It's done!!! :)

Finally!  After 3 weeks, I've finished the classroom/playroom. The only thing left to do is move all of Monkey's toys from her room into the back half of this room. 

East side of the room - the exercise bike will be removed eventually 

West side of the room

My teacher corner

8 ft whiteboard, drop leaf table that is easily moved for projects, and console table to store things like the laminator, cricut, and more (it also serves as a room divider)

Backside of the console table - Monkey's art center

Barbie Corner complete with one-of-a-kind artwork by Monkey

Monkey's Playhouse - this area will include more baby stuff and her play kitchen

Shelving for all those school items - textbooks, puzzles, supplies, and books 

It's getting there...

My teacher corner is complete. I'm sure I'll find little things to add to the area (I've already found a shelf that hubby made years ago that I'm planning to hang on the wall), but the desk is in and the computer is hooked up. I'm a happy mom :)

Transitions

Little by little I'm working to turn my misused craft room (aka junk room) into our new homeschool/play room. This room is actually a second living area off the kitchen with 240 sq feet of space to work with!  This corner was supposed to be used as a workspace, but...

This picture was taken after I cleared out the counter high collection of boxes and 42" flat screen TV from the front of the cabinets as well as the 2 ft tall mountain of paperwork, projects, and supplies on the countertop. 

To transition to a homeschool space, I removed the countertop and two cabinets. Then I boxed up all the ribbon and removed the shelf above the countertop. I added some reference posters to the wall. And now it's ready for my "teacher" desk which will hold my laptop and printer. Next step, getting that desk cleaned off/out and moved :)

Wow! Lots of life and very little time to blog!

We are in the process of moving our homeschool room from the dining room to our second living area which I've been using a craft room (aka junk storage). I thought it would be neat to blog about it as I completed each area. It wasn't until I logged in to blogger to create a new blog about homeschooling that I remembered I'd already created one!  Oops!  It's been nearly a year since my last post, but I'm hoping to do better this year. In the mean time, here's what we've been up to this year...

We went to a concert...

We grew some beans...

We did some chores...

We read lots of books...

We danced...

We did some homeschooling...

 

 

We did some crafts...

We played games...

 

We baked cookies from scratch...

We visited Dinosaur George...

We traveled...

 

We went to Brownies...

 

Lots of life...and a little learning as well :)

Spelling & More

I'm a big supporter of NOT boring kids by teaching them stuff that they already know.  And I was planning our summer homeschooling curriculum based on Summer Bridge Activities, I noticed that there were A LOT of spelling words and if I broke them down into 10-word lists, it would take us into September before we finished.  So, I decided to test Monkey on the words going from easiest to hardest.  We structured it just like a spelling test with her writing the words in her Spelling spiral.  If she got the word correct, she was allowed to put a green checkmark beside it.  If she got the word wrong, it went on the Spelling List for the week.  We got through 35 words before we had ten for this week:

Then I had her copy the words into her spiral:

We continue with several more activities including a lesson on contractions and what that comma thingy is!

All in all, I think it was an excellent first day of homeschool for Monkey.  She loved it.  I thoroughly enjoyed being able to teach again (I didn't realize how much I missed it).  And we got so much done! 

I leave you with a snapshot of our board at the end of the day.  Happy Homeschooling!

The Beginning

Monkey has been begging me to start homeschooling. This is her first year to be homeschooled, but I've been unschooling her older brother for the past 8 years. It's hard to believe he'll be a senior this year!

So, tomorrow is the big day! It's really too hot here to do anything else anyway. I'm pretty excited and a little nervous. Guess I better get to bed so I'll be ready bright and early :)