In September Ellie will enter 4K, her last year as a pre-schooler! Pre-school is a time to play and learn through that play. Well, even kindergarten is as well, but it gets a little more intentional at that point. Although, I consider the work I put into teaching my child intentional now, too, just more relaxed.
Anyway, I had already a "school room" for Ellie but it honestly served no purpose other than chaotic storage. I recently attended with my sister, brother, and mama the Great Homeschool Convention hosted in Greenville, SC. I took home so much fruitful information and inspiring words of wisdom and ideas. I also heard one excellent point that the atmosphere of your homeschool is important. That made perfect sense to me as a type A highly organized woman. If you and your child are surrounded by a chaotic environment where you aren't comfortable, or you are stressed, things are disarrayed, unorganized, etc., you are going to reflect this chaos in your day. Having an environment where your and your child are comfortable and happy to be in when desk work must take place...because hey, it has to at some point, right?...is a really great foundation for having a happy environment where the child is happy and wants to learn. Think about public school....teachers decorate their classrooms every year. They organize their rooms and post photos all over social media to excite their oncoming students for the year. As a young student, I can remember the excitement of seeing my classroom and the joy I felt being in a "cool" room that made me happy to be in that room. Environment matters.
So I came home one night and cleared the room completely out except for the desk, piano, and bookshelves. I sat on the floor with a sketch paper and pen and went wall by wall planning what I really wanted and needed to make me organized, prepared, and functional. Then I got on Amazon and ordered things, and of course went to Target for some items too. Over the course of two weeks I painted, organized, and rearranged.
Ellie currently by the blessing of God has well over 1,000 books and more coming all the time. We LOVE books. So, this also means I'm always preparing to buy a new bookcase or having to get creative about storing her books. I also have to be very organized with them so that we utilize them well. I organize them by author, series, and category. For example, all Jan Brett books go together. Then I have science and nature study books together but further organized by category like lichens, mushrooms, pond study, butterfly life cycle, constellations, etc. Each category is grouped together with all the books we have that fit that category. Series of books like Curious George, Fancy Nancy, or The Berenstein Bears all go together. Hopefully you catch my roll. I basically have a library and it is important to keep it organized and documented so I make good use of it. I found this awesome app called, "Libib," where I scan the barcode on the back of each book she has or manually enter it and it documents it like a card catalogue system for me. Therefore, if I am shopping at a consignment store and come across books and I can't remember if we have this one yet or not, I can open my app and look to see if we are in need of it to add to our collection. Side note- consignment shopping for books is THE BEST THING EVER when you want a strong library for your child. CLASSICS, books that are out of print, things you may pay boodles for anywhere else....people just give them away like yesterday's old news and it's the best treasure hunt of my life and so so so affordable. I mean...we have over a thousand books so it's got to be affordable, right?! God forbid our house ever catch on fire - save the baby, save the dog, then save my books!! But seriously.
Ok, so getting the books organized was a top priority. I moved a lot from downstairs into the school room for better organization. Again, subject matching subject, category matching category. So that way, when we are studying birds, all the bird books fictional and non-fictional will be together and I can just pull the whole stack.
I moved the couch out of the school room to the upstairs playroom. In place of the couch I ordered and placed a long bookshelf to hold math puzzles, a CD player for our composer studies and French listening lessons, my "Morning Basket" (by Pam Barnhill) basket, and storage boxes for seasonal props and activities like for Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Pat's, etc. I am LOVING the CD player and CD storage. I actually got rid of my CD stereo years ago because I rarely listened to CD's anymore, and if I did, it was in the car. Most things, I just would use Pandora, YouTube, or something like that. But, as we study different classical composers, I actually purchase CD's of their compositions and we listen to them for each term. Ellie will actually request to listen to Beethoven or to Tchaikovsky and she has learned their pieces well by doing this. So I went to target and bought a very basic CD player and already we have listened to it every day every time Ellie works on writing or her shapes or coloring a picture. The storage of the CD's on this new shelf is awesome because before they were all crammed in my car dashboard because that was my only CD player! 😂
Now, Ellie needed a proper table for crafts, schoolwork, and making creations. She has been using the kitchen table and the kitchen counter has been my storage and I have been having a like silent panic attack every time I enter the kitchen during the school week and see the counter overflowing with craft supplies and books. I HATE clutter and things on the counter. Like it makes me twitch to see it! Ha! So, I found an ADORABLE little farmhouse table on FB Marketplace and got that for Ellie. I put a super soft, cozy beige rug underneath because, well, we plan to do painting at this table and the room has carpet. So, if some paint should take a drip, the little rug can catch it and be cleaned but also my carpet will not be ruined. And Ellie LOVES this fuzzy rug. She is happy when her feet sink into it! I found it at Target! And it was on sale!! Woop Woop! She literally tells me every day, "Thank you for getting me this soft rug, Mommy!"
I had to find a better solution for all the crayons, paintbrushes, colored pencils, etc. I have a storage bin in the closet but it was overflowing with other random craft things. So I had tried storing each of these things in glass cylinders on the bookshelves prior to this makeover. That was all well and good until I realized it was highly impractical as I didn't LOVE Ellie grabbing the glass cylinders every time she wanted to create and she should be free to create at her own will and desire. So, I nipped those and found a precious basket in the kitchen department at Target with dividers and a handle that was just truly perfect. I filled each divider with paintbrushes, colored pencils, pop-sicle sticks, crayons, and scissors. I set it in the center of her new table and it has proven to be one of my best decisions in this makeover. Pretty and it is functional. And hey, when you are a homeschooling mom, you need all the functionality you can get. I may be type A, but I don't have time to be when putting Ellie first so we have to make things work and be aesthetically pleasing so my nerves don't start twitching. 😂😂😂
I ordered stackable iron and wooden shelves that were small for the printer to sit upon as well as Ellie's puzzles, nature bingo games, and math board games. That also freed up some space from the playroom which is a little chaotic right now until Miss Priss outgrows her trampoline and little table and chairs.😜 But at least that is upstairs and I rarely have to see it. Haha! Eventually that will all come together better, but organizing the school room did help the playroom as well by alleviating it of some games and books.
The desk that already existed in the school room was actually my husband, Eric's, when he was a little boy. I refurbished it many years ago and it is a special piece. This desk is good for storing the little odds and ends that I use in my lesson plans office supplies. Above it is the new white board with some fun magnets. My intentions for this board will be to host pictures Ellie wants displayed, and display pictures and notes about our composer and artist studies.
I also put up a green chalkboard. This will host a purpose of displaying current curriculum topics. Such as if we are studying the letter "A", this will be up there along with numbers, and nature study anatomy diagrams, and just all the things we are learning about throughout the week or term.
Now for the piano. My "big" project for this room was this wonderful piano that I was blessed to inherit from my mom who's dad gave it to her who's like great aunt I believe gave it to him. Sadly, I never finished my own piano lessons as a child so I am not a skillful player, but...I can play hot cross buns for you! 😂😂 One of my desires is to learn to play piano completely alongside Ellie who will be taking lessons in the coming years. The original finish of the piano didn't bother me, but it did not match the room whether the room had been made over or not...the wood was more mahogany toned and just didn't match any of other wooden elements in the room and so I decided if I was painting bookshelves and doing a complete remodel, the piano was getting herself a new do as well. I have one of Joanna Gaines' books for children called, "We are the Gardeners." Such a precious book. In the illustrations we see Jo's actual green piano from her own home. So, I have always thought it was so beautifully done. I got on Google image search and found her actual photo of her piano, then got on Pinterest for inspo, then Amazon to find my paint choice. I wanted a sage color of green. I wasn't sure I could be gutsy enough to pull the trigger to do it. I know I can un-do it if I wanted but...this was a big transformation and a lot of delicate work that I am used to doing...just was not sure if I actually wanted to take the risk with the antique piano. But I did and y'all!! So happy and pleased that I did this! It really sets the mood I was hoping to achieve for the room of peace and joy and Ellie loves it. She told me, "Thank you, Mommy, for painting my piano!" Worth it!
I am so happy with this room and how it became this warm, peaceful, happy environment that we will spend so much of our time in over the next like 14 years! It's kind of beautiful really. Assuming that in God's will we stay in this beautiful home for that time, because only He knows the future, right? It will be this room that we will see grow with us as we grow together in its walls. And I do believe that is why the atmosphere of your homeschool sets a tone and is a foundation for the learning.
Happy homeschooling!!
No comments:
Post a Comment