Our Home Schooling Room

I feel REALLY REALLY REALLY blessed right now to be able to have a whole room dedicated to homeschooling. It won't last forever, but as long as we have it I'm going to take advantage and use it. I finally remembered to take pictures of it when it was clean.. So I thought I'd share our homeschooling room

This is our desk area. This is where we do all the work. Each kid has a name tag (that they practice writing there name on) They have a box under there chair for their binder and handwriting books.

This is Emily's work list. She currently is finishing kindergarten at a public school, so on those days we don't get schooling in. Next year, they'll all be home with me and we'll try to do it daily.







This is our history wall. We are currently using a book called: My America and My World
I love this book. I'll probably continue to use this series. It starts of easy for 1st graders and becomes more involved each year. Right now we are on a "road trip" going and learning about different places in America. We usually do a craft with each section that I make up halfway through while Em's reading the section for the day. We've made dollar bills, liberty hats, Apple trees, made our own "laws", painted the Mississippi Rivers, and so much more. I'm grateful my kids are still young and love these silly crafts I come up with! (my two year old joins in for each craft.... you can probably figure out which flag she did)

 My dad is a computer guy. He fixed the older two up a computer they can each use themselves. We use plastic storage containers (that are full of stuff we are storing) as desks. Abby's is the desk without the computer.

 This is my little desk area.. Another storage container. This has a lot of the books I use for homeschooling and also the books the girls get to read. We only keep a few children books in the homeschooling room. The rest are in their bedroom so they have more opportunities to use them.




 Another view of my little desk thing.

This is the view from the other corner of the room. The shelves hold our supplies. Our craft supplies, our math supplies, puzzles, and etc.. Supplies go there...

That's our room. I LOVE it! Yes, I wish we could afford fancy desks and all that jazz.. But I'm grateful we have what we do.




I'm so excited we're going to just be homeschooling next year. I'm glad that I get to teach my little boogers :D. I'm hoping the new system we're doing will work way better!

Back to homeschooling.....

So... We're probably just going to homeschool next year.. and I couldn't be happier!!

Today we're getting back to it.. and I have a whole new system.. I'm excited!!!!

And that's all I'm going to write right now..

One child to school today

So... Today was my very first day only homeschooling one of my kids. Emily started kindergarten.

I've decided one child is SOOOO much easier to school then two.. We just had so much fun.

It's going to be fun to see how each kid grows. Hannah and I had so much fun today. We get to do school just me and her 2 (sometimes 3) days alone. I think it's going to be good for her and me!

Emily really enjoyed her first day of school. I'm not sure which we'll do next year. But with the baby on the way and the problems I've been having with this pregnancy, it's going to work for this year.. We still will be homeschooling three days a week. So it's only 2 days less of  homeschooling..

New Plan

Right now in my life, I've decided that being the ONLY educator of my oldest is just to much... I'm kind of sad. But I've been feeling for a while that we should send her to Kindergarten...

Tonight we're going school shopping and on Monday we're re-enrolling her in school. It's only 2 and 3 days a week. So we'll still be able to homeschool 3 days a week.

I think this will be good for her.. and for me.. Sometimes I guess I need to be selfish.. And this is one of those times...

Cherry Tree

Stole picture (but not craft) from here.

So, my camera is broken, and my back up camera broke.. So. I'm stealing pictures.. and wishing I could take pictures of all the cute things we are doing during school.
Today Emily learned about George Washington during history. We also learned the story of the cherry tree. For craft I thought it would be really fun to make cherry trees. But instead of cutting out the leaves and the trunk, we tore and glued them. It was really fun. Then I used my circuit an made tons of little cherries. And we glued them on.
It was TONS of fun for all three kids. I've been trying to include Abby when doing the crafts. And it's pretty cute to watch her, and see what she interrupts how to do the craft.

  

Nature Hunt

(can you tell my camera is broken.. Stole this picture from here)

Keeping with our theme of "Trees" for the week. We went on a nature hunt in our back and front yard. It was fun. We found different color leaves and different shaped leaves. We added flowers also.

After we gathered our findings, we came inside and laminated them. We are going to use them as bookmarks! We then discussed leaves in more details and talked about Chlorophyll.

Fun and easy! Adding these fun things into our school day is making school so much more fun for the girls, and me!!

More Crafts Please!!!

School has official started again. Though, we only took a week and 1/2 off. I've changed a bunch of the things around in schooling. So I thought I'd give myself a break long enough to get some planning done. Since the schools here official started on Monday, we decided that was our official day too.

To start the school year off (and to celebrate my hubby's birthday) we went to the zoo.
Today, was our first academic day. It went great!

Each day we are going to do some basics. These include reading, math, calendar/weather, and Emily's daily language practice.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Emily does her history book, then we all do a craft or fun activity around the history subject. This way Hannah gets a little bit of history in as well. Then we do science. We have a weekly theme that I have planned out. On Mondays and Fridays we'll learn about the subject. On Wednesday I have a cooking project to go with the subject. This week is trees/leave. On Wednesday we are going to make tree shaped cookies. We also do spelling on these days. We do the worksheet on Monday. Hannah does tracing the words on Wednesday while Emily writes sentences using the words. Then on Friday, Hannah plays memory with the words, and Emily is tested on the words. We are using sight words right now. However I did get a spelling book for Emily that we'll add to the sight words for her spelling list, when it comes in.

On Tuesday and Fridays we do geography, read from our anatomy book, and do a craft. I'm also going to add other daily living stuff into it. I'm hoping to do things like shoe tying and such (can't think of more examples, but I do have a list).

I also decided that it would be fun to add a sport theme each month. That way on Tuesday and Thursdays we can learn about that sport and play games about it. It'll be more about learning things like catching and throwing then facts about the sport. I think we're going to start with baseball. We'll play different catch games and we'll learn how to catch and throw better. This my hubby will be able to help a lot more with. Which will be good for all of us!

That's kind of how our year is outline. I'm excited with the idea of more crafts, because we all love them a ton. Today we learned about the statue of liberty for Emily's history. And we made the cute paper plate crowns shown in the picture at the top. Got the great idea from here.