I'm sooo spoiled. When we bought our house, I knew I wanted a homeschool area. AREA--not room. A room makes me feel claustrophobic. I wanted an area right off of the family room, and that is what I got.
Before this, I had always done school at the kitchen table. Nothing wrong with that, and it worked, but there was something in me that remembered looking at bulletin boards and classroom paraphernalia while growing up in public school. It made me wonder if I learned by osmosis from them. If I did, then my kids are missing out if they don't have that too---right?
I know that's silly.
BUT I was still spoiled and got what I wanted. Bwahahaha.
First, I needed a place to organize all my specifically-for-homeschool books. These are just cheap bookshelves from either Walmart or Ikea-can't remember. I even labeled the shelves to make it easy to find the books I want for the different historical time periods or subjects.
I feel EXTREMELY grateful that I live in a place that gives me my taxes back for my school children. (Makes sense, right? I'm saving the government money by homeschooling!!!) The main thing I have Alberta education pay for is BOOKS!
Here's a video going over all my favourite books (by the way, I meant that the Troll books were more like historical fiction than non-fiction which is why they are more interesting.)
The next thing we got was the chalkboard which we bought second hand.
That "b" vs "d" info graphic is the BEST thing since sliced bread.
Here's the link for that: "B" vs "D"
Also, the magnetic letters are from All About Reading.
The next thing I bought was the calendar that I got from a school supply store. I laminated it and glue gunned magnets and paperclips to it so I could change the dates easily. You can get it from Amazon HERE and here's other things they sell that goes with it, that I didn't know about HERE.
I purposefully put an ANOLOG clock in our school area, so they would have to practice telling time the old-school way. And you can see our pre-COVID schedule. Looking at how crazy busy we were makes me almost happy we had a couple months of calm!
I wanted other billboard-type things that matched the calendar, so with a little bit of photoshop magic, I created this number tree and colour birds:
You can find the TREE LINK HERE.
But if you want to print it on 8 1/2 by 11" paper, you need to print it and put it together like a puzzle. Here are all the "puzzle pieces" you will need TREE LINK HERE.
You can find the COLOUR BIRDS HERE.
Above this I have my Anxiety poster.
I made this after going to a workshop put on by our local Educational Psychologist (whom I LOVE.)
You can get a COPY HERE.
And then at the top of the room I have my Classical Conversations Timeline History picture cards. HERE'S THE LINK.
(The timeline is the only thing I do from Classical Conversations)
If you'll notice I added my own photo of Jesus. I don't like Classical Conversation's photo of Jesus, and I like highlighting Him as the most important part of the timeline. If you didn't know, the Classical Conversations timeline is heavily Christian influenced, but has as many other important events of history in there too, like "Marx Publishes the Communist Manifesto."
This painting of Jesus was from a calendar done by Simeon Dewey (fun fact: he used to be my neighbour and gave me that calendar!) LINK TO ART
Next to my windows, I have the alphabet posters that came with All About Reading Pre-Reading level. LINK HERE
And then at the top of my chalk board, I have my Homophones. I bought these from Teachers Pay Teachers. LINK HERE
But I also made some of my own to match, and you can find THOSE HERE.
Another thing that makes this space work, is the bins I can put inside the table. One is for math manipulatives, and the other is for reading lesson supplies.
And last but not least, I have COMFY chairs to learn in. I'm quite proud of these chairs. We bought them at a second hand store for cheap and reupholstered them. I LOVE them now!!
Before and After:
So there you have it! A more detailed account of my school area than anyone actually wanted!
