School Space

Part of the reason I am finding homeschooling rewarding and "easy" is because Rich is so helpful, and he allows me to make our house into a giant school room.  We do most of our "schoolwork" in the red room upstairs.  It is the red room because the walls are red, and it used to be our library/reading room, before kids.  It then became the kids' other play room, and now it is set up for us to do school stuff.  I have gotten really into organizing and planning, and it makes it so much easier to do this.  I thought I would share some pictures of our space.  Today we started the letter E, number 5, color yellow, shape oval, animal elephant, and seasons.  We found things in the house that begins with E and things that were yellow, as well as things that were oval.  We colored papers with the letter, shape, number and color.  We read about elephants, and discussed mammals again.  We talked about what happens to trees and plants in each season, and we had a great day doing it all.  Here is where we work.

This is the wall showcasing our color and shape posters, and some of our letter posters that we made.

Here is our easel, and all my materials on the desk, amid the toys and television (which often doesn't get used, but is necessary to listen to music through the DVD player).

My shelves of materials, and some other posters we made.  Patterns, graphs, our United States Map, and a manuscript alphabet.  I keep several educational CD's here, and lots of art materials.

Here are our number posters, and the end of the alphabet posters.  There is also the small gray markerboard, where we do the date, write our subjects of the day, and do the weather.  It is right next to the window where there is a digital thermometer/ weather center.

This is the beginning of our letter posters, under the bookshelves, over the desk.  I have baskets of writing materials here, and several educational toys, scissors, glue, etc.

Here is their work table, Mason's nap space, and the window.  To the right of the window is my closet.  While there isn't a lot of space in this room, we really keep maximizing it.  It works well for us.  We use scotch tape to put up our posters, and the kids' work, and I keep folders of their current work on my shelves.




I really enjoy using this space, and so do the kids.  They love coloring at the table, and playing on the floor.  We sometimes watch a movie or PBS program on the small television in there, and often have music playing while we work.  It is a bright, cheery and productive school space.

Tomorrow our journey continues with a more in depth study of our themes for the week.  All three kiddos seemed very interested in the elephants especially.  Wednesday we have a craft project, and Friday a cooking project.  They really are adapting well to all the changes, and I am so proud.