Our Homeschool Room - August 2013

We haven't updated much since our last homeschool room photos here.  I've been baby-proofing since Zach (my 8-month old) is crawling everywhere and had to empty the small shelf because it had a lot of things that could hurt him if he ever got a hold of them.  I have Katie's artwork hanging on yarn across the room and used mini clothes-pins to hang the art onto the yarn.

We live in a double-wide manufactured home and use our dining room also as our homeschool room.  I'm standing in the kitchen for the first shot:


Here is another view from a different part of the kitchen:


This is our pantry, which divides the dining room and the living room and gives us lots of room to store food!  It has a radio/cassette built-in with an intercom system.  I put up charts that go along with whatever science we are studying at the time and then we have our bulletin board and a magnetic board for calendars, reading lists, etc.


Looking in from the hallway:


One bookshelf houses the games, puzzles and miscellaneous items and the other one has books on history, science, math and a few other topics.  It also has some new curriculum for the next grade, old curriculum and reference books, science kits galore, etc.  On top we have our microscope, skeleton model, abacus, rock collection and the tabernacle model.  The red basket on top is full of music instruments (tambourine, maracas, etc.)


We had to empty our smaller shelf to baby-proof for Zach, my 8 month old who is crawling now.  We had tacks, staples, tape, paper clips and all that sort of stuff there that we put into a cabinet on the side of the pantry.  I'm thinking of filling the small shelf with baby books for Zach to look through while we do school.



We have a dry erase board and a map of the world on the wall and then our All About Spelling magnetic board with tiles on the floor.  However, we have to move this somewhere because Zach keeps going for it and he could swallow the tiles, so it isn't safe to be on the floor.  I'm just not sure where we are going to put it.  I have thought of putting it somewhere else in the house and calling it our spelling corner.


We keep our dry erase markers, eraser, scissors and pens and pencils in these holders on the wall for easy access.  I also got some free wall art online and printed it and painted some old 1980's frames black that I got for free and used them to make the cute signs.


Then in our living room, we have a large desk with a piano and a space to either do work or hold ongoing projects.

I Will.......Oh, Wait.....I Could

I was grading papers tonight and came across my daughter's sentence, of which she must have had second thoughts about because she changed the wording of it LOL!

Zach is my daughter's baby brother, he is 8 months old.



I think I remember the day she had this writing assignment.  She came to me in the kitchen and said, "Mommy, I will always be smarter than Zach right, because he is younger than me?"  I then told her how that might not be true (to her shock) and that he may be a genius for all we know.  So, that must have been when she marked out "will" and put "could."  Too funny.....

Song For a Fifth Child



Song For a Fifth Child 
by Ruth Hamilton. 1958

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
hang out the washing and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.