Top 3 Posts of 2012

Here is an update on the 3 most visited posts of our 2012 year!

Number 3:  Homeschool Help: Saint Report Form

The Saint Report Form that I made has been a great help this year.  It gives the girls a starting point to investigate any particular saint.  Sometimes they do not have all the answers and then they get to do some further research to find out!  Usually I go to google images and print out a small image of the saint for them to add to their report.  Go to the post to download the saint report form to use in your homeschool!

Number 2:  Life of Fred Worksheets

We are slowly moving our way through the elementary series of Life of Fred.  Rose has zoomed through on her own and needs more of the books, but Daisy and Magnolia and I have not really made time for them this fall, so we need to get back to them.
The worksheets I created are just a "fun" way to give the kids some journaling pages to do their work on when it is "their turn"!  Go to the post to download the saint report form to use in your homeschool!

Recently I came across a great site that thoroughly walked through where to start your child with Life of Fred.  I do not know if it is endorsed by the author, but it includes the new intermediate books and I felt that it was a very thorough analysis.  You can visit the site here:  www.lifeoffredmath.com

Number 1:  Our Homeschool Room 2011-2012

We have way too many books.  I am trying to create a library for my 3 kids to keep them organized. Most of the time, my kids can not find things even when they are looking right at them.

Apparently I am not alone.  Homeschool moms want to be organized.  We need to be organized.  But how do we do it???

Expedit shelves by IKEA are hot.  Hot, as in popular, not hot.  They are versatile, they hold a lot of stuff and they keep things organized.  NOW if only I did not have so many things to organize....

Here are the old photos!

I tend to get bored easily and move my furniture at least every 6 months.  Here are some pics of the latest arrangement, (ignore all the clutter on the school table, otherwise the picture will never get taken.)  :)

Presenting:  Our Homeschool Room 2012-2013

Wall one:  Shelf 1: Moms bookshelf of teachers books, resources, books I am trying to hide from eager readers, etc.

Shelf 2: Rose's books by subject in cubbies and art supplies and books.

Wall 2:  Magnolia's books and toys and things to keep her occupied.  (This is not working and needs to be overhauled).

Wall 3:  Shelf 1:  Reference books, Timeline, File box with blank worksheets (like the life of fred journal pages, religion journal pages, blank maps, saint report forms, book report forms)  AND Daisy's books by subject.

Shelf 2: Our Cathechesis Corner with religion books and our family altar.  (Apparently the nutcracker represents the little drummer boy in our school room nativity).  Theoretically this altar changes with the liturgical season.....(the Christmas season was only over yesterday ;)  )

Wall 4:  Magnolia's desk and the student computer.

So there you have it,  the most popular posts of our year!  Thanks for visiting and please, leave a comment !  I love to read them and they make my day brighter!!!  If you have a blog, be sure to leave your address so I can visit you too!

Our Homeschool Room 2011-2012

aka   I  <3 EXPEDIT!

School Room and Work Table

Here is the room where we do school!  It used to be our formal sitting room, but since no one formally sat in there and Mommy only used it to take naps during and after pregnancy, I figured we could turn it into a school room!  So we spent most of last summer doing just that!

Rose's Shelf

Basically the room has become an EXPEDIT sanctuary.  We started out moving furniture out and I found this first bookcase at Costco and thought, hey I could use that!   So I did.  And it was great at first, but as time went on and more and more books entered my already full-o-books house, I sent out a plea to other hs moms:  HELP! What do I do with all of  these BOOKS?!?

Thankfully, my fellow h/s mom Beth turned me on to Sue Patrick's Workbox system.  I loved the workbox system because my kiddos knew how much work they had left in a day.  They could work somewhat independently and I could schedule breaks, games, music practice, etc into our days.   Then after endless googling, I found someone using the system with EXPEDITS and I was HOOKED!  And once I found out I could buy the same shaped bookcase at IKEA for a lot less, I was set!  So after aquiring 4 more EXPEDIT shelves of varying sizes, we were ready to go!  In case you can't tell, I <3 EXPEDIT! My only complaint about the EXPEDIT is that I do not <3 the boxes and inserts IKEA sells  and designs for the EXPEDITS.  (And that IKEA discontinued the walnut finish before I had a chance to buy the desk attachment for my office, but that is a different room.)

So I had the shelves, I had a system, and I definitely had the books but I needed a way to organize the system into the shelves.  I found super cute workbox tags from Mama Jenn and since they had pics, Magnolia can "read" her mini-schedule too!  (I secretly hope eventually she will recognize these as sight words too!)  We initially tried crates, but that just did not jive with my kiddos.   I had a few of the plastic colored file boxes from the Target dollar bins, but not quite enough.  Other folks had used the itso boxes from Target, but at $6 a box, and I could only find 2 at a time in the store that was way over-budget and over-hassled.  I googled like crazy for boxes, and eventually settled on smaller white sorting boxes from Akro-Mills through Amazon.  We used them all spring and they worked fairly well, but the workbooks did not fit great in the boxes so this year as the back to school stuff came out, I bought a few more of the file boxes at Target and now we are using a mix of the Akro-Mills and the file boxes.  We do not have all our new boxes tagged and ready to go yet as I have to find more velcro tape!

ORGANIZATION

Mom's Shelf

So each of my girls has their own 4-5 squares in an EXPEDIT shelf.  In those squares are their everyday boxes and books and additional literature books pre-screened by me to be appropriate reading level and maturity.  There is one entire EXPEDIT that I use for my teachers guides, lesson plans, family read-alouds (so no one sneaks ahead) and teaching supplements.  The bottom 4 boxes of that shelf also include cycle 2 related science books, art books, literature books and history books.   The other 2 large EXPEDITS hold boxes for living history books from the library or home, math manipulatives and games, reference books, atlases and anthologies, practical art guides, and art supplies.

Daisy's Shelf

 We also have a 4-square EXPEDIT that we use as our home altar with religion books and supplies in the boxes.

Home Altar

Magnolia does her work in this little corner either at the table (also from IKEA) or at the vintage desk given to us by our sweet neighbor.

Magnolia's Little Space

Finally, our school table is an awesome piece. It is of custom formica table that was my parent's kitchen table for years growing up!  My favorite thing about it is just when I think we can't get it clean, a little SoftScrub and elbow grease and it is bright shining white again!

Random New Bulletin Board

So that is our space!  I know how lucky we are to have a whole dedicated room to school!  Can't wait to see what all of the other moms are doing with their spaces!

We are participating in the Heart of the Matter Blog Hop Check out the other great rooms here!