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.







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.

Our "Typical" Homeschool Day

7:00 We get up & dress. The children take care of their animals and we start laundry, etc. before breakfast. The house is put in order before we begin school at 8:30 or 9:00. We gather all our books and sit in the living room. I start by reading a Bible story or devotional. Then we do history or science. I read from the "textbook", then ask the kids questions. We have a world map on the living room wall, so they often climb up on the chair during our reading to find some place that was mentioned. Then we read some living books on the topic or do a project. (We read a lot of books and do lots of projects!) This takes up the main part of our day. Sometimes while I am reading, one of the children decides they want to illustrate the story, so they color as I read. Sometimes after a reading, I will give them a related writing assignment. (My kids really hate writing, so we have been kind of lazy about language arts. But I plan to do more this year. ) Then they sit at the table and do their math and phonics/ grammar assignments. We are usually done 12:30 or 1:00. Then we do afternoon chores and have some free time.

I don't follow a strict schedule for school. We have a general plan of what we want to get done, but if we don't finish we do it another time. Sometimes we "vote" to ditch something because it just isn't working, no one's really interested, or we just don't have the energy to do another project. My philosophy is that education is not about how much you learn. The human mind can only hold a limited amount of information. But if can shape our childrens' character, we will have succeeded in their education. So, the facts and test scores and such are secondary. That doesn't mean I'm not trying to give them the best education I can, but I'm not going to worry if they never get through their algebra book.