Our School Room

Built-in Bookshelves

Our school room is at the far end of our house, so it is often becomes a dumping spot for things that are in the way. This morning when I sat down to write this,  I was surrounded by piles: last year's curriculum waiting to be put in storage, this year's curriculum waiting to be shelved, hand-me-downs waiting to be sorted, a preasure canner needing to be returned to the attic, toys, and sewing projects.

For a fleeting second, I thought about doing a reality post with our school room at its worst. But the truth is, I'm (usually) pretty OCD about clutter and those pictures would not really reflect  the normal condition of this room. I debated whether I should just take pictures of our couch, our kitchen counters, and our dining room table. After all, we are just as likely to be learning in those spots as in any other. But, since we actually do have a room where lessons occasionally take place and where all our books are stored, a post about our school room ought to include pictures of that room. Clearly I was going to need to do some major cleaning today.


Our printer "stand" is between the bookshelf and
my desk. We also store the wastebasket up there
 so the baby doesn't dump it all over the floor.

So, I am a little late to the party, but the room is clean and we are ready to begin lessons. This room isn't fancy, but our house is small for a family of eleven and we are thankful that we are able to even have a school room. (In our last house we put bookshelves in the kitchen and did school at the kitchen table.) Our school room is an example of using what you have on hand and working with what you're given.

The bookshelves in the picture above are in one corner of our school room. I gave away all my bookshelves before we moved to this "temporary rental" (four years ago), so I am very thankful for these built-in shelves where we can store our currently in use textbooks and binders. The cupboard below is nice for keeping math games, scrapbooking supplies, and computer disks with homeschool files and pictures stored on them. 

My desk and our printer are on the same wall as the bookshelves. The printer sits on an old dresser which is a great place to store office supplies. I keep extra glue and pencils and such in the top two drawers. The bottom drawer is where the kids dump the stuff that is currently being used. Having a place to store all the half-used pencils, crayons, and erasers out of sight helps me to maintain my sanity.



My desk (my husband uses it too) is where I create notebook pages, write blog posts, and grade papers. It is usually not quite this clean. Most of the time there is a stack of papers on the corner waiting to be dealt with, and a coating of little paper circles from the three-hole punch dusting the surface.

There are two desks and a table along the wall beside my desk, with the entrance to the room between us. My four younger students will use these this year. My highschoolers do most of their schooling on their own, and they prefer to do it while sitting on the couch or hiding out in their bedrooms anyway.

The wall opposite my desk holds a comfy couch. There is a closet in the corner where we store science supplies. The closet smells like dissection specimens from when my children studied biology two years ago. In front of the closet is an inversion table my husband uses when his back gives him trouble. And the wall next to the closet is line with toys to keep the little ones busy.
 

Empty desks waiting for their new "owners." 

A great place to read.

Thanks for letting me share my school room with you and giving me the motivation to finally get it cleaned.







Integrating Math With Other Subjects {math notebooking}

One of the problems with modern schooling is the artificial divisions it creates. Children are put into grades based on their ages, rather than their learning abilities. Learning is labeled as scholastic and non-scholastic. And subjects are divided as if they had no connection with each other. This is one reason many people have a hard time grasping the concept of math notebooking.

We have been trained through this system of artificial divisions to think of math in terms of numbers and equations. And how can you notebook that? But when we step outside of this box, the variety of ways that notebooking can be used in the study of math becomes much more clear.

History & Math: The Fibonacci Sequence

Someone say, "math" and we think numbers. But if someone says, "the history of math" something entirely different comes to mind. For instance,

• how, when, and by whom were numbers first used?
• what did those numbers look like, and how did they change over time?
• what were some of the most important mathmatical discoveries, and who made them?

Think about "geography and math" and you will come up with a different list:

• how did the first explorers use math in navigation?
• how do we use mathmatics in navigation today?
• what do numbers look like in different countries?
• how is math done differently in those countries?
• how is math used in mapmaking or in reading a map?

You might be tempted to object that this is not really a study of math at all. But when you child is able to see how math relates to other subjects, they will understand why learning math skills is important for what they want to accomplish in other areas of life.

Here are more ways to integrate math with other subjects:

• Learn about famous (and not so famous) mathematicians. Mathematicians Are People, Too and Mathematicians Are People, Too Vol.2 are good books to use. (Here is a PDF of the Fibonacci notebooking page from the picture above.)
• Study math as it relates to music. (You can start by watching this YouTube video of a song composed using the numbers of Pi.) Learn about rythmn, beat, intervals, etc.
• Combine math with your poetry studies.
• Use literature books to teach math concepts. The Love2Learn2Day blog has a great post on Math In Children's Literature and I found many additional book suggestions on this MATH Pinterest board.
• Teach math as part of your science studies. Record your results. This Lesson Planet article has some ideas to get you started.
• Mix art and math.

Once you begin to think of ways to integrate math with other subjects, there is no end to the ideas for math notebooking that you will discover.

This is post is the second in the Math Notebooking Series.


*Go to Part One of the Math Notebooking Series*

*Go to Part Three of the Math Notebooking Series*

Ten Things We Did This Summer

1. Built a Fort

 

2.  Made Chocolate Pudding Pops



3. Experimented With Vinegar and Baking Soda



4. Picked Some Fruit



5. Planted and Tended a Garden

6. Had a (Giant) Water Balloon Fight

7. Played Barefoot



8. Watched Fireworks

9. Made Jelly (and sampled it!)

10. Visited Friends

I can't believe it's almost over!



Curriculum Plans For The Coming Year

The intention of this post is to give you a look at our curriculum plans for the 2012-2013 school year. However, any list of curriculum used in our eclectic homeschool will automatically be inaccurate and misleading. The problem is that a simple list of curriculum does not show all the things we learn from that are not curriculum. It doesn't show the opportunities we will take advantage of during the school year, nor the various other resources that we add to to those texts. It does not show how we use those texts. Most importantly, it does not reflect the dozens of changes we are sure to make before it is over. What it does do is show you a few of the tools we will be using.

My 16 & 15 year old's Bible study and an
altered notebook to use with the Christian
living books I've assigned for them to read.

So, what's the plan? 
Last year I encountered resistance from a few of my children who were more interested in getting done than getting educated. It was discouraging, and by the end of the year I was pretty burnt out. These three are very alike in personality and learning style. They learn very well by building and doing and experimenting and talking, but they don't want to follow directions or record what they discover. This means that any written assignment becomes a battle ground.

This year has honestly been the most difficult year to plan since we began homeschooling. In fact, we are hoping to start school in four weeks, and I still have not purchased some of my books, nor even decided on everything we will be using. After 12 years of homeschooling, you expect to know everything there is to know about teaching your children. It is hard to admit that your ideas of how to teach don't always match up to how your children learn. In fact, your ideas of how your children learn don't even always match up to how your children learn. So, once again, we will be changing our methods. I'm not sure exactly what this will look like, but I do know that I would like to help my children take a greater interest in their own educations. I want to help them set goals, and give them more freedom in how those goals are accomplished. (Here are two articles I just read that were very helpful: 3 Tips to Transform Your Homeschool Year and Not Working Out?)

I have two students who will be graduating this year and one that will be "unofficially graduating." She will be finishing most of her "scholastic" studies this year, and spend the next year or two on more home-centered studies. (As I was planning out this year, I realized why it is useful to have a plan for all four years of highschool from the beginning. After three very heavy years, there wasn't much left for my three oldest to study this year. I think they would have prefered to spread the load out a little more, but at least we can look forward to a more relaxed year.) So, this year will be one of "tying up loose ends" for my three oldest students.

In addition to their basic subjects, my four youngest students will be doing reports on literature books chosen  off a list of approved titles. They will also be working on scripture memory and will be allowed to choose which verses they work on. Each report written or verse learned will earn them points which they will be able to redeem for (yard sale bought) prizes. Because some of the children have shown weaknesses in  spelling and penmanship (see last paragraph), we will also be emphasizing those.

My  16 and 15 year old sons will be doing the Prepare Thy Work Bible study from Doorposts. In addition to searching the scriptures to learn about the various principles taught, there is a list of supplementary books to read. They, along with their 14 year old sister, will also be doing Auto Upkeep, The Money Book For Teens, penmanship, logic, writing research papers, Bible copywork, and typing. My 14 year old will also be doing Saxon Algebra and the 15 year old a study of animal husbandry/anatomy.

Potato Fruit

For the past few years we have planted a second garden on some space loaned to us on a near-by farm. Today when the children and I went over to weed the potatoes, we were surprised to find small green "tomatoes" growing on one of the plants.

cross pollination?

At first I though that we might be dealing with cross pollination. After all, tomatoes and potatoes are closely related members of the nightshade family. However, when we began finding more fruit on other plants in the garden, I decided that these must be actual potato fruit. Sure enough, a quick search online led me to a site which explains all about these strange green fruit. If you ever find any growing on your own potato plants DON'T eat them. They are poisonous. Really, really cool, but also really poisonous.

potato fruit!