Not Back To School Our School Room {s}

I'm LOVING the 'Not Back To School' Blog Hop!!  I have enjoyed reading others blogs and finding new cool ideas!!  I'm late in posting our school room for I could NOT find the cord for the camera so that I could download the pictures.  FINALLY, I found it!! 

Okay, this week is about the school room.  I have to say that I am VERY blessed this year.  We have moved to a new home and I'm loving the space we have now.  Let me just say that it was not always this way.  Our family lived in a 750 square foot apartment one year and even though it was 'close living' I would not have changed a thing about moving there!!

Here we go:

This is called the 'game room' {which is upstairs} but we call it our high school!!  The girls set up their tables and chairs each morning before the start of school.  They have plenty of room and a nice view. 

Here you can see that our little "Bean" claims every room in the house!!

This is my desk.  I just love this area.  I have tons of storage space {which I need to organize!!} and plenty of counter space.

This is called the 'study or office' {which is downstair} but we call it our preschool!!  "Bean" and I have her school here.  If I bring her upstairs she wants to play with Katie and Mary and well....they just can't get school done, so.... I thought it would be could and since we have the space to have her downstairs and in a nice little room of her own.

I just LOVE her new table and chair set.  My darling M-I-L {mother-in-law} bought this for her as an early birthday gift... THANK YOU!!!  She just loves it as do I.  It was expsensive but this is a piece that can be passed down from family to family {I just love that idea for I have my husbands grandmothers dinning room set}.  We found this at Pottery Barn Kids.  Do you need this to teach your child??? NO, my older 2 did not have this and came out just fine!!

As you can see I try and keep colorful things all around.  She loves to sit at her chair and read her books.  No she is not reading yet, but she thinks she is...LOL!!!  I have my laptop computer set up in here as well and I have Pandora playing classical music while we learn.

Here is Dad and "Bean" color sorting cookies!!  We found this darling set at Lakeshore Learning.  Most of their items are expensive but I will stash back extra money in case I find something really cool there.

My rooms are neat as neat and organized as I would like them to be but we do enjoy our school rooms.

Preschool Planning

I know that some homeschool famlies don't like to do formal preschool.  This is okay, I didn't do formal preschool with my 2 older daughters either.  They turned out just FINE!!

Now that we have a new additon to our family I had the desire to do formal preschool.  Christia shows GREAT interest in learning and I just feel that this is the thing to do for our family at this point.  If you are feeling the same as me, please read on.  I will share with you our preschool schedule.

You dot NOT have to buy a curriculum.  With the help of the internet and posting a few questions on preschool help on your favorite message boards you will have TONS of great finds to do your preschool.

I will be using A Beka for Christia.  A Beka has a wonderful schedule to go along with their preschool books.  Here is what it looks like.

Language Development- Monday - Friday (10 minutes a day)
Phonics- Monday, Wednesday, Friday (10 minutes a day)
Numbers- Tuesday, Thursday (10 minutes a day)
Skill Development- Monday- Friday (10 minutes a day)

Christia will have about 30 mintues each day of planned learning.  I like the thought of this for she will be doing school while her big sisters are doing school.  This will put her on a schedule.  The rest of the day she will be learing as well, but in a not so formal manner.  She will be in the kitchen with me while I cook meals.  Here she has her special cabinet with bowls, spoons and cups that are hers to play with and cook right along with Mom.  We will have reading time which is a MUST.  I want her to develope a love for books.  There will be "outside" time so that she can get out in the fresh air and just run and play.

She will also have 'quite' time which she will take a nap or laydown and listen to classical music.  There will be certain day of the week that we will go to the park, library, shopping , etc.  This is just a peek into our preschool day.

Getting Started With The New Year

I love to get our ABA order in and start planning for our NEW year!!  I seperate everything out into different piles.  I have my stack and the girls each have theirs.  We then go over our list of items to make sure that we have everything.

I like to then sign on to our ABA account and download our calendar.  I take my highlighter and start marking the "breaks" in pink and the "reports due" in yellow.  I have a notebook style planner that I buy from Walmart for me to use, but I also like to put our school calendar on Google Calendar as well.  This helps me to stay organized.  Some may think this is double work, but since we travel A LOT I feel that I am covered if I happen to forget my computer OR my planner.  {I haven't thought about IF I forget both!!}

Once I have my stack of items, I take my Video Manual and I like to highlight ALL Quizes in pink, Tests in orange and Reports in yellow {my life is very colorful}.  I then start building our calendar.

ABA numbers all their lessons (which I LOVE, it helps me find things).  I then like to build my Google Calendar first.  Right now I'm working on highlighting!!  Happy Homeschooling Everyone!!