Our Classroom

While I'm trying to enjoy what's left of Summer, I can't help but realize that our school year is quickly approaching. I can't believe that Madison is already old enough to begin Kindergarten this year! I'm coming into homeschooling with a mix of uncertainty and excitement. Being in uncharted waters, I'm not exactly sure just how our school days will run - we won't know that until we're actually in the midst of it. But I'm getting excited as I've been planning out a general format, as well as arranging our "classroom".

I didn't have much in the realm of classroom decor. And unfortunately for me, we don't have much for shopping around here. I know that a beautifully-decorated school room isn't what's most important for learning, but I still wanted to make it a fun and interesting environment, with what I had available.

I purchased My Father's World curriculum, which we will be using, and with it came alphabet flash cards. Since Madison already knows all her letters and their sounds, I decided to just hang the cards on the wall instead of using them as flash cards.

I found a number of fun printable pages from this great homeschooling website. I hung those pages on a bulletin board along with a monthly calendar and a number chart. All these things will be part of our daily learning activities.

I purchased a set of drawers that was on sale, to house all our school supplies - crayons, pencils, paper, makers, paints, foam pages, and other craft items.

The empty bin sitting next to the drawers will hold all the books that I have requested from the library, which we will be using as additional resources for our lessons.

I decided to clean up and move inside our little picnic table. I thought it would be a good little spot for Noah to sit and participate in our lessons. The room I have set up as our school room is right next to the toy room, so if Noah gets a little antsy and his attention span drifts, I figure he can head into the toy room if needed.

And that's our room, right now anyway. I know it will likely change as the year progresses, as we add art projects and other things to the wall.

I'm going to do a separate post on the general format that I've come up with for structuring our days, so stay tuned for that. I'm looking forward to chronicling our homeschooling journey here through this coming year!