Sunday, February 17, 2008

My New Homeschool Room!!!

My New Homeschool Room!!!

I am SOOOO excited about my new homeschool room! In the past, we have homeschooled at the kitchen table, in the office, in the den, in my bedroom, in the music room, in the laundry room, in the basement, in the car, at the park... and I intend to still have a mobile classroom! But I really wanted a dedicated space, so I could keep our curricula all together, and hang our maps, timeline, books of the Bible, cursive chart, etc. on the wall where I won't need to move it!

I am SO happy to say, that I took this past weekend to rearrange our playroom to accomodate both a play place, and a school room! And the best part???? I did it all for $260!!!

I went to Wal-Mart (I'm a Target girl, so that was hard on me!), and found two student computer desks (Alex and Courtney can use these to work on their laptops, or just to do their book work... and Alex is even planning to use his for some model plane building, which is a great hobby of his!), a book shelf, two rolling office chairs, and a colorful rug! Then, I went to Target, and found two floor chairs for $19 each! I had to move ALL the kids toys out of the schoolroom (previously known as the playroom!), then build all the office furniture (... which is why I got it for such a GREAT deal! There is definitely an advantage to buying it pre-assembled!!), then arrange the room! Problem is, even after all this was done, I had the entire contents of the old playroom in the basement hallway! I spent Saturday and some of Sunday (yeah, I know I shouldn't have worked...) moving toys to different locations around the house! Many of them went back into the schoolroom (the less distracting ones!), and some went into the kids' rooms. Even more went to Goodwill!!!

This is how the whole thing turned out...


PRESIDENT'S DAY!!!!

Happy President's Day!





A day like today, which honors our country's great leaders, is the perfect opportunity to connect education with fun activities! After all, one of the greatest challenges and responsibilities of a homeschooler is to instill in your child a love of learning!



Here are some of the activities we did for President's Day:

A patriotic breakfast!!

These are pancakes with whipped cream, raspberries and blueberries!!

We did President's Tic-Tac-Toe, George Washington Word Search, and President's Crossword Puzzle!





We didn't read too much about previous Presidents, because we are currently studying William Bradford on our timeline.


But we finished the day by making some "patriotic" sugar cookies!!!! (any excuse for cookies, right???)







We had a great day, and enjoyed celebrating our awesome country!














Valentines Day, Homeschool Style!


"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE."

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV



On Valentine's Day, we enjoyed a HUGE party at our neighborhood bounce-house style playpark, Jumpsters! There were a little over 60 children from our homeschool group there, all ages 0-9! They had a blast jumping off some energy, then they exchanged Valentines, and had some great food and drinks!!


Each child made their own Valentine bag or box to receive their cards and treats in...


Then while the boxes and bags were all being filled, the children broke into their age appropriate groups for snacks and drinks! My little Avery is in the middle with some of her new homeschool friends!


Courtney is in the middle on the right, enjoying her homeschool party as well!!!

Ashi woke up just in time to have a Valentine's Day picture with her big brother!



Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed bythe renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Enjoy My Music!