Our school room

I finally got it clean enough to take pictures :) We start school next week, so I have been in "get ready" mode all week. I must say, I love my house! We have been so very blessed with this home, it is as if it was made for me. After moving every four years, home number four is one I hope to stay in for quite some time. Our school area is what used to be an in-law suite, so I was able to devote two whole rooms to school without interfering with other areas of the house.

Here is the room as you enter from the hallway. We spend lots of time on the futon reading, and I love the easy access to the outside. The queen (4) can go out and play with water toys or other outdoor things, and still be right where I can see her. Under the table I store some of our math manipulatives and a box of the queen's "games," activity bags that are just for school time.

Here is the view from the opposite end of the room. The door leads into the office where the computer and my sewing desk are located (the castle on the table was a project crocodile hunter did for the middle ages). The deer is courtesy of my hunter husband (hey, in our other house it hung over the bed for a year, so this is not so bad, trust me!).

This is where we start our school day, at our prayer altar. I keep a book of icons and a Bible and a prayer book on top of the altar. The icons have mostly been selected by the kids, St. Theophan of course, as he is the patron saint of our school, and St. Seraphim of Sarov, and St. George. The bottom row is a series of creation icons. The bowl with the candle was a project the princess and I did as a treat. She decided we needed a place to put candles in sand, just like at church, so we went to one of those paint your own pottery places and she made this bowl for our school altar. The shelf contains the majority of our books for the school year and our notebooks. The baskets on either side contain fun books on our science and history themes.

Here is our picture study spot. I rotate the works of art every few weeks, and keep books that have to do with the time period or artist we are studying.

Here is a great shelf I bought at Mich*el's (a great buy with a 40% off coupon!). It has math books on tops, and then various things for the queen to use during school hours.

This is our meeting area for much of our morning work. We have calendar time, recitation and new memory work here. The shelf contains art books and supplies that they can use at the table.

Here is the view from the table area into the rest of the kitchen. Have I mentioned this is my dream house? This is NOT my main kitchen, but a secondary kitchen. This house has a large kitchen on the main level, then this smaller one which was set up for an in-law suite. These areas have become our schoolroom. It is wonderful to have access to a sink, and lots of counter space without dealing with dishes etc. And most of those cabinets are full of school books, art and craft supplies, and other school goodies (a few do have my cake decorating supplies, but each school year I inch a few more cake supplies out and a few more school supplies in :)

This is the little princess' desk. The basket to the right contains all of the books she needs to access every day (Explode the Code, her readers, her main history book etc) and her notebook.

This is the crocodile hunters desk, again with his main books in the basket next to him. The blue boxes on the hearth contain knitting supplies and a set of wooden figures for biblical stories.

Finally, here is a closer look at my low shelf. I love the window in this room, and in planning the curtains and shelving, my main concern was to not block the view or the light. So I found these nifty stackable shelves at T*rget and they are just the right height. The window sills are just below the top of the shelves! In these shelves we have our math manipulatives, some educational games, flashcards, globe and map puzzles and a basket with nature books. The show box on top is full of nature finds - a birds nest, a molted snake skin - all the wonderful treasures little boys love to find and bring home! Finally, the black storage boxes on the left (from Office M*x - I love the look of these boxes) hold each child's specific flashcards.