New 2 Homeschooling

Showing posts with label Homeschool Room. Show all posts

For the record, I am not a blog photographer. I do hope to one day take a photography class.
I took these pictures with my iPhone.
This is probably the neatest I will see this room all year, although I will try my best to keep it up. I cleared out a lot of stuff they outgrew and have some empty baskets and spaces to give new things homes.

Below is my son's desk. It's just a plastic folding table I already had. I decided to paint them since they were grayish and boring.

He likes it clean which means I am not allowed to "temporarily" pile stuff on it because he knows it will be there longer than temporarily.

I found an office chair that tilts because I grew oh so tired of telling him to stop tilting back on his old chair. He looooves the office chair and was super excited to see it put together.

The cubbies hold math manipulatives and card games. The baskets on top hold library and planned read aloud books and poetry books for Poetry Tea.

I found an Alice in Wonderland tea set at Home Goods. It's proudly on display in the center.

The top middle basket holds all of my science experiment supplies. I need a place to put those random items when I come home from the store; otherwise, I can't find them when I need them. We're doing Real Science Odyssey Chemistry this year and have at least one, usually two labs every week. It's a lot of little supplies that I usually have on hand, but when there is something I don't usually have, like salt-substitute, I put it in there for when I need it.

My area.
I pulled out my chair so you could see everything I need for the school day is within reach.
The left tower has subjects we use every day. If I didn't have enough room, then those subjects went on the bottom bookshelf.
The right tower holds lined paper, laminate sheets, c-rods and other supplies.
We are doing 4th grade this year, which is the perfect year to start series books. I have them all lined up in the bookshelf on the left. We're starting with Kane Chronicles, then Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus to go with History. For Literature, we have Chronicles of Narnia and the first two books in the Harry Potter series.

My daughter's desk.

This is probably the cleanest it will be all year. She has tons of art supplies surrounding her and a giant trash can that is supposed to help with the little pieces of cut up paper. (it really doesn't) .

She has the closet next to her with more art supplies. I gave her all of my old cardmaking/scrapbooking supplies and she is loving it. She'll spend hours making little books for her American Girl dolls. She also has a strange fascination with making paper brooms for her dolls. Her dolls must love to clean because so far she's made about 20 brooms.

The room from the other angle. This room gets the most light in the house, making it a nice bright place to work. We can turn up the blinds and see the sky. We mostly sit at the table while doing school or go out to the living room couch to read. Their desks are for when they are having trouble sitting at the table together. Sometimes, they just need their own space.

My grandmother had a rock collection and I thought I would try it out in the middle of the table. I thought it would be something interesting to look at and it would weigh down the tablecloth. The kids do like handling them and seeing how they sparkle in the sun.

I'll be going on my 3rd year and I cannot believe how much stuff we've accumulated. It's a good thing they are growing out of some of it. I posted some books on Amazon last week and already sold 2! Anyway, I wanted to clear out the room and reorganize. I only bought a few things, the rest was repurposed from what was already around the house.

I painted the tables and scored when I saw the tins at Michaels for 70% off. My big ol office chair is usually blocking the bookcase so everything is within reach and I can quickly change subjects. Why yes, that's a purple laptop. :D I needed a laptop so I can take school with me into the kitchen for experiments or to the backyard. I found this one refurbished at NewEgg. Hmmm...black or purple? I'll take purple.

I love these maps! They are peel and stick and dry erase. They are also the perfect color.

I still have to hang the bulletin board. All of my cubbies are organized and labeled.

I kept the Hogwarts corner and turned the old coffee table into daughter's coloring table. I found the lapdesk at Walmart for $10. She carries it around so she can color in front of the tv or wherever.

This will eventually be my middle son's desk. The green looks fluorescent, but it's not nearly as bright as it looks. They both came into the room after I painted it and said they didn't know there was another table. Ha. Yes, it blended into the wall and was covered in papers to file and to bind. I'd still like to paint the folding chairs or get some office chairs that will let them sit higher up so my daughter doesn't have to use a booster seat.

I found a bunch of sayings online that I wanted to turn into posters. I made them in Publisher and printed then laminated them because I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them. I found a cheap poster frame sitting in the garage, so I painted the outside, put wrapping paper on the inside and hung it up. It should be easy to change it out if I want to down the road.

The baskets were also 70% off. Now I have a place to put the library books. Though I'll probably need to use both because we check out a lot of library books.

I still have to go through the closets and my oldest's room. We won't start until September 2, so I have some time.

Document your homeschool reading adventures by creating a reading tree. Each leaf has the title of a book read by yourself as a read aloud or your children. There are so many ways to do this, some temporary, some more permanent, painted, wall decals or with paper, let your imagination go wild.

Here are some ideas I've gathered as I work on mine.

Alphabet Tree by Dali Decals
How cool is this for a reading tree! You can choose the color of the trunk, 3 leaf colors and the size.

RoomMates RMK1319GM Dotted Tree Peel & Stick Giant Wall Decal

RoomMates RMK1319GM Dotted Tree Peel & Stick Giant Wall Decal

RoomMates Dotted Tree Peel & Stick Giant Wall Decal
Trace the leaves onto paper, for future cut-out use. Then write directly on the leaves with permanent marker. This one is colorful and the leaves are kind of chunky, great for if you want to add pictures or more information.

BIG Tree with Bird Wall Decal Deco Art Sticker Mural
This would be a more elegant option. You could write on each one with a silver or white permanent marker. This tree comes in all kinds of colors to match your room. Once filled you could create your own leaves to add color.

Giant 8 foot tall Barren Tree Decal by Dali Decals

Big and bare so you can add your own leaves. I like this one for a family tree option as well.

Ideas for adding your own leaves.

Print out your leaves and cut.
Print out labels of books with pictures and attach to leaf cutouts.
Write on decorative fall leaves.
Use a Large Maple Leaf Craft Punch.

Some Links of finished Reading Trees

Family Fun Reading Tree

Martha Stewart DIY Tree

Blogs

A Homeschool Journal

My Daily Find - A pure paper example

Satori Smiles

In the meantime what I've done is create a template of business card size tags and we're gluing them into his own reading book as we go. Every once in a while I will be asked to listen to a book, just to see if he can earn a tag. Here's a sample:

I made the reading book by printing a Dr. Seuss picture onto a piece of cardstock, folding it in half, adding blank paper and stapling in the middle. Super easy.
Here's the full PDF download.

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