The New School Room

Drum roll please.....

Ta DA!

Wow, my brain had to work really hard to figure out a way to organize this room for optimal schooling. And I have to say that after MONTHS (all summer) of agonizing on just how to make it work, I'm really pleased with the outcome. The walls are still pretty bare/boring. And I have a few more things to figure out, but we're definitely almost done.

Here's a tour of the room.

Above: This is our shelving area. I take somewhat of a Montessori approach and have made many of my own materials using their philosophies. This is where I store those "works" and they are often swapped on a regular basis to keep things interesting.



Above: Our easel and computer station. I use the white board on the easel for just about everything so I kept it close to the table.

Above: I bought these cool little school chairs that will last a life time off of craigslist for $5/each.
The table was also a craigslist find and it was FREE!! wahoo. I just cut the legs down to size so it would be the right height for my girls. And the little guy sits at the smaller table on the end. They were painting tonight. Please pardon the mess.



Above: These are my new babies. We just put them up. They're the trofast shelving system from IKEA. And I'm pretty darn sure that I'm going to absolutely love using them as workboxes. See, we also use the Sue Patrick workbox system (google it and you'll find a TON of info). This is a huge step up from the previous workbox system I was using (see previous posts on workbox system). I got the idea of using these things from a post on a wonderful workbox yahoo group. I was hesitant to spend the money on these things. But you know what? I learned last year that the space in which you school really makes a HUGE difference in your school day. A neat, organized, clutter free, well lit and inviting space will allow for a much smoother and peaceful day with less frustration and more success. And that's really hard to put a price tag on.



Above: Teacher's chair. Now that I've got the trofast storage system, I can have the big green shelves for all my stuff and bring order to my life! Hurray. I also replaced my big hulky, huge computer armoire for a much smaller desk that I got for cheap on...you guessed it...craigslist. Now I can look out into the room without turning around or getting out of the chair. It's very fung shway. Or is it feng shuia? I don't know.



Above: Ah, this is my newly created Calendar/weather/#of school days center. I got the idea from a really great blog that I love at http://www.dayindayoutdayupdaydown.blogspot.com/
She also uses workboxes and has an adorable school room so take a peek.




Above: This used to be our shoe closet. And yes, we always had dozens of shoes strung out all over our school room no matter how many times I picked them up. So the shoes have a new home out in the garage and now I can organize our art supplies, games, puzzles, musical instruments, play dough, my overhead projector....etc. On the other side of the closet I have stored all of our Montessori bead material (which I made myself). yeah, it's finally done. hurray.

There you have it. I'm ready for fall so bring it on! We won't be starting with formal curriculum for a couple more weeks, but we're rip roarin ready to go!