the New School Room

Last Spring I posted about our School Room and since then I have rearranged again and turned what was our living Room into our School Room. It is right off the kitchen(the old school room) and so all the bookshelves that are along the back wall in the kitchen are still there. I love the look of them and so it will be awhile before I have any thoughts of moving them!

This is what the room looks like when you look in thru the kitchen. The table is not there anymore - it took up too much space and we still do our work at the kitchen table so it is a nice open space the boys are using to build, color and leave their toys all over the place!!

The desktop got moved into this room too. It is nice that it is not in the same room as the tv now. The boys would play games and watch tv at the same time and it made me crazy!

This is our school discipline system. I have used this from the beginning(2 years ago)with the boys and it is only for school times. I got it off the internet or out of a magazine somewhere and I do not remember where so I am sorry i can't guide you to the original idea.

Each boy has an envelope on the wall with all 5 of their cards in it. They start out each day with a Blue card.

Blue - Good Day

Yellow - Caution

Green - Extra Chore

Pink - loose Screen

Black - go to bed early

This system has worked so well for us. It is clear what the consequences are and it is so easy for me to use! They have never gotten to pink and only to green a time or two. It is usually enough to just get yellow and they are good! The extra chore is something gross or time consuming - cleaning all the cabinet doors is my favorite right now!

The inside of the doorway has a bookshelf on either side of it. The alphabet cards are sticky tacked to the inside of the doorway(since it doesn't have an actual door). On the wall I have the calendar and the Family Prayer stuff tacked up. Their is usually a picture of the family members we are praying for where the black is and around it are verses about prayer.

Above that I have posted our Family Rules!

This space has been working really well for us and my hubby is so very happy that the kitchen table is no longer covered in books and projects when we sit down to eat!!!

Science

I thought we would just read and learn about different things from the ton of Science books I have around the house - Magic School Bus & the Lets Read & Find Out books.

I had to change my mind as we started doing this whole CM style of schooling. We do so much reading in all the other areas and the boys do so love to do experiments that I felt we needed to do Real Science instead. I read about the Apologia Elementary books, then borrowed the Flying Creatures from a friend to glance thru and see how the lessons are laid out and I was sold! Jeannie Fulbright writes with a Charlotte Mason style and the lessons seem to be so interesting, simple and fun that I broke down and ordered Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day *cheap*!!

The boys chose the Swimming animals over the Flying or Land animals!

It came tonight while I was at work and I can't wait to look through it - a little bedtime reading for mommy tonight!

I also found out that you can buy lab kits for the apologia sciences here so you don't have to scrounge around looking for that item you thought you had but you can't find and you need it for today's lesson! That will have to be me though because we can't buy the lab kit right now!!

I would love to know if any of you have done this science or have heard anything about it???

off to bed now........

School has begun - for Real

My oldest headed off to his first day of High School on Tuesday - it was a milestone for sure! he was so excited and could hardly sleep the night before. He is my social butterly who THRIVES on being around people! It is going to be an interesting year around our house. Danny and I are just excited to go to the High School football games - is that wrong? Because Alex is not so excited about us being there!

Mommy and the other 3 Boys had a full day of school also on Tuesday. Tuesdays are a hard day for me because my husband is off and he kindof gives a different atmosphere to our day(nothing bad but different) so it was not as s mooth as I would have liked it to be but it was a good day.

I have been gung-ho about workboxes all summer and very excited about putting them into play but when I was scheduling our day I really struggled with how to use them in our day. I could not figure out how they were going to be helpful for me when we do EVERYTHING together and the boys still need my help for LA and Math. It seemed like I was making more work for myself and the boys. Even though a lot of it would be fun stuff - they still need ME to do most everything so I can't figure out how to fill 12 boxes and split myself 3 ways to be able to help them all. It just seems easier to write the games into my planner and our schedule and we can all do them together. So - even though I have put a lot of energy and time into the workboxes - we are not gonna use them at this point in time!
So far the boys are okay with keeping Thomas happy while I work one on one with the other one! But plans always change around here!!