The School Room

It's time to show you the school room! :) I had every intention to make this space bright, colorful and fun (because it's something I'd never do in any other room of the house...) but then we put the house on the market and had to leave it neutral. So, I just worked with what I had! Here goes...

This is what you see when you first walk in. The piano was given to us when we moved to Pennsylvania. I found the "Family" wall-hanging in Hobby Lobby during a recent trip to SC. The upholstered chair in the corner was a lucky find from a super cute shop I refer to as "mom's basement". :) The gate-leg table is an antique from my great-grandparents home. The chalk-board in the back (that's supposed to be hung, hint hint sweet hubby...) was made by us. He bought a cheap board from Lowes and some 1x4's for the trim. I painted the trim brown and used chalk-board paint for the board.

The red bean-bag chairs in the corner are from Target and are NEVER used. Very poor investment on my part. :(

The teacher's desk. :) This is where I store all of my curriculum, pens, flashcards, school supplies, etc. Small upholstered chair is another antique from my great-grandparents.

The boys sit on this hope-chest-turned-bench to work on school, and the chalkboard is easily accessible right behind them.

Just another picture of the desk. Craigslist for $15! Still planning on painting it, distressing it, and adding new hardware but don't want to start all of that until we move and decide on a new color scheme.

We are using BJU's Footsteps for Fours curriculum. I will be honest. I'm not a fan. :( But only because it is not written for homeschoolers. I have been busy completely rewriting the entire teacher's edition to suit our family.

I'm using this notebook to rewrite the lesson plans. LOVE this! Found it in a teacher's supply store a long time ago, and now finally have a use for it! :)

Another down-side to the K4 curriculum we have chosen to use is that it doesn't include Bible, art, or music. Soooo, we are improvising according to our objectives for this year. Verse memorization will just be out of the Cubbies book. Seth does family devotions at breakfast, and the kids have Bible story books read to them before bed. This is enough for us, for this year.

For music we are planning on enrolling our 4 year old in Suzuki violin as soon as we find out where we'll be moving to. :) In the mean time, they are memorizing a new hymn every week. Hymns were an enormous part of my childhood growing up, and I want it to be a part of theirs as well.

I am a very task-oriented planner. :) This school-prep time has really made me think about our reasons for #1: homeschooling. #2: why are we encouraging book-learning for preschool? #3: what are my objectives for this year? The lay-out of the school room, the curriculum we are using, and the extra-curricular activities I arranged are strictly due to these three areas. I don't believe preschool is required to be strictly educational. It's important for us to be prepared for kindergarten next year, so it's important for us to be organized and learn to sit still and listen-to-comprehend this year. We are starting August 2nd, Lord willing, and will be following a 4-day school week. I have allowed 1 day a week for scheduled play-dates, violin, and the library. We will also be taking an entire week off for Christmas. I'm excited, but very overwhelmed. I know it won't go exactly the way I have planned, but I feel like I have a much better chance of getting something accomplished if I set my standards high and strive to work hard. We will see. God has called us to teach and train our children at home for this year, so that's what we are planning to do! And by golly, I'm going to give it my darn-level best. :)