where the kids pictures are.

The corner where the tread mill is is where the sewing machines used to be and the white cabinet and bookshelf used to be on the wall to the right. Now one of the sewing machines is in wood cabinet in the front of the picture.

Another view showing the book case. The other sewing machine is in the little cabinet behind the tubs of toys.

A cozy reading area.

All our baby doll stuff. It is hard to get rid of anything with 3 girls and another on the way. They love to play but how many strollers do we really need!!!

My little posers had to try and get in as many pictures as they could! This is the play area. Our bulletin board is in the back ground and needs to be cleaned off still.

Here is a long view of the room. I am standing in the school area to take this picutre. We love our bookshelves and have lots and lots of books!!! We love to go to the library on Wednesdays for story time for the little ones. The green basket on top of the filing cabinet is for library books. That way they hopefully won't get lost!!!From looking at the picture above this one, if you turn right this is what you see. This is the printer and paper area. We do calendar each morning. The credenza holds all my scrapbooking stuff.

This is my computer desk area. In the box on the cabinet is felt board activities. And folded on top of the box is activity mats that I made last summer. There is a picture below.

These are my two storage cabinets with all my "school stuff and some art supplies". Most art supplies ie paint and playdough are kept downstairs in the pantry. The boxes above have preschoool activity bags and file folder games in them. Our schedule is ever evolvoing and changing but we are getting there. I try to keep it posted here. The yellow cards are for my little ones and the pink is for Anastasia (my 10 year old).This is our school table area and just to the left is the old computer for the little ones to play preschool games. The large books shelf is used to hold current curriculum and books and workbooks we are using.

These two pictures (above and below) are picture of our activity mats. I had a bunch of old material and I put two pieces together and sewed them into large squares. The kids know that they need to get a mat (blanket) out to do an activity on the floor. This way pieces stay together and they stay in on area. Also last summer I coordinated a "Preschool Activity Bag" swap. It was great. If you have any questions about it feel free to ask and here is the website where I got the book. http://www.activitybags.com/

Well I hope this encourages others. We mainly do a clean out of our school room over the summer but with our newest arrival coming on June 9th (scheduled c-section) that will keep us pretty busy this summer! Now I just need to get to planning out our next school year. I will have a 5th grader, Kindergartner, preschooler, 2 year old and a baby. We will hopefully get this year done by the end of May.

Before Pictures of Our School Room

I can't believe I am actually posting before pictures for everyone to see our mess!! But if it makes someone feel better...LOL. I know I will feel better seeing the after pictures. Which will hopefully get posted tomorrow because I can't stand the mess any longer. We are having a "cleaning party" tomorrow. Although I don't think my kids would use the word "party". But they should be eager to help and get it done because they know afterwards we get to go to their cousin's birthday party.

We have a large loft area upstairs and half is the schoolroom and the other half is playroom, sewing stuff, treadmill, etc...

This is the main school area and table. The computer on the little table is the old one for Savannah to play her little games. As I find papers and such I have been putting them on the table to go through.

This is opposite the school table. It is our computer and my desk area. This is where Jay is setting up our computer and printer.

This is the area to the left of the computer. I moved our calendar over here. The cabinet holds all my scrapbooking supplies and then the printer and paper on top.

This is the other half of the room. The play room side with baby dolls galore and the hide a bed is currently out. The stuff in the back corner is sewing stuff which we hope to get back to this summer.

Now after posting these pics I will definetly get it arranged tomorrow so I can post the "after pictures" and redeem myself.

The Homeschool Room

I am working this week on organizing and rearranging our homeschool room. Jay just got a new computer and so we moved the other one to the school room and we have a really old computer with no internet access I am trying to set up for Savannah to play jump start baby and stuff on. We seem to get papers piled everywhere and I need a new place to hang our calendar. Right now there is a bunch of stuff all over the floor and it all needs a home!! As it gets reorganized I will post some pictures. We will be finishing up the school year at the end of May to take a break and get ready for the baby.