Home School - New Schedule, New Room

This past Monday marked a new day in the Holman house.  School has been a little rough this couple of weeks.  One of our biggest problems this year seemed to be our "school room" situation.  We have been using our kitchen for the last 2 years for our studies.  This has worked well up until this year.  However, as the kids are getting older and bigger, this area has shrunk.  Between the bigger books that they have now (especially Savannah's books!) and the multiple notebooks for each subject, I found that our work area was becoming very frustrating.


This past weekend, Jason decided it was time to make some changes.  I was waiting to move our bed back into our room from the living room until we had finished painting and redecorating our bedroom.  I had the bedroom mostly cleaned out just waiting for the paint.  However, with me working and doing school, painting the bedroom had been put on the back burner.  


This past Saturday, Jason took matters into his own hands and painted my room for me.  (I dreaded painting this room.  Thank you for helping me Jason even though it was not your idea to paint in the first place.  For this I am forever grateful!!!)  

Group Table and Mom's Teaching Area

He also decided that it was time to try something new with our school set-up.  He decided to turn our living room into a school room.  We still have our television in one corner with our recliner, but everything else has been moved out to make room for our school things.  We have our central table for our together work and for me to use as a desk with our "calendar and morning area" behind that.  Savannah has a separate work station with her books with her schedule attached to the side.  JJ has his own desk with his schedule attached on top (attached with clear contact paper), and his books are on the book shelf set aside as his shelf area.  They each received their own new pencil box with all the school items that they need on a daily basis.  We hung various posters around the room and bought a 3X4 white board/dry erase board for our board activities.  


As far as the schedule, we redesigned our daily schedule (which I will post later).  The kids have their times for each subject so that they know when they are working with mom, how much time they have to finish each subject before it becomes homework, and when their breaks are.  While we do leave room for schedule adjustment, we have stuck pretty close to the exact schedule so far, and I have to say that the last 3 days have gone very smoothly.  The kids know exactly what is expected of them, and their is no question as to what they should be doing and when because they have a schedule.  Hmm...organization!  I feel better already.  


Here are a few pictures of our new school room:

White Board, Graph Poster Paper, and World Map

Morning Calendar Activities
Including Roman Numeral Date, Tally Marks,
Date in two forms, Temperature,
and Number of School Days

Savannah's Work

Savannah's Schedule

JJ's Work Station

JJ's Desk and Schedule

Books and File Cabinet with Supplies
All in one area!

"A" Paper Post
A star is earned for each A paper.  The end of the week
we add it up for school bucks for the School Store!

Job Chart
Record daily completion of chores

That is about it.  The set up of our room makes life so much easier.  All of my school things are in one place, and we do not have to put all our books away in another room every time we have lunch during a school day.  Thank you again Jason for coming up with the idea for our school room and for helping me set it up!