In side our schoolroom

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 school style 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.

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.

Pickin' Cotton

This year we are mostly focused on learning about Animals in home school but along with that we are doing a Nature/Science study too. Last week we learned about Cotton and what a useful plant it was. Doing home school with the Internet makes life sooo great, you can look videos for just about anything! Anyway- On our way home from our home school PE class at the Y we saw this combine tractor working in the cotton field. We pulled over to watch it, and to watch how what we learned about was happening right in front of us!

well; the impromptu field trip was just getting started....

one of the workers came up to us, and said the boys could pick cotton, he had grown up working with cotton all his life and picked cotton by hand as a young boy. As we were heading back to the van we stopped and talked to the owners of the cotton farm, the lady of the house talked to the boys, and let them pick cotton too. Then a different worker who was driving the combine stopped and asked if they wanted a ride. (if it was ok with me) I said yes, as the boys were supper excited.
Here are the boys on the Combine after picking cotton - bellow is a picture of the Cotton farm
Here is the boys ridding the combine.
The combine picks the cotton, and it rolls it up into these HUGE 500lb bales of cotton. Then they place it and another tractor comes and picked it up. The farmer then takes these to another location where there is a cotton gin- where it is cleaned and then shipped over seas to make the things we use today. They said hardly any cotton stays here in the us anymore.
The boys got to watch this whole process right from inside the combine. They also told the kids how to find the seeds, in the cotton they picked, and how to plant them, and take care of them so they could grow there own cotton. We will be doing that in the spring.

the boys will be talking about this for months.

what a great experience- a little boys Dream come true.

I love love love being able to have opportunities to make my children's education come to life...

*note: I did not have my camera, a son of the farmer took these picture on his iphone and then emailed them to me, the south is sure full of lots of friendly people :)