Monday, October 18, 2010

Some Tweaking Was Necessary

We've been in our new homeschool room now for a little over 2 months. There were a few things not working. That's really the only way to know---to get in there and live in it and use it.

My wondrous idea of the art table? Yeah. Not so much.

My idea was if the girls had a table to draw at outside of school hours, they would not use the homeschool table and junk it up so we had to clean it off every morning before we could work. They spend a great deal of time drawing.

But THEN...we put desks under their lofts. They needed chairs. So they took the ones from the art table.
That left the art table without chairs. And also without a use because they could use their desks. It sort of became the treadmill of the room, if you know what I mean. We stacked things on it.

Then, I ordered level 3 of All About Spelling for Sweetheart. I had been doing other things for spelling the first 6 or 8 weeks of school but now I was all ready to do level 1 with Little Bit as well. Turns out, teaching 2 levels of All About Spelling is a pain in the neck.

I LOVE All About Spelling, but setting up those letter tiles every day was for the birds. For one student...OK. NOT for two. Since our tiles had water/coke/tea spilled on them 2 or 3 times over the last few years, I bought a new set AND the magnets that come with them.

Excellent call. And SO thankful we had the money to do that.

Also had to buy a new magnetic board. I got the same kind I have on the wall from Target. This is going to be MUCH better.


A bit of rearranging: bye-bye art table, hello science corner, and hello spelling/reading area.


They'll have to sit on the floor for now.

Our science corner is, um, diverse. Planets from Astronomy, a plant poster from
 Botany, and birds and insects from Zoology 1.

MUCH better.

Homeschooling is nothing if not fluid. I promise. Come back in a month. It will be different.

4 comments:

  1. I like fluid! Our sure is! I like your science corner and I totally agree about two levels of aas---YUCKO! LOVE the program,hate the set up.. maybe I should invest in a magnet board too? I di you the magnetic alphabet set simply because it is easier to pick those up than the little tiles!

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  2. Love the last quote. I totally know what you mean. I love the idea of the science corner.

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  3. CArrie, we also had been using magnetic letters but I noticed in level 3 we are going to get into a LOT more of the other colored tiles. I think it would be more helpful for Sweetheart to use the tiles now. The magnets are totally worth it. I highly recommend.

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  4. as I repeat "thou shalt not covet" to myself....
    girl, I only wish I had your school room! *sigh*
    ;^)
    ~Sheri

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I don't get to talk to a lot of actual grown-ups during the day, so your comments make me really happy! :)