School Area in the Kitchen

I was pretty sad when I gave up my school room a few weeks ago so my children could have more space of their own. Which is awesome because now they can get away from one another when they need a break. It seems to make them like each other more. Maybe they will want to share rooms again one day but until then I had to find a solution for our school stuff. First things first I needed to see what we use on a daily bases and make sure that was in reach and that we didn’t have to search for it. I then put that stuff in a white cabinet that I was using to store some freeze dried food storage items. Then I had to bring my calendar time and white board into the area, I was nervous I wouldn’t be ok with this hanging on the wall, but I am liking it. Here are pictures of what I have done. I am sure I will change stuff around. But as for right now it works.

Here is the area.

Here is the calendar time area, It is in the corner of the room by the back door. the frig is directly across from this wall which is were the calendar is at.

And since we are studying US history this year I placed the big wall map on our table and put a clear vinyl cover over it ( I saw this at a friends house). I believe it cost me $2.97 at Wal-Mart.

So this is the white cabinet that I am using. If you see on the top shelf is our pens, pencils, colors, markers and the pick box has all the pieces to the calendar time area. The second shelf has 2 accordion style files one I keep new worksheets and paper that they use daily and the other is for the papers they have finished and I will file those with the year of schooling. they 3rd shelf has a bible reader a bible and the young persons bible from the Robinson curriculum that we read from daily. There is also work boxes that are there too. I love the work box system! I had to use 1 for each of the boys instead of the way we had it one for each subject so there would be enough room for all the stuff we needed. What I do is inside each box is folders that have their individual work in them they have the numbers like before and they just peel the number off when they are finished with the folder ( below pictured). on the last shelf is flash cards and a puzzle for now.

Well there you have it my school area. As for how long it will stay this way you just never know I may find a new room or we just might keep it this way for a while.

    God Bless

     Jen

Work boxes for week of Jan, 24

This is Will's reader. He is doing so awesome reading!!

Vinny just today finished The Tale of Paddy Muskrat and now he is
is starting The Bobbsey Twins The mystery at Snow Lodge

Brooke is Reading The Bobbsey Twins at school and she says she
Loves it! I was afraid she wouldn't like it because the kids
are younger then her in this book but she actually likes it, :)

Here is Wills Language Arts he is doing. I got this from
My Fathers World

Brooke loves to write and she actually asked me for a
Language arts work book so here it is.

Vinny is reading The life of George Washington for History

Brooke is reading about Christopher Columbus for History

Here is Will science we are doing Farm animals this week

I found this science text at an antique store
this is the one Vinny is reading and loves it!

I found this one at the antique store too Brooke is reading about stars
right now.

Here is Wills math he is almost done with this book!
He started it at about week 4 of school and he is just
moving right along. Go Will!!

Here is Vinny's math. He was struggling with math so we switched
him to Math u see and he is doing great he
is starting to catch up :)

Brooke finished her 7th grade math book and just started this one
she is enjoying it. She says she loves how it goes though everything thing in
detail.

The most important time in our school is our devotion time and journal time.
For Will I am just reading to him out of this Young Folks Bible then
we discuss it. I am enjoying reading it to him and Croix.
I am also using the Bible as his history for Will.

Here is Vinnys devotional that he is doing right now. He read
his devotion for the day which he is really relating with. The
he journals about anything he wants.

Here is Brooke devotion. This is a 1 year devotion so she is just going
along with what day it is.

In the Robinson Curriculum he does not tell you you have to do a formal
Language arts he says to have the children write daily(which we do) and then you as a parent
check it and have them fix their mistakes. My fear is that I am not checking them well enough
so I add a Language arts for them well mainly for my own sanity.

Work boxes system

Here is our work box system. That we absolutely love! The picture above is what we use for our boxes. We found them at Wal-mart for $4.00 each but what I do is put what they are to do for the day and then as they finish the work in the box they put the number on a chart that is on the side of their desks. This has help them see how much work they have done and how much they have left before school is done.

Here is what is in each box.

• Box "1" they have their devotion book a Bible and their journal. The older 2 read their devotion for the day, study some scriptures then they write in their journals. While they write in their journals I start to read for the Bible and Will and Croix listen and we all discuss what we just read.

• Box "2" We have our Math. We use Math-u-see for them. The curriculum we use suggest Saxon but we have switched to Math-u-see because they seem to understand it easier.

• Box "3" we combine a few things because we do not have enough boxes yet. In this one they have they Language Arts, vocabulary words and copy writing. What I plan to do is separate them up a little more so they only have one thing in each box.

• Box "4" Is their reading book that I choose from the Robinson Curriculum that we use. These books are awesome! The kids really seem to enjoy them.

• Box "5" We have Science and History in this box. I want to have separate boxes for these too. For science I found some old science text books from and antique store from a local school and for History we use books from the Robinson Curriculum

So I know there is only 4 boxes but I have a folder that we us as a box till I get a few more.
Here is where they put their numbers after they finish the boxes.
This just happens to be how we store our boxes right now.



I just can not say enough about this system! It has helped us so much. Okay mostly me because I am less stressed about making sure I do not forget about something they need to do that day. Now I have it all set up and no more worries. Also they get done a little faster because well I have competitive children and they are always looking to see what box the other one is on and who will get done first.