Okay, so it's now our 16th week into this school year, and I'm finally posting my classroom reveal and our 1st week of school (blushing).
First of all, the classroom reveal....
The Before Picture
This has pretty much been the look of our classroom/computer/etc. room for many years. For more pictures you can click HERE. (note: the fluff at the bottom the picture is part of Elsa, our dog -- I guess I should have cropped that, haha). I sold one daughter's school desk and Jeff had to dismantle the big old desk to get it out of the room. The room was always nice, but it's time to turn the page to a new chapter in our lives.
The After Pictures
(don't worry, the room is small; this will be a short tour)
The view as you enter our classroom.
I had a lot of wishful-uses for this room (office/computer room, school room, craft room, and a guest bedroom, but since the room is only about 8'x10', I had to be realistic with my expectations and just do what I could. Jeff had only two requirements: (1) that there were at least 2 desks so that on occasion, when he works from home, he has his own desk, and (2) that I didn't make it too girly. :) He knows me, I love pastels and I love girly, but for his sake, I toned down my wish list.
The wallpaper did put up a bit of a fight to remove, but the girls helped and we had it off in a few days. Next, I chose Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue for the walls (a Pinterest find that changes color as the light changes), getting in my pastel, yet telling Jeff it was blue for boys :). Actually, most of our house is in warm & woodsy dark Craftsman colors, so this room is a refreshing change.
All the lower desks/cabinets are IKEA. I love that the printer can now be tucked under and pulled out when needed. The decorative shelf, now painted antique white, if you will recall use to be sage green and above my coach in the familyroom about 3 years ago; and everything on the shelf, except for the inexpensive Walmart plants, are just things I already had around the house.
The shelf tower is three "Store In Style" cubes stacked (These cubes are hard to come by (aka Crop In Style), I purchased mine through Oriental Trading, but I don't think they have anymore of the individual cubes left). I specifically wanted this brand of cubes as they are a good, sturdy cube and they were the only ones that were wide enough to fit the baskets I already had.
On the opposite wall we brought up my sewing machine cabinet as nobody ever enjoyed sewing in our somewhat chilly, isolated-from-the-family basement. Yes, I know, the walls are rather bare yet.
And well, the room has a deep & very narrow closet with a file cabinet stuffed full of papers that are mostly important only to me -- mostly school & Bible related. I did a lot of purging -- it's time to let go of my denial that I just bought way more curriculum than is humanly possible to teach in X-number of years. Jeff was a sweetie & installed a top shelf to store more stuff, Yea!
I still need to recover the chair (I have a blue brushed-denim fabric waiting) and find a curtain or make one.
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And, our first week of school
We usually go to our favorite waterpark either just before school starts or shortly after (One of the beauties of homeschooling). The wave pool is my favorite, but Jeff & I agreed that by the end of 3 days of constantly being jostled around by waves, we were ready to go home (can't be we are getting old, can it???)
and we ate at a neat restaurant where our food was served by train. The ambiance and novelty of the train were wonderful, the food was just average, and the prices were steep, but it was a fun one-time visit.
The morning after our return, we celebrated a new school year by going to our favorite coffee shop (Caribou) since daddy still had one more day off.
I always fix a special breakfast or take the girls out for breakfast before we get started. This year it was Perkins.
Even though Amber is graduated, she still enjoys joining us for Hebrew (pictured) and History.
Anna watching a Vision Forum History dvd. (We are sad of the events that have transpired over the last couple of months with VF, but still appreciate the dvds & cds).
Anna practicing piano is very much a part of our school day.
MUS Stewardship
Anna doing vocabulary while Amber was working on her business card design.
Dorie is always such a good helper when doing school work. She swishes her tail non-stop and it's always over what we are reading or... in the face. :)
Art Class in session.
That about wraps up Week One. If interested, you can find more information on our curriculum choices for each subject by clicking on the "Curriculum" page above.
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Don't worry, I still haven't forgotten, posts on
Tour de Chicken Palace
and
Inductive Bible Study (my way)
coming soon. ♥
