Welcome to Our School

It's time for the annual Not-Back-To-School Blog Hop, School Room Edition.  We moved this past year so we have a brand, new school room. It's radically different from our Old Room.

We just LOVE it!!! So without further ado, here's the grand tour, working counter clock-wise from the door.

To your right next to the door, you have a strange little niche. It houses a small book shelf with some of our older Sonlight Cores, my laminator (woot!), and our All About Reading board. We have a lot of book shelves and they suck up most of our wall space. So there the board sits. It works out fine for us to sit on the floor and work on reading. 

Next up, our circle time area. Those windows are my absolute favorite part of the room. So much natural light!!! Kayleigh spends a lot of time here doing calendar, Bible, and read alouds. Some storage bins from Ikea hang out there too.

We use the wall space here for Kayleigh's Bible time line cards and to show off her hard work. She loves to show her daddy what she did at school.

Next up is my desk area that I rarely use. The kid's computer is there as well as the printer. I love the photo hanger on the wall, which I use for art. You can get them at Target. So cute and many styles. 

On the other side of the piggies, Cherry and Luna, is Mackenzie's domain. I'm afraid to open her desk draw and see what lives in there. She also has a spot for her art. Kayleigh's work boxes provide a nice table for those messy piggies. Kayleigh doesn't have a desk, just a little table to work at. Next time I'm near Ikea I'm getting something bigger. I'm old and my back cannot take those little chairs for much longer.

Our book cases and storage bins. We use Sonlight and we need lots of book cases. We could actually use a few more because I've got 3 or 4 more Sonlight cores packed away for lack of room. This upsets Mackenzie because she LOVES to reread those Sonlight books. The poor dear is clearly deprived of reading material.

Last stop on the tour, the back of the room. A door to get out and a closet filled with stuff. I'd show you the inside but the pictures came out blurry and I'm too lazy to retake them. Nothing falls out when you open the doors, unless Kayleigh has been digging in there, so it's managed to stay semi-orderly.

The desks, storage units, book cases, and filing cabinet all came from Ikea. I forget what style the desks were but the storage units, with bins, are all part of the Trofast System. And the shelves are the Billy book cases. I HEART Ikea!!!!

And there you have it, The Sonlight Academy of Girls.  Thanks for visiting!!! Don't forget to tour other school rooms by clicking the blog hop graphic below!

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One With a New School Room

It's been a while since I've done a Weekly Wrap-Up. Mostly because there hasn't been much to wrap-up. With Mackenzie's recent diagnosis and our new house, school work has been reduced to the bare bones (bible, math, grammar) with a massive "science unit" in the form of diabetes education.

But now that the house is 95% unpacked and we've got a grip on the counting of carbs and the injection of insulin, we're ready to start back up.  And we're a tad excited because we get to do school in our awesome new school room. We just love it!

Introducing the new home of the Sonlight Academy of Girls.

Linking to: The Weekly Wrap-Up, Photo Collage Friday, Homeschool Mother's Journal

The Story of a School Room ~ Back to Homeschool Blog Hop

Next up on the blog hop is another favorite topic for homeschoolers, the classroom space. I love taking a peek at what other people have got going on in their school rooms.

Our school room has gone through some major overhauls over the last few years. The first being one of epic proportions. I've written about it before so I'm going to give you a full recap because it's so amazingly awesome. 

The Story of our School Room

There once was a school room that was...okay.

There was some furniture that was too big for the room and it's purpose. Not nearly enough storage or shelving. We are Sonlighters, after all.

Not to mention the the Wee Babe (yes Kayleigh was a babe when I first wrote this) hated it!!! She'd enter the room and start tearing stuff apart. At one point we moved a book shelf from our living room into it around Christmas (to make room for the tree).  And left it there. Then, we ordered next years curriculum in January and had no place to store it. So it wound up in the middle of the room that the babe had trashed.

The result is in the lower right hand corner... Beware it isn't pretty. Not for the faint of heart. But I like to keep it real. And it was real ugly.

While looking at the pit, my hubby and I made a tough decision to postpone a much anticipated trip to NYC this summer. This has been something we promised our eldest on her 7th birthday. She's 9 now. We decided it wasn't the best use of our $$$ when there were things around the house that wanted to improve. So we broke the news.

We eased the tears with a trip to Build-A-Bear, and signed her up for the drama and church camp she's been wanting to go to. Oh and a weekend at Great Wolf Lodge. Bribery at it's finest.

We replaced the trip to NYC with a trip to IKEA. Oooh, it's not down the road, so we emptied out the van and buckled in. And being the mean parents that we are, we brought some school along with us. Yes, that's right, we canceled her trip and made her do school on the way to a boring store. =o)

We wandered around IKEA with our map and our pencils and furiously scribbled down everything that we we planning on getting. And a few things that called out to us while there. Whoaaa! Look at that cart? Maybe we weren't so wise with the $$$? Of course we were, it's IKEA. Cheap, cheap,cheap. We actualy came out $200 under our limit. Yay wallet!!!

Then we spent about 3 hours total assembling 11 pieces of furniture. Easiest assembly of our lives. IKEA is our new favorite place. Those shelves from Target or Walmart take about 30 minutes a piece. And that's for a small, 3-shelf, bookcase. We built a 6 shelf bookcase from IKEA in 10 minutes.

Then came the sorting, purging, and organizing. Ack!!! Long, not fun work. But we called the "Big Guns" to help with the purging.

Yes, it would have been cheaper to rent a truck or dumpster and haul it out ourselves but we decided our sanity was more important. (I'm a tad on the weakling side. LOL) Plus, we removed a bunch of shrubs that we hated and cleared out the garage while they were at it. They took it all. And they recycle and donate everything that they can. Which saved us several trips to several different places. Worth every penny. If you have it.

And the moment you've all been waiting for... The after shots. Not bad, right? I wasn't really thrilled with the red walls that now clashed with the green and blue bins, but one step at a time.

Today, about two years later, it still looks pretty much the same. Including the red walls. LOL We've added a couple of more pieces, like piano keyboard for our little prodigy and a table for the tot, but for the most part it's the same. And as wonderful as it is, we still do school all over the house and the yard. Well not the yard this year because we'd melt. But when it's not 300 degrees out, we love to school outside. 

If you'd like a closer look, and you happen to be a subscriber to The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, you can open your May 2012 issue and get a virtual tour of our classroom. And find out just how fast that I talk in real life. Good luck with that. lol

But don't get yourself too attached to this room. Because guess what? We're going to give it one more major over haul come October. We're moving it one city over into our new house. We're just waiting on completion. But here's a sneak peak at the future home of the Sonlight Academy for Girls...

I can't wait! It's going to be bigger, brighter, and not red. =o) I'm thinking a very pale blue....

Well now that I've shared so it's your turn. What's going on in your schoolroom?

Carnival of Homeschooling: School Rooms and the Places We Learn

Sprittibee is hosting this week's Carnival of Homeschooling. Question: What does your school room look like?

 

 

There are two things that we homeschoolers are nosey about: curriculum and school rooms. You know you want to see where everyone else is doing their learning! So pop on over and check it out!

 

You'll even get a peek at mine. (Disclaimer: Before pictures are not for the faint of heart.)

Oh, it's that time again!! Time for one of my favorite blog hops of the year. The Not Back-to-School Blog Hop. A time to share your curriculum, school space, students, and how you do things. Consider linking up and sharing how school works at your house. I'm always inspired by this blog hop. Hop on over to Heart of the Matter and join in the fun. You can ever check out last years hop.

Tot Zone

Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 is hosting a linky asking people to share what their "Tot Zone" is like in their homes. I'm all over this one. I love seeing how other homeschools operate.

About my tot...

Kayleigh is 28 months old and she is, shall we say, very spirited and independent. That's the nice way of saying stubborn, defiant, and mischievious right? =o)

Tot School has not always gone smoothly for us. Up until the last few weeks she would categorically refuse to do any activities. And on the rare occasion that she felt like doing them she would use her baby mindgames do them incorrectly. On purpose. I still can't decide if that's what drives the most crazy about her or what I love most about her. It's a fine line. LOL

Our Set-up

We are very blessed to have a room purely dedicated to school. Our "Tot Zone" is part of our school room. And it has recently been overhauled thanks to our tax return and our friends at IKEA.


Here is some views of our room. I've only labeled the stuff that pertains to Kayleigh.


From the door....

Looking toward the door

Looking to the back of the room

I usually put out about 4 trays at a time. Mainly because that's how many trays fit best on the shelving that I have available for them. (We use Sonlight in our homeschool and it is a literature based curriculum so I need lots of shelves for books. LOL) The trays are generally a mix of of themed activities and skills, like #'s, colors, shapes, ABC's. I switch them out throughout the week. We also read tons and I try to get in a craft or two. But I'm not going to lie. I'm not very crafty.

I store learning toys in the Trofast bins in the homeschool room. Themed activities are kept in manilla envelopes, according to them of course, and stored in "Tot Pack" bin. I also have 4 "skill bins" for colors, shapes, #'s, and letters. Those house toys and games that I made specifically to aid in learning those skills. The bins are 15 qt. boxes with lids that I got at Wal-Mart. There is some craft stuff in the Trofast bins but most is on a shelf in the closet.

I allow her to play with certain tot stuff anytime, especially if I'm working with her sister. She has free reign over things like Mega Blocks, Bristle Blocks, Magneatos, Cardboard Blocks, instruments, basic puzzles, etc. The rest I keep for school time.

My Likes/Dislikes...

There's not much that I don't love about the room. I love the storage which consists of many Billy Bookcases and the Trofast Storage system. Worth every penny we spent. In fact, I'd like one more of the large Trofast units. =o) And the quality is soooo much better then the shelves we've gotten at Target or Walmart over the years.

I'd like to change the paint color. The red was here when we bought the house and it was fine until we added the brightly colored Trofast bins. It clashes now. I'd like a very pale blue I think. And I NEED a small table for Kayleigh to work at. She always wants to be up at the desk in sissy's spot and I think her own workspace will solve the problem.