Our Learning Area

This year we have been blessed with a separate schooling space!  Everyone has their own desk area, instead of the kitchen table.  Don’t get me wrong, we have many wonderful memories schooling around our table, and we still do at times, but it’s nice they all have their own space when needed too :)

Here is Big Ladybug’s desk…….$15 yard sale find! We use the red hanging pockets on the left as her workboxes.  I purchased them off Amazon.com. 

This is little ladybug’s desk that Big Ladybug out grew.

 

And this is Little Lizard’s area.  I added a letter apple tree for the preschoolers.  I purchased it for $12 from Creative Teaching Press.

I laminated the apples and made the yellow circles and the letters in them with my Cricut.  I attached them to the apples with Velcro, so we could change them in the future as needed.  Every letter Little Ladybug learns gets added to the tree.

I have a desk in the school area too…..but bypassed taking a picture because it was a mess :)

Our School Table

So I was looking forward to being a part of the Not Back to School Blog Hop this year.  However, I am running about 2 weeks a bit behind :0)

The majority of our schooling happens…..

… at the kitchen table.

This is the computer stand, in the kitchen, by the beloved table……where the schooling happens.

It stores the art supplies, school books, printer paper, printer, and junk that I need a quick place to hide from company …….so pretty much everything.

We don’t have much wall space, so this year the morning board was replaced with a map of the world……we are exploring countries this year.  Below the map is Big Ladybug’s schedule, weekly Bible verse, and books of the Bible she is memorizing.

This is our version of workboxes, it is new to our school this year and so far I love it! 

Educational Insights the Space Place Classroom Organization Center

Each slot holds a different subject.  Every Monday I fill it all the work we need to do for the week.  This way I don’t have to waste time fumbling through books and searching for papers.  (I just hope those little hooks hold up all year :0)

So this is the heart of our little house…….

……where we learn together, eat together, play together, pray together, and love together. 

Now if I could just keep it this clean……

 

Want to check out more school rooms? Head on over to the Blog Hop hosted by Heart of the Matter

Where and What We Are Learning

Our schooling mainly happens at the kitchen table.  I would love to have a room dedicated just to schooling, but for now, the kitchen it is!  Big ladybug loves the morning board I put together.  Here she is able to post the color and shape of the day, weather for the day, review her calendar, post what day of the week it is, write the date, write the time, review her memory verse, and the books of the bible she is learning.  She also has a coin cup that she adds a penny to every day of school, and is responsible for exchanging the coins as needed.  She thinks the sparkle rainbow boarder is a nice touch!

We do not have much extra space in our home, but I found this great 4 drawer cabinet at Hobby Lobby.  We put most of our school supplies in here.  One drawer is for all the pencils, markers, scissors, etc.; another has our math manipulatives, morning board tags, etc.; the third stores the readers; and the fourth has all of the science books for the week.  The kids also love drawing on the dry erase board!

 

Big ladybug loves knowing what we are doing for the day, so the grid sheet schedule works great.  My sister was great and made tags for me of all of the curriculum and activities big ladybug is involved in.  They are attached with Velcro tabs so they are easily added and removed as needed.  I store all of the tags for the morning board and for the schedule in this little container.

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Our version of workboxes is a binder.  Big ladybug has her own binder with her daily school activities in there.  Each subjects has its own folder and Velcro tab.

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We chose My Father’s World First Grade this year.   It is a bible-based curriculum and a phonics-based reading program.  Science includes Things Outdoors, Science with Water, and Science with Plants.  Overall, I am pleased with it for bible and science, however, I am supplementing it for math and reading.  It moves pretty fast with the reading and I felt as though big ladybug needed a little more.   

We are using Horizons Math 1, Christian Light Education’s Learning to Read and Language Arts, Writing with Ease, All About Spelling, and I Can Do All Things for art.

                     

                    

Overall we are enjoying most of our selections, however, I wished we would have picked something else for our math.  I am not to crazy about the Horizon’s teacher’s manual, but we are making it work.

Stay tuned for what we have learned so far.  I am new at blogging and have some catch-up to do!