A peek

Here's a look inside our school house.

I worked for most of the last month putting it together and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

It used to be a bonus room with a patchwork of mis-matched carpet remnants on the floor.

In our version of this home, this space now functions as a classroom.

 

My structure-requiring first-grader needs this type of formal learning space. After all, she spent her kindergarten year in a traditional public school.

But in my view, this is really just a place to harbor our learning tools.

More importantly, it's a springboard for our school-at-home experience, which means we start here every morning, but end up heading in many different directions before the day is done.

 

In this room, everything has its place, and the little people who spend their mornings here know just how to find what they're looking for when they need it.

 

It includes an array of art supplies...

 

... and a home for a rotating selection of stimulating (distracting) toys, books and puzzles for Henry.

 

I used as many re-purposed materials as possible, including our old dinner table, oodles of reusable containers and some outdoor chairs that had been left at our house when we moved in.

 

There's just enough schoolishness to satisfy Liliana's desire for this to feel a little like Ms. G's classroom, thanks to the Target dollar bins.

 

And it has enough organization to help me find my bearings every morning when we begin our lessons, even though I'm not a professional.

 

I tried to emphasize learning from living books and observing the wild (suburban) outdoors.

 

The kids each have a collection bin to keep seasonal treasures they find when we're outside, along with a personalized sketch book to record their findings.

 

At Calvin's rate of collecting, his bin should be full by the end of next week.

 

My favorite part is the connection this space has to our backyard.

The windows allow streaming sunlight and a great view of the birds and squirrels.

And when something outside catches our attention -- the way the screech and grind of the trash truck did on Monday morning -- we can stop what we're doing and run right out to investigate.

In a nutshell, that's what I'm trying to accomplish here.