First Day of School ~ 2014

 Our traditional breakfast out on the first day of school!  Clockwise from left to right:  first day of 10th grade, first day of 7th grade, first day of 9th grade, first day of 12th grade, first day of 10th grade, and first day of 4th grade.

We came home from breakfast out and made our traditional cookie dough maps.  Because we are studying Year 1 of Tapestry of Grace this year (the Ancient World), we once again made maps in the shape of Egypt.  We used chocolate chips for the mountains and blue frosting for the Nile River, Mediterranean, and Red Sea.  Daughter G also used gold sprinkles for the desert.  Click here for detailed instructions on how to make cookie dough maps.

Son C's finished map.

Little man's.  

Daughter H's.

Son L's.

Daughter G's.

Son G's.

Hubby and I spent considerable time this summer evaluating last school year and praying about what we could do to put a framework in place that would be more conducive to success.  Attitudes of others we cannot control.  Routines and methods we can!  We made the "radical" decision to require all our children to work in the schoolroom during the morning, and to do their work in a specific order.  We expected some balking from our high schoolers since they were used to working in their bedrooms, but nearly everyone was surprisingly amenable to this idea!

Three of our children begin their day with math hour, and the other three with English hour.  I literally set a timer for an hour, and when it beeps the math students switch to English and the English students switch to math.  This degree of structure is something we've borrowed from brick and mortar schools, and it is working very well!  If math or English work is not completed during this time, it becomes "homework" for later in the afternoon/evening.  This is followed by science hour, and then it's lunchtime.  After lunch we have book time and history all together, and then the children are free to finish their work anywhere in the house where they feel they can get it done.

Little man has both his regular desk (behind him in this pic), and the old fashioned wooden school desk, where he likes to watch his math lessons on dvd.  We call this area under the stairs his cave!  He loves to spend time in it, and he's pretty much the only person who can comfortably fit there. :)

This is the view from my desk.  Little man and daughter H's desk is slightly behind me and to the right of this pic.

I am thankful for a dedicated place to work.  I'm thankful for children to teach, and for the privilege of learning together with them at home.  I'm thankful for the full support, encouragement, and wisdom of my husband.  I'm thankful this school year got off to a much better start than last year!

The New School Room - JOY!

Nothing quite warms the cockles of a homeschooling mom's heart than an organized space in which to learn. Especially when that organized space has been more than two years in the making! After a marathon re-arranging, desk building, re-organizing session all day Wed and late into the night, our "new" school room was finally ready for use today. We were all practically giddy with excitement! (and my late night was totally worth it!!)

This is the area under the stairs where the couch did not quite fit. Now it is the desk area for two of our boys. Way back on the left, behind Little Man, is what we call "the cave." It is a perfect little hidey hole under the stairs, and will get used now that the couch is not blocking off that little space. Our daughter also sits at this desk when she is downstairs. She does the majority of her work up in her bedroom.


My own desk is slightly in front of the younger boys' desk.


And look! Watching a math lesson on dvd. Do you know what that means????? Working outlets where there did not used to be working outlets!!!!!


Directly in front of my desk is the desk for the two older boys, and behind them the offending couch. ;-)


I actually think this plan will work even better than the one I had in my brain for so many years. The couch marks a distinct line between "school room" and "toy room", and our desks are closer together rather than strung out in a long line. We got SO MUCH done today ~ it was an awesome school day, and we have not had one of those in a while (at least from my perspective). The boys love, love, love their desks. Their work space is much bigger than it was when we were all at one table.

There are a couple minor things still to be done, but they are aesthetic and do not affect the functionality at all. We are DONE moving furniture away from the walls and covering my desk with tools! So, so happy. Thank you, Lord.

Setback in the Schoolroom

The couch won't fit in its allotted space under the stairs. :-(

Room is completely disorganized and I am very discouraged and exhausted.

But at least the painting is done!

Back to School

Well, our first week back to school was kinda rough. But we did it. And made it through. We only did a few subjects, yet they took us well into the evening to finish every day. Could be starting at 10 or 11 had something to do with it.... ;-)

During Christmas break we shoved our school table up against the bookcase, and turned my desk into tool central to once again try and completely finish the schoolroom makeover. The room was unusable this past week, which helped make the week a little more frustrating. We are working rather frantically today to try and finish the last sanding so that I can paint the other three walls this evening. That is the goal anyway. Once the paint dries we can hang a shelf, move the couch to its new home under the stairs, and then the fun part. ORGANIZING! :0)

Putting the Christmas decorations away, grocery shopping, and preparing for school next week round out this day. As well as watching wild card football tonight!! I am so looking forward to that. Seriously! I may have to try and paint during commercials. ;-)

The Ongoing Endeavor to Get Organized.....

Does anyone else struggle with this? Actually, you don't have to answer because I know that you do! Getting and staying organized seems never ending, because just when I finish organizing all my children's bedrooms, the season changes and it's time to go through clothes again, or Little Man has outgrown the preschool activities and it's time to sort and give away, or my paper pile managed to grow back and it's time to file and toss. I know this is something you can all relate to.

This problem seems worse for homeschoolers because there is so much more to organize. **Sigh**

I am slowly making progress in several areas of our home and life. Even though the schoolroom is not completely finished, I am *loving* using it. We start each day together in this room with Bible, and the younger three do the bulk of their work here. My vision, now three years old, of how I wanted it to work for us, is finally beginning to take shape. With some changes of course, because so much time has passed since the vision first formed in my brain! haha! Soooo very thankful for this room!


With an entire wall of bookcases now, I organized all our Tapestry of Grace books according to Year (there are 4 complete years here!) and further organized by unit (4 units per year). I am able to bless some friends by being their history lending library, so to aid them I put these color coded signs on the bookcase to show where a particular Year plan starts (you're welcome, Sally and Lisa!).


Right above my teacher desk I put this strip of velcro directly on the bookcase. To this I can stick all the little squares that go on my boys' assignment charts each day, so it is easy to change them out depending on what day I am preparing for.





It is a work in progress, but it's progressing!

In other news, I cleaned out my bedroom closet this week and filled two large bags to take to the thrift store. And that was just from stuff on the floor! (yes, seriously) Have to go through all the hanging clothes next.

How do you stay on top of the shifting organizational needs of your family?

Before and During (not quite "After"!)

Remember this?


Couch is now 2/3rds cleared off, with permanent homes (or the circular file) found for the things that were on it.



Go me!!

We Have Schoolroom!!!!

It is not done. But it's usable! Oh happy day!


We worked hard all weekend to get the room ready. Last week I painted the wall red so it would be ready for the bookcase. All the boys helped put it together. And they really did help!

While the boys worked on the bookcase, daughter G painted the back of the built in bookcase red. I will later paint the side walls black so that it matches the other bookcases.






Anchoring it to the wall.


The moving of books and organizing our stuff was something only I could do. Though I have more to do, I did get a lot accomplished over the weekend. And it's wonderful to be able to access all of our books again! I found two books we can use this very week as we are studying the Mongols and Marco Polo.

Here is the school table, no longer covered with tools but covered with math books instead!


And here is MY desk.... usable space once again!


This shows the length of the schoolroom, with the new bookcase and my desk at the far back.


The couch is still covered with stuff.... but it will all find a home eventually!


So, so thankful to have an organized space in which to work again!

Schoolroom Update

This is what our school couch looks like currently. Yes, there really is a couch buried under all that stuff:


And here is my desk:


Our school table:


Largely covered with tools!


This is looking at what will be the front of the classroom:


And I didn't bother taking pictures of the individual boxes sitting here and there filled with school materials that are awaiting a new home in the to-be purchased bookcase. Do you see why it feels like a herculean task for me to get this ready to use by next Monday?

However, I am determined! (pray for me!)

There has actually been a lot of progress this weekend. My husband got the area under the stairs dry walled!


This is where the couch will go, eventually.


And what has given my husband measuring and cutting fits was the installation of this built in shelving unit. There was a bit of dead space between the pipe from our upstairs half bath and the wall in the far right of this picture. My hubby decided to build me more shelves, because a teacher can't have too many shelves. These will be directly behind me when I'm sitting at my desk.


He left access at the floor, but covered the rest of the pipe with drywall, and fitted the wooden frame of the built in bookcase between the pipe and the wall. It took him much longer than he had hoped, but it fits perfectly! I am hoping the shelves and drywall will also help to muffle the loud whoosh sound we hear down there whenever someone flushes the toilet upstairs!

Whew!

Busy, busy week.

Thankful for each task that made up this week, and thankful each task is done. :0)

This past Wednesday was the first night of "REAL moms", which is the women's group I am involved in that used to be MOPS. We have 36 women signed up, and got off to a great start (I think, hard for me to judge from the front of the room). It is always very hectic for me before the first night of REAL moms, but once we get the year started things tend to gel into a manageable rhythm. I love the women who come. They bless me!

Special Announcement: This is the last week we are schooling in the kitchen. I am hereby stating my commitment to BE USING THE NEW SCHOOLROOM A WEEK FROM MONDAY! I had hoped to do all the painting at once, so I'd only have one cleanup. But I have abandoned that plan in favor of getting the bookcase half of the room completely organized so we can begin using it, while my hubby finishes the part under the stairs where the couch is going to go (that part still needs to be drywalled). He is working as I type, and is doing an excellent job. It's just that each part is taking way longer than we'd hoped. We are buying a huge bookcase this coming Friday, just like the one that we already have down there, and I have marked out all of next weekend to clean and organize so our schoolroom is ready to be used on Monday. Very excited that this is the last week we need to have notebooks spilling off the kitchen counters and table!

Soccer season is in full swing. Love watching my boys play soccer!

It has been quite an adjustment these last few weeks to our daughter's high school routine. Her online Spanish class requires daily correcting (done by the parents - fortunately my husband has taken this on! LOVE him). Two or three times a week we have to upload quizzes, tests, or audio files (where our daughter speaks Spanish for her teacher to hear if she's using correct pronunciation). Spanish homework takes her at least an hour a day, which is a new subject added to all the "regular" work she is used to from last year...math, grammar, writing, science, etc.

She is also in an online Literature class that requires daily reading and answering literary analysis questions. We ended up making a folder for her on each of our computers, that contains all the links to her online classrooms, as well as links to the part of each website that contains her homework assignments for each week. The first couple weeks of school my husband or I looked those things up for her, and printed out whatever she needed. But now she has taken charge of all that herself. She has begun setting her alarm to awaken before I get her brothers up, so she can get a head start on her work in the morning when her brain is fresh. I am really proud of her!

I started formal writing with son C this year, and he has taken to IEW like a fish to water. He absolutely loves to do his writing homework! Yay!! Still haven't re-introduced reading lessons to Little Man. Just couldn't manage the storing of all his reading materials in the kitchen. Next week, in the new schoolroom!!

There have been many challenges to the start of our school year, but I'm thankful for each subject/curriculum that is working well, and just so thankful we can continue learning together at home for another year. God is good!

Progress in the Schoolroom!

This past week has been one of great progress in our schoolroom. Still not done and ready to be used, but it's farther along than it's ever been! :0)

An electrician friend from church came over one evening and helped my hubby do the initial wiring so that we could then work on the drywall. I got to pick out where I wanted all the outlets, and I wanted LOTS of them. You can never have too many outlets. We just "happened" to have an extra unused circuit in our breaker box that is now dedicated to the schoolroom. Thank you, Lord.



See the wiring running through the frame?? So exciting....


Then it was time for the insulation to go in.


Some more friends came over to help with the drywall. The two dads put the older boys to work, teaching them how to measure and cut out the rectangles for where the outlets would be. It was really neat to see the boys working alongside their dads!


Adding a couple wooden supports to screw the drywall in to (son C).


Holding up the first big sheet of drywall!

Making sure it fit snugly around the outlets.

Screwing it into place....


Little Man even helped!


We have wall!!!!

The drywall is almost completely done. Still a little bit to go. Then we mud and tape the seams, sand, and finally paint. And vacuum up the dust. And arrange furniture and organize books and papers and notebooks and STUFF. And then, we finally get to USE it. :-)

I have given myself permission not to start "everything" until the schoolroom is finished. It's simply too overwhelming and stressful to think about trying to organize our work in the construction mess. We are starting this Wed with history, but that is all. And we can read history books in the family room. So, it's all good.

It's really starting to look like a "real" room, and I am grateful to my husband for all his hard work, and to our friends for their willingness to help. Can't wait til it's done!