A dedicated school room, at last!!

As strange as this may sound, I still can't believe we have lived in this house for a full seven months already; it still all feels so new and unbelievable that God would take us from the 900 square foot apartment we (and five children) lived in just two and a half short years ago to THIS.  It is beyond what we ever thought we'd have, to be honest, and it's *just about* everything we've dreamed of for our family.  We just never get tired of saying how absolutely giddy with gratitude we are for the opportunity to set our family's roots down here, and for the provisions God has made not only for Pete's job, but for the desires of our hearts.  It is humbling to think that our piddly little prayers were actually answered with a resounding "Absolutely, and then some"!!

With August only a day and a half away and talk of back-to-school sales, tax holidays, and all manner of things school-related, I am being made ever more aware of a blessing in this house that God really saw fit to shock my socks off with--a space we have never had before--a real, dedicated school room!  FINALLY, a place for all that STUFF!!!!

Our homeschool journey began in yet another one of those 900-square-foot apartments in Germany, twelve years ago.  We only had two children, but that space was still pretty tight; especially when you consider that our dining room doubled as our school room AND our mock-office.  Believe it or not, our current kitchen is bigger than that dining room was.  Yet somehow, we fit a dining room table, four chairs, a computer desk, and four bookshelves in it.  We've not really had much more space for our home school "stuff" since then; we had a wee bit more space in the duplex we lived in on base before we bought this house, but it was still a shared space, combined with the girls' playroom.

Not so anymore.  It used to be a "formal" dining room, but we use what was previously the informal den (with a fireplace) for our dining room, so we have space to spare!  True, I do keep my scrapbooking supplies and some other craft items in our school room, but it's a room I've just fallen in love with, and Pete already knows not to even bother asking if the room will ever serve a "manly" purpose.....I'm going to be just a bit selfish and claim this room as MY territory to use for a library, school room, craft space....oh, all things girly.  He'll be okay; he's got his office space complete with a "me" wall in the bonus room.

I've been working on getting the school room set up in a way that works well for us since we moved in, and I *think* I've finally got it "there".  You'll have to pardon what there is left of a mess; I still have a couple of boxes of books to pass on to homes that can use them--we're not going to have any high school students in our home for a FEW more years.  Oh, and the girls really love to "help" me be sure I've got everything in the appropriate bins and shelves by taking everything out behind me, so I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find SOMETHING that needs to be put away.  But here's the work in progress, mostly finished and almost ready to begin that first day of first grade--I'm really hoping that nothing monumental comes up this weekend so I can finish my planning session and get started on Monday!

First, the wall that backs up to the living room; to the immediate left are two doorways--to the kitchen and living room.  To the right of the tall bookshelf, a window.  My scrapbook and crafting supplies are in the wall shelf and the tall shelf in this picture.  There is also a "Tell Me About Today" wall hanging, plus a really nifty Crayola dry erase ruled sticky sheet on the wall.  The girls' individual bins are in that little nine-section cube shelf.  Yes, I have my girls color-coded.  Morgan is pink, Jamie purple, Danica blue, Shelby green.  Kasey doesn't have a color yet--probably yellow, though.

Next up, the opposite wall.  Odd, but I don't have our school table in any of these pictures; it's directly below the flag wall hanging.  I guess I'll need better pictures.  Anyway, I lined the top of the room with character-word printouts (I'm sorry, I'll have to do some MAJOR digging to figure out where I printed them out from, but I know it was from an online source....) that have 26 different virtues to study during the year.  I like!

Last for now is the wall opposite the window; this wall has our sign language alphabet chart, Danica and Shelby's table (even though you can't see it down there), plus our duck pond flannelboard for Rod & Staff Math 1.  Let me just say that while it bebuggered Jamie to the Nth degree that I made half of the ducks facing left while the other half face right, I just LOVE our duckies and their pond!!!  I think the flannelboard is just too stinkin' cute, even if I do say so myself!

This was just a little bit of the work I've done in the schoolroom; I've got lots more to blog about as we get going on this school year...but one thing at a time, right?  Shoot, I'm just overwhelmed that I HAVE a schoolroom!