Tot School: Our School Room - Beautiful Calling

The Schoolroom

Earlier this year, or possibly last, as we talked about homeschooling, we talked about converting our office into a dedicated school room complete with desks or tables, bookshelves, a blackboard and more. (We have an office with desktop computers but generally just use our laptops on the couch). But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that I don’t want our school time confined to a room; I want the world to be our classroom. Now our school supplies do need a ‘home’ and we do need a hard flat surface to write, draw, color and create on. We also need a comfy spot to curl up and read our books in. The answer? Our dining room which is in the same room as our sitting room (with comfy chairs for reading). It meets our needs perfectly once we added the bookshelf. Now, of course, I am sure that our schoolroom will adapt and change during the course of our homeschooling journey but for now, this set up works well for us and I thought I would share it with you today.

The top part of our book shelf contains our read-alouds, workbooks and a few supplies we use on a regular basis. Inside the cupboard contains our puzzles, pegs, blocks etc. I love the magazine holders for our workbooks. We also use our dining room sideboard to house dining linens as well as our games and extra supplies.

Workbooks

We are doing Before Five In a Row which focuses on lots of read-alouds and doing activities to reinforce concepts and encourage thinking and creativity. But I have found that Chloe enjoys workbooks. We started with a few from the dollar store but they didn’t work that well for us. Then I discovered Kumon books and we love them. They range from 2 years old up to…I’m not sure what grade. They start out easy and get progressively more difficult. They are brightly colored and contain topics that my children enjoy.

Chloe currently works on a coloring, tracing and maze book as well as two we picked up from Costco. One of the Costco ones focuses only on tracing and the other covers a variety of things. Chloe does a page from each or thereabouts; we do workbooks for about 15-20 minutes 4 days a week.

Added Note: This is especially for the lovely lady I was speaking to today. We don’t do school everyday. We aim for 4 days a week which consist of a 15 minute workbook time, plenty of read-alouds, and sometimes singing or a craft. But with tots (mine are 2 and 3) *life* happens a lot and sometimes we don’t do school for a couple of days. Some days our school is simply reading a story and playing with blocks. One day doesn’t look the same as another and I think it is important to keep learning fun, especially at this age. If you can’t have fun doing school that day, don’t do it. Though I should add that that statement is meant only for tots, not for older students who need to do school on a regular basis. Soon enough they will learn their ABC’s…

John was anxious for a workbook of his own so we purchased an introductory coloring one. You focus on coloring inside the little circle within an already colored in vibrant picture and then the backside you do a VERY simple maze, first with your finger then with a crayon. If we don’t get the maze the first time, I just have him pick a different a different color and try again. John does one page (front and back) once or twice a week, depending on what he wants to do. Then he spends some time with learning activities (puzzles etc.) on the floor while Chloe finishes up her work.

They also love to put a sticker on a page they’ve done well on {which is most of them!}. I buy little bags of various stickers from the dollar store.

Rarely a day goes by that we don’t play with our Lauri products. John was very proud that he sorted the shapes into the right colors all by himself and Chloe was pleased with her “wall”.

Daily Life

This week we also gave the yard a final mow, cleaned up all the summer toys, put away the pool and water table, wound up and brought in the hose and trimmed back all the gardens. Translation: we enjoyed the outdoors quite a bit!