A peek into our first day of homeschooling

If you remember, I mentioned that the church is letting us use a large room in the church basement to do homeschooling this year. It helps us out a lot since we now have two kids homeschooling and we had used the guest bedroom in previous years. That makes it rather interesting when we have so many guests!

So this morning we headed across the parking lot for our first day of school ...



My husband helped carry a few things this morning because I had quite a bit to take over. He and my son were way ahead!



Here's my little kindergartner, excited about school but a little nervous, too!

I don't think I'll require them to dress up all year, but I wanted to make the first day special ... and besides, I was taking pictures today! I've always noticed that kids behave better when they're dressed up, though, so I may just institute a "no denim" rule. We'll see! :)

Let me show you our classroom. It's hard to get it all in one picture, but here's the half of the room that we're using:



From the left, you'll see an extra white board and easel, art supplies (lots and lots of them!), free time activities, a storage cabinet, and the kids' "desks".



This dry erase board on a stand was already there, and it was just the thing to divide a kid-sized table into two individual work areas. A huge bonus: I can write assignments for each child on the board or attach things with magnets.



Here's my daughter's side. My set of charts (secondhand from a friend) was missing this particular chart, so I bought this set of window clings from Dollar Tree and stuck them onto the dry erase board. They work great, and they'll come off easily when I need to remove them!

You'll notice each of my kids has their own small dry erase board. We use these to practice handwriting because it's more fun. They also have their own little trash can. I'm hoping this inspires them to keep the room clean!



Remember this teepee? I have a bunch of books for the kids to look through if they finish their work early. Since both of my kids love books (even though the youngest doesn't read yet), I knew it would be a popular choice, so I wanted a cozy reading nook with few distractions. My daughter agreed to let us take her teepee over, and we placed a kid-sized teddy bear chair and my homemade braided rug inside. They love it!



This is the "free time" station. When they complete their work, they can either get a book to read/look at or they can pick something from this station. I've selected only the items that are on their level at the moment. I'll switch them out with other things as the school year progresses.

We have: tangrams, a patterning game, phonics tiles, Math Shark, a subtraction game, lacing cards, a shoe to learn tying, a View Master with animal slides, a wooden counting/hand puzzle, coloring books and drawing paper, fun workbooks and file folder games. There's plenty to keep them busy!

Now let's peek at my humongous bulletin boards (all of them were here before we ever thought about homeschooling in the room):



I was originally thinking of dividing this into two smaller boards, but this is what I'm going with for now. It's at the front of the room, right behind my desk. I meant to put a background paper up, but I already had the calendar in place by the time I remembered. Oh well! Maybe I'll remember next month!

We'll be posting good work papers under the "Now Starring" header.

The pledge of allegiance poster is from Dollar Tree.



My son's first math theme is pond life, so I made a pond bulletin board to set the scene. Usually I like bulletin boards that have a purpose other than just decoration, but my son really likes it without anything else on it, so I'm happy as it is.



Lastly, this is the other half of that huge bulletin board (originally 4'x8'). His first science unit is about taking care of ourselves, and I copied this idea directly from the teacher's manual. I have an opaque projector that I used to enlarge the tooth patterns onto posterboard.

My kids were really interested in this one, and my daughter even picked out which of the four types of teeth is featured as the biggest (no prompting from me). Hey, if they can learn something from a bulletin board, that's great! :)

Our day went well. We started at 9:00 and were finished by 11:00. Not bad for two kids, right? It won't always be that fast, though. The first few days are an abbreviated schedule with no reading or handwriting plans. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind that, but I follow the curriculum guides quite closely and it always works out well! :)

Update: Stretching Dollar Tree bulletin board borders

We are beginning our homeschool year today. (We homeschool Tuesday - Saturday since it works better for our family.) It's my daughter's first day of kindergarten and my son's first day of second grade, so we're in the "fun" years. I never thought I'd enjoy teaching these grades, but I think I like them now better than the grades I trained to teach (high school English).

In honor of our first day of school, I thought I'd update a little on those Dollar Tree bulletin board borders I picked up a week or so ago. Remember them?



Well, even I was surprised at how nicely they turned out when they were cut up!

These animal pairs are adorable:



These were originally intended as an "Armor of God" visual, but they can easily be substituted for regular knight's gear (which my son loves), too:


My son also enjoys all things related to cowboys, so these are perfect for him:

These are so bright and cheerful:


And since we live near the ocean, I couldn't resist these:

I'm saving some of these for making review games about subjects my children find difficult this year. As I use them, I'll try to remember to post pictures!

Tigger Birthday Cards

I've had these Tigger cardstock stickers for awhile now. My friend got a good deal on them and gave me four sheets. They were so cute that I wanted just the right idea to showcase them to their best advantage. Wouldn't you know, I recently (within the last few months) ran across the matching paper at Tuesday Morning in one of those 25-sheet packs.

I made three different cards (although they are mostly the same layout):



Supplies: stamps (Cloud 9 Designs); paper (Sandy Lion, The Paper Company, unknown orange); ink (Versamark with gold embossing powder); Sandy Lion Tigger cardstock stickers; Nestabilities Scallop Circles Large; ribbon (unknown).



Supplies: stamps (Cloud 9 Designs); paper (Sandy Lion, unknown orange); ink (SU! Night of Navy); Sandy Lion Tigger cardstock stickers; Cuttlebug wooden frame cut/emboss set; ribbon (unknown).



Supplies: stamps (Cloud 9 Designs); paper (Sandy Lion, unknown orange); ink (SU! Night of Navy); Sandy Lion Tigger cardstock stickers; Cuttlebug wooden frame cut/emboss set; ribbon (unknown).

These are going into my boys' birthday card stash, which was completely depleted after all the summer birthdays!

Fuschia dress box favors

Here are the fuschia dress box favors for the ladies' meeting:



I used some metallic ridged paper with the vellum overlays again. I made those mini roses with vellum scraps, and they were perfect as sleeve-toppers.

Fifteen dresses down, thirty-five more to go ... :)

A true friend remembers your birthday ...

... and just in case any of my true friends need a reminder, tomorrow is my birthday! ;) (Just kidding, but it really is my birthday tomorrow.)

I had so much fun making this card! It's a little more dimensional than I usually make, but I love these roses so much I just had to use them on a card.



Supplies: stamps (Cloud 9 Designs); ink (SU! Rose Red); paper (Making Memories); Nestabilities scallop circles large; CB corner die; MS lace edger punch and branch punch; rose quartz Stickles; dimensional pearl paint.

This is in my Esty shop, in case you're interested.

Enjoy!

Book Easel Card

My friend brought these gorgeous book-style easel cards to my attention a month or so ago, and I've wanted to make one ever since.



Since I'm not very fluent in the metric system (but I do know that there are 2.5 cm/in), I had to "wing it" on this first one.

My card is a standard 4-1/4 x 5-1/2". To make the easel part, cut the base cardstock to 5-1/2 x 8-1/2". Score the long side at 2-1/8" and 4-1/4". To see how to fold it (a Z-fold), see this tutorial.

To make the actual book part, use your base cardstock to cut a book shape (see the end of this post for a pattern I made) sized to 5-1/2" wide. Cut another book shape out of decorative paper, this one measuring anywhere from 5 to 5-1/4" wide.

Stamp any images you want first, then adhere dimensional tape to the middle of each book page on the back of the decorative paper. Thanks to Valita for that tip!

After you have the book how you want it, follow the SCS tutorial for how to attach it to the base. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the folds until I had done one or two, so be sure you have it just right before you stick it down.

When it's folded up, it looks like this:



Isn't that neat? Before I made one of these easel cards, I always thought I'd have to include a note about how it stands on its own. But if you make one, notice how it kind of "pops up" when you pull it out of the envelope. I don't think it would take a rocket scientist recipient to figure out how to display it. :)



Enjoy!

Stretching Dollar Tree bulletin board borders

You know I love Dollar Tree, right? Well, I discovered a bunch more versatile bulletin board borders the last time I was in. They were stuffed in a bin at floor level with a bunch of charts that have been there for ages. The funny thing is that I don't remember seeing any of these before, so I wonder if they've been hiding there for months and I just didn't know it!



So what can you do with these? You can cut them into game pieces for file folder games or make-your-own instructional card games. I cut apart a different set and came up with 14 of each image as seen below:



I already made up a mini file folder game with one of these cut-outs (rhyming/non-rhyming words), and I anticipate many more fun learning games with these!

Since there are 14 borders per pack, you should get 14 of each section. Some of the borders I got have as many as eight sections on a strip, while some have as few as five. That means you're getting anywhere from 70-112 cut-outs per pack. Not bad, considering the shaped cut-outs at Dollar Tree come 25-30/pack (which is not a bad price, either, considering that teacher stores sell shaped cut-outs for about $4/pack).

I'll try to remember to share our projects as I finish them. I'd love to see any educational games that you make with these, too!