This week has been a serious "do it to it" week. Most of it has been gearing up for starting school this week.
Since we worked through the summer, we're already about halfway through Kindergarten, but I still wanted to get ready to hit the ground running next week (we decided to get serious about school right after Labor Day). We'll be adding Science, as well as Art and Music appreciation, poetry, and some other little fun stuff.
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| Bella doing some Math work with place value |
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| ...and she built it, said it, and then wrote it...correctly :) |
We have (almost) totally rearranged the entire house. Seems that way anyway.
We put all 3 littles in the same bedroom:
Then we moved the school room to Isaiah's old bedroom, and made our Dining Room an actual Dining Room again:
We have missed having people at our house! With things set up the way they were, we just didn't really have room to put anybody if we invited them over for a meal. We have an expandable breakfast table in the kitchen, but expanded it always feels cramped, and when it is not expanded it only sits our family.
Neil and I would want to invite a family over for dinner, and then we'd get really stressed out trying to think about how we could make it work and everybody be able to sit down! We decided to do what we had to do to get our dining room back. Isaiah is old enough now that we figured it wouldn't be too hard of a transition to put him in with the older two. The nice thing about having the school room just down the hall from their bedroom is that the bigger kids can go play in the school room when they wake up, so Isaiah will *hopefully* get a chance to sleep a bit longer. Balian hasn't quite gotten down how to be quiet when he wakes up, but we're working on it. These things take time.
We put all 3 littles in the same bedroom:
Definitely not "put together" yet, but it'll get there eventually.
We have missed having people at our house! With things set up the way they were, we just didn't really have room to put anybody if we invited them over for a meal. We have an expandable breakfast table in the kitchen, but expanded it always feels cramped, and when it is not expanded it only sits our family.
Neil and I would want to invite a family over for dinner, and then we'd get really stressed out trying to think about how we could make it work and everybody be able to sit down! We decided to do what we had to do to get our dining room back. Isaiah is old enough now that we figured it wouldn't be too hard of a transition to put him in with the older two. The nice thing about having the school room just down the hall from their bedroom is that the bigger kids can go play in the school room when they wake up, so Isaiah will *hopefully* get a chance to sleep a bit longer. Balian hasn't quite gotten down how to be quiet when he wakes up, but we're working on it. These things take time.
I'm really liking the school room where it is now. Even though it's a smaller room, I feel like we have so much more room to work with. First of all, no piano. That stayed in the dining room. Secondly, I can put anything on the walls that I want without sacrificing our "wall-o-pictures". But really, let's be honest. My favorite thing about the new school room is the fact that I now have an entire walk-in closet for school storage!! Amazing!! So I've been organizing like a mad-woman! The only down-side is no flooring. it's concrete. We tore up the carpet, because well, it was pretty gross, and I don't like carpet in the school room. And we haven't put anything else down at this point, so we have concrete. But we washed it really well, so it's really clean concrete :) I miss the wood floors that we had in the dining room, but oh well.
Here's some pictures of the new school room:
Have I mentioned how much I love IKEA? If I haven't, I will now.
Here's some pictures of the new school room:
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| At-a-glace from the hallway door |
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| Other side of the room from the hallway |
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| um, yes. love this! |
The closet is seriously amazing. Art supplies, Montessori activities for the younger ones, all of the curricula, the books we'll be using for Science, Encyclopedias, etc. fits in there! And the shoe organizer is the topping on the cake. Lots of the little stuff found homes here, and I can see it and find it all when I need it. |
| From the closet |
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| Some of our "Read Aloud" books |
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| More "read-alouds" |
The kitchen has a new home in the hallway, just outside of the school room. I think they use it more now.
Have I mentioned how much I love IKEA? If I haven't, I will now.
I. Love. IKEA.
This is why:
Kid's table and chairs (and the paper reel): IKEA
Storage Bench and baskets: IKEA
Storage shelf/bookshelf and bins (in closet): IKEA
Oh yeah, and our breakfast table and chairs: you guessed it, IKEA.
Not to mention the best kid's step-stools ever for teaching boys to pee standing up (yes, I just said that).
But as far as the school room goes, to quote Annie, "I think I'm gonna like it here!"
*This is what happens when I type when I can't sleep. I get random songs from musicals stuck in my head. Oh, wait, that's me ALL the time! :)*
So tomorrow the fun begins!
If you're wondering how we are going to do school, along with everything else, here's somewhat of a breakdown:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings: basic stuff. Chores around the house, Circle time (where we do our calendar, along with read-alouds, art and music appreciation, hymn time, poetry, etc.), reading, writing, and Math.
Wednesday mornings: BSF.
We do Bible during lunch, but that may change to dinner-time as more of a family devotional.
Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons: science/nature study.
Thursday afternoon: gymnastics.
Friday afternoon: grocery shopping.
outdoor play, free play, art, and handi-crafts are interspersed throughout the day.
Nap-time everyday.
Quiet time every weekday.
A girl I graduated High School with summed it up with these words: "Fun Chaos".
I can't wait!!
Just for fun, here's some pictures of Isaiah finger-painting for the first time using Cool Whip. Seriously the best thing to use for little ones who still want to eat everything.
Ha. I love his face in this one. "What?"
