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, and there are already  free notebooking pages for these books available online. (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. Jimmie Lanley has written some Math Poetry Lessons you can use.
• 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. Here are 12 Ways To integrate Math Into The Arts Curriculum.

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*