Classroom Changes...Some Pictures, Finally!

Math Time!

We were using our place value boards during Math...reviewing the value of numbers.

I think most everyone knows that we decided to take the plunge and move our classroom.  It was in the dining room last year, which worked fairly well, but drove this Momma to distraction because it seemed like an eternal mess.  Posters are fantastic in a classroom, but are very distracting in a dining room.  While having a dual-purpose classroom worked perfectly well for school, and the kids certainly enjoyed seeing their work displayed on all the walls of the dining room, it was a little less aesthetically pleasing for me.

Now the classroom is officially moved into the attic!  We are loving all the storage and whiteboard space. 

I finally managed to get some pictures. I have a couple bulletin boards to hang, and I still need to paint the "play" area of our classroom and a few spots I missed before construction of my whiteboard/storage carts began, but it is completely functional!

I'm sure I will eventually be replacing desks for the girls' high chairs, but we have a while yet. :)

We really enjoy having such a large space to work, study, and even play during our school day.

The kids have a hidden tunnel behind my cabinet
Rosalynne and Gabrielle love playing back here.

My little tour guide - Rosalynne loves having
a bed in the attic.

The kids helped pick neutral colors for our classroom - they actually aren't quite as bright as they appear in the photos. The toy area will be painted yellow, but with all the cold/rainy weather we've had, there just hasn't been time to get it painted.

School schmule

Last week was our first official week back in the classroom, and the kids did fantastic! We reviewed number patterns, skip counting, introduced a new book and talked about root words, examined the cursive alphabet, reviewed short vowels, talked about national, state, local, and familial holidays, and introduced our study topic in science for the coming weeks: ecology, environment, and organisms.

Whew! That was a busy week!

As we begin our second week, we are doing a slightly more focused science biome project.  The kids are making books about their biomes today. Asher picked the Rain Forest and Savannah picked the Coral Reef.

This year we will be adding three new topics in our curriculum beyond our core subjects from last year, but we are still waiting for the materials to arrive. What are we adding? Well, one of our subjects will be religion, which we covered last year a couple times a week, and has always been incorporated into our daily life, but we didn't have a specific faith-based curriculum to follow.  With the kids enjoying VBS and Totus Tuus so much this summer, they asked if we could add a more religious based subject of study. We considered entirely changing curriculum to one of the wonderful faith-based options by Seton, Our Lady of Mary or one of the many others, but thought that might be a bit too much of a change in one year. Instead, we chose two new topics of study from the Seton Curriculum to work with: Religion, and a History through Religion, which teaches history while examining changes and events in our faith. We are extremely excited to add these subjects to our daily lessons, though it will probably take a few weeks before I am able to fully integrate them into our lesson plans.

We are also incorporating Handwriting Without Tears into our curriculum.  Before we start really writing our pen pals again this year, we are going to take a while to review handwriting fundamentals (which seem to have lapsed a bit over the summer), and to begin working on the cursive alphabet as well.

Though we are starting school a bit earlier than normal, our plan is to take a short break at the end of August or beginning of September to give the kids one last hurrah before we really buckle down for the year, and also to give me a little more time to finish prepping the curriculum and adding our new topics. I am really excited that the kids are so enthusiastic about our faith and including it more thoroughly into our daily studies.

Keep checking back for more entries and updates about our school year. With starting school again myself, I can't guarantee that I will write quite as many entries, but I will do my best to keep everyone updated frequently. Also, feel free to message me or comment to remind me to post!