Homeschooling
It's official! we are 100% homeschooling family!
I thought I would share just a tad about what we are doing this year for homeschooling, I know I have some fellow homeschooling friends YEA!! and I also have some that are thinking about it, so I thought I would share what we are doing.
And as always to record for my posterity :)
First I want to start by saying.... the plans for this were NOT easy, it came after lots of research, lots of time, effort and most important prayer. These are things best on the best for my kids, needs and ages.
I have decided that I LOVE Charlotte Mason Style Homeschooling. For those of you who have never heard of it, (I hadn't until this past year) She was a teacher and educator back in the 1920's. Her way of education is literature based, she focused on education being a way of life. One did not learn facts they learned everything from Geography, to reading, to foreign language, to handy work, a love of nature, and art through living it and experiencing it. She also focus's on Educating the hole being in developing good habits and Christ like character not just gaining secular knowledge.
If you want to know more facts about Charlotte Mason click HERE
A Charlotte Mason style is a way in which you choose to educate, it is not a specific curriculum. If you want to know more about what goes into a Charlotte Mason education click HERE this link is to just the basic fact, but that site is FULL of wonderful information. There are free ebooks that give tons of information, that I just can't get enough of, I just LOVE IT!
To be honest I really wanted to show a picture of our homeschool room, but it is not done, and wont be for a few more weeks, and I need to get this posted, but I will be posting lots more on homeschool (I'm sure) so I will just do it then.
Organization
Here is our calendar, I love it, it took me hours but worth every minute, we use it every.single.day. It is not perfect, but I did it, and I love it. The top four rows are the weeks of the month. Yes I am awear that the whole month is not showing, but guess what. I do not care, this is good enough for me.
I have stitched, months titles July-December, for now, I will post "how" I made this when they are all done. In the month rows there are also cards saying, field trip, library, park, etc So the kids know what days "special thing" are happening.
I have stitched, months titles July-December, for now, I will post "how" I made this when they are all done. In the month rows there are also cards saying, field trip, library, park, etc So the kids know what days "special thing" are happening.
The last two rows are our daily schedule. The last couple pockets hole the extra cards then the stars are just fillers that hide them.
I went on line and found pictures to go with everything we do, not just school related, although "education is life" so we are always in school :) This maps out the kids in tire day. We do not always fallow it, life happens, but generally we try to, and most times we do. We at least fallow the activities we change the order a lot. I plan "quite time" activities, or things for them to do independently if I have to do something else, (more on that latter) chores, laundry, calls to make etc. This really helps them stay focused and have a good idea what they have in store for the day.
I went on line and found pictures to go with everything we do, not just school related, although "education is life" so we are always in school :) This maps out the kids in tire day. We do not always fallow it, life happens, but generally we try to, and most times we do. We at least fallow the activities we change the order a lot. I plan "quite time" activities, or things for them to do independently if I have to do something else, (more on that latter) chores, laundry, calls to make etc. This really helps them stay focused and have a good idea what they have in store for the day.
(Note- now I only use the last line for our planning day- because the boy are now older and have there own charts/plans but we still use the last row for things we do together
Here is.... In side our homeschool room ....
These are not really very good pictures- but they are better then nothing. I put a lot of thought into our schoolroom and I really like it. I wanted something, clean, and cozy yet fun and inspiring too. On the walls we have our calendar, and schedule (see my page My home schoolstyle for details on that) our white board, and a clip board that I painted and added ribbons too. It holds a picture that has a saying that goes along with the Good Habit we are trying to develop it stays until we move on to the next one. This ones says I can be polite, because we were learning to develop good manners, the one we have now says " I can Obey" as we are learning about Obedience. These pictures are from an ebook that I got on line.
The bookshelves I got at Aldi years ago, and painted them, and made new covers to hold the books I LOVE these book shelves they are easy for the kids to take care of. The wood chest holds many of our games and puzzles we use for school and I also painted that too. Our reading tent is made of a hoola-hoop old sheets and curtains that I cut into strips (raw edges showing) and then I topped it with some fun shapes and a monkey. I also make some throw pillows and a reading mat.
Here we have our picture study frame, and our US map and my favorite thing in my whole school room is my quote "Education is an Atmosphere a Discipline a life" by Charlotte Mason. I did this with a stencil, dark brown fabric and I glued it with LIGHTLY using Elmer's glue.
Here is our ART wall, I used light rope from JoAnn's, fabric shapes with ribbon and buttons, they are held up with sticky hooks, and then ART is above it with fabric like I did the quote. The desks are Ikea table top we make and painted the legs and chairs are Ikea too.
The bookshelves I got at Aldi years ago, and painted them, and made new covers to hold the books I LOVE these book shelves they are easy for the kids to take care of. The wood chest holds many of our games and puzzles we use for school and I also painted that too. Our reading tent is made of a hoola-hoop old sheets and curtains that I cut into strips (raw edges showing) and then I topped it with some fun shapes and a monkey. I also make some throw pillows and a reading mat.
Here we have our picture study frame, and our US map and my favorite thing in my whole school room is my quote "Education is an Atmosphere a Discipline a life" by Charlotte Mason. I did this with a stencil, dark brown fabric and I glued it with LIGHTLY using Elmer's glue.
Here is our ART wall, I used light rope from JoAnn's, fabric shapes with ribbon and buttons, they are held up with sticky hooks, and then ART is above it with fabric like I did the quote. The desks are Ikea table top we make and painted the legs and chairs are Ikea too.
We keep most of our school supplies in the closet of my office in the room right next to us. But we really do use our school room every day and I love it.
