Our New School Room & A Freebie!

Welcome to week 2 of iHomeschool Network's Not Back to School Blog Hop. It's School Room Week. 

After three moves in 2 years - yes you read that right - we are finally settling into our 'forever' home out in the country. We have 3 1/2 acres of our own, but we live right next door to a 100 acre farm. As I type, I'm watching the pretty little soybean plants billowing in the breeze along the hill out my window. After all the insanity we've endured, we are so blessed to call this place home. The best part.... our finished, walk-out basement has a large bedroom that has become our new school room. It even has a nice, big window and a walk-in closet. You bet I was drooling when we walked through this house!

So let's start the tour.

The view as you walk in.

My 6th Grader on the left; My 3rd Grader on the right.
My 8th Grader chose to work upstairs in her room to help her concentrate.  

Each of my children have their own computers. They are completely antiquated boat anchors, but still run most software and websites. But, at $20 a pop, they were a steal and we won't complain. Unfortunately, this year has some challenges as we have limited internet data usage out here in the sticks. That means any streaming is out of the question :(  So now we've become the phycho people at the library watching videos and downloading like mad instead of just casually perusing all the books. Honestly, it's a little embarassing.

Our center wall with all the great helps as we cover World Geography this year.

Our crates of books for My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures

Ok, the rocking chair may be a bit much, but I've had it since I was pregnant with my oldest and  I've rocked all my babies here. So I just CANNOT part with it. Since it didn't have anywhere else  to go in the house, a yellow pillow from Target was my attempt at making it fit, hahaha!  

click here to get this freebie!

The sign on the wall above the chair says "Our Book Explorations" to go along with our geography theme and I've included this a freebie for all of you! I found little book-shaped cut-outs from the dollar store as well. When the kids finish a book throughout the year, we will write it on the 'book' and stick them up on the wall so they can see all they've read. I just find the 'Date/Title/Pages Read'  reading logs a bit tedious. This is my attempt to keep it more visually motivating. 

 Also hanging from the shelves are some tools we use to expand on our reading skills. Story Elements Question Fans from Runde's Room have some great questions about Character, Plot, Setting, etc. And for my 3rd grader, we use Bloom's Buttons from Colleen Alaniz. She also has Bloom's Buttons for non-fiction now as well! I LOVE the look of these! I have my son choose two or three buttons from the jar (without looking) and we choose a question with the corresponding colors. It works kinda like a game, so my little guy is actually excited about answering questions about our reading.

Daily Schedule on the left and we have our white board up - FINALLY!

My desk with my Teacher's Manuals separated by child on the shelf above.

I am so thankful to be out of cardboard boxes and finally in our home. We are loving it out here and enjoyed our first week back to school. I can't wait to make some awesome memories learning together in our fun new room.

 

Curriculum Week Link-Up

It's that time again, can you believe it? Back to school is upon us and here at our home, we began our school year this week. We decided that we wanted more breaks throughout the year to avoid the crazy burn-out we often face, so we're off and running. This year, I have an 8th, 6th and 3rd grader. I can't believe my babies are growing so fast! 

I'm happy to be joining again with the iHomeschool Network's Not Back-To-School Blog Hop. So in honor of Curriculum Week, here's what we're all studying this year:

	3rd Grade	6th Grade	8th Grade
Math	MUS Gamma	MUS Zeta	MUS Pre-Algebra
Science	MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures	MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures	BJU Earth Science
Geography			BJU Cultural Geography
Reading	BJU Reading 3	BJU Reading 6	BJU Literature 8
Writing	All Things Fun & Fascinating	Institute for Excellence in Writing	IEW Elegant Essay
Spelling (Using with How To Teach Spelling)	How To Spell,  Book 2	How To Spell,  Book 3	How To Spell,  Book 4
Vocab	--part of rdg--	--part of rdg--	Marie's Words
Grammar	First Language Lessons, Level 3	Glencoe Grammar and Language 6	Glencoe Grammar and Language 8
Logic	Hands-On Thinking Activities	Hands-On Thinking Activities	The Art of Argument

For math, we are still sticking with Math-U-See. This has served us well all 4 years of our homeschool journey, so we are sticking with it for year 5.

I decided to try something new for Geography/Science this year by choosing something already planned out for me. Wow, what a difference that has been. I'm loving it! I use this for my younger two while my eighth grader has opted to begin her high school credits by using a 9th grade geography course from BJU.

She is also using BJU's Earth Science. She is a visual learner, so she prefers texts that organize information in a clear and colorful fashion. While I don't LOVE anything about these books, they are rigorous, thorough and well-organized.

Grammar has been a challenge for us. I am a bit of a Grammar nerd, so this is an important subject to me. Some of the popular curricula offer review, but no good reference if you need a refresher. Some are so tediously repetative, that we all feel we are wasting our time. The Glencoe choices seem to get to the point without rambling or confusing my students. This is our first time using them, so I'll keep you posted as the year progresses.

And spelling. Aaaaaahhhh, spelling. This has been the bane of my existence year after year. I just can never seem to find the right balance of actually TEACHING HOW to spell without bogging myself down teaching 3 kids at 3 different levels. We have used HTTS in the past, but struggled with how to implement it. 

This year, after learning a lot from using All About Spelling, I am formatting it very much the same way (Rule, Words, Sentence Dictation, Test on all of the above). We are also utilizing the workbooks this year as well. This book even includes a sound sheet and marries phonics with spelling and its rules. 

An exciting find for me this year is a vocabulary tool called Marie's Words. Again, perfect for my lovely visual learner. These cards come pre-punched with a large ring in the box. Each vocabulary word comes with a visual picture that portrays the definition on the front and the definition, part of speech, antonyms and synonyms on the back.

Well, we are off to a great start....here on day 3. Hehehe! I hope now in our 5th year, we have worked some of the bugs out of our curriculum choices and we can have at least somewhat of a smooth year. Hope you enjoy your learning choices as well!

Our (almost) Secret Homeschool Room

Many of you have amazing homeschool rooms that I pin and adore. I have had designated rooms for school in the past, but we have turned out to be one of those families that just always seems to wind up in our main living areas. So, we have just adjusted to that! Ah! the beauties of homeschooling.

So while I don’t have a separate room in my house all duddied up with posters and bulletin boards, I have transformed our open-concept great room into a somewhat “secret” homeschool room. Why a “secret” room you ask, well I’m just a little OCD and I really don’t like clutter. Ask my friends, organizing is a sickness for me that I just enjoy WAAAAY too much! I hope this will offer some inspiration to those of you who also just don’t have that extra whole room to dedicate to schooling!

First off is my 2nd grader’s more obvious schooling corner. I found an old school desk at the Salvation Army for $20. Ugly, but fixable.

Before

After


So below is the desk in it’s cozy little corner at the back of our great room. (click the photo below to see more clearly) The white paper on the front is a cutout of ants since that’s what we’re studying in science this week. The awesome, huge pocket chart was a $3 garage sale find – can I get a whoop whoop!!! I use these Word Bits for our phonics studies. The little blue pocket chart is from the dollar store, the book shelf for our monthly author study is from Ikea ($3 spice rack), the wooden crates behind the desk were purchased with 1/2 off coupons from Michaels and they hold geography books and games (bottom) and our Math-U-See blocks in the teal toolbox and hot dots (top). The picture frame holds our weekly schedule so I know just what’s coming up next.




We use All About Spelling, and these little buckets hold the blue consonant and red vowel magnets we use every day. I found these were easier to use for single letters than the tiles. Pulling down one at a time, and then putting them all back -in the right spots- each day got tedious. This is working much better for us! We still use the tiles for the blends and digraphs.









Across from his desk is a whiteboard I use for teaching. I have magnetic clips to hold posters and graphic organizers which are stored behind the bookshelves you see here. (another hiding spot, hehe! Also peek under the end of the sectional – there’s a pocket chart hidden under there too)




Our home library consists of many, many books from library bag sales. Others are just those we needed. The bottom shelves are organized historically by color tab in 50 year increments. This means that I won’t be covering a history topic from the 1850’s and have to try to find all the books I own that represent that era! So helpful! The top left holds all the classic chapter books from The Penderwicks, which we just finished and highly recommend, to Little Women and Tom Sawyer. The others are arranged by topic (even science books are color coded to coordinate with the cover colors of our apologia science books – see I really do have a problem!)



So Mr. Man’s little area is to the right of the fireplace. On the left is Mom’s favorite spot!!! This is where I read our group Bible lessons or read alouds. Even the kitty likes to cozy up with us when it’s cold and we get the fire going! My 5th grader uses this spot for her silent reading spot as well. Can’t say I blame her! My other two take either end of our sectional to do their reading.



Now for that sectional. And my secret weapon… the coffee table. LOL! Underneath, you can see the Wii board (not school related, just a good spot to hide it) My Proclick (you so have to check out my earlier post about this little doodad) and my paper cutter.

 

Now for the secret part.



Surprise! More goodies! I LOVE review games more than quizzes! We have some we’ve adapted, downloaded and some we’ve just made up, but that’s a whole ‘nother post! We are using See The Light’s DVD-based art curriculum this year. It only requires simple supplies that are stored for each of my kiddos in here, right in front of the TV all ready to go. Our science lab supplies are kept in the last bucket and can be used on the coffee table or run right over to the kitchen if it’s gonna get messy.
Now let’s swing around to the TV wall. The shelf on the right holds our art DVD’s, Magic School Bus science DVD’s and our Liberty’s Kids series. On the left, the middle shelf houses my history books, while the bottom shelf is our home for library books. (Sometimes this has to overflow to the other bookshelf as well. What can I say, I love books!)

 

Tada! Another hiding spot! I also have a glass-door cabinet where I house all my currently-not-being-used curriculum, a cherry armoire in our dining area for my computer and home office that closes completely to hide everything, and a buffet cabinet in my foyer that holds all of our extra school supplies. So now you’re in on my little secret. Shhhh! Don’t tell our guests that coming over for dinner is really coming into school!