Kindergarten Homeschool Space

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to a 5 year old girl and 21 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

It's happening yall....Kindergarten is upon us.

A new school year (but does it ever really end) means a new school room set up.

My little girl turned 5 this July.  She is such a gentle and nieve child.  I know homeschooling is the best thing for her and her personality.  I am a new director for Classical Conversations, and am totally enthralled with the Charlotte Mason method.  Not to mention we are continuing our love of

  Mother Goose Time!  You will see all 3 coming together to create our current school space. 

Welcome to our once formal unused living room. I has been a playroom, preschool room, and now it is our Kindergarten Homeschool room.

Let me show you around.

This picture is taken from our doorway.  There are no doors, so the kids and I try to pick up this room each night because seeing a clean room just helps me breathe.

Both white bookshelves are from Walmart (link here) and have been in the kids' rooms. We had rain guttering for bookshelves for years, which I loved, but I needed to house more of our books, especially my science books I had stored in cabinets around the house.  Collecting books is my hobby yall.  My husband cut the guttering in half, and now both kids have 3 rain gutter shelves for their books in their room.

I love that the bookshelves create a table top that my son can not reach and destroy... yet lol.

Above the bookshelves are some of our Timeline cards from Classical Conversations.  My husband hung three rows of wire using eye hooks, and I attached the cards with mini clothespins.  The first 7 cards are missing since our first week of CC is coming up and I used them to make my Tutor board.

Do you have those Childcraft books from when you were a kid?

I jacked them from my parents' home long ago, and we have used them numerous times this past year of CC.  Most of the other books on these shelves are Science books, but one shelf is World History/Cultures and the other is American History books.  If I need to add a book to our collection, which happens almost weekly, I always check out Thriftbooks! Best prices fo sho!  Our Melissa and Doug abacus is missing a row, but I bought it for next to nothing when a preschool was going out of business in my town last year.

We love spending time outside and going for walks.  Charlotte Mason is my jam. 

I display our findings in this tray I bought at Dollar Tree. Right now it houses different acorns, an abandoned robin's nest, pinecones, cardinal feathers (and a few others), and a perfectly intact butterfly.  There is a container of fine sand from a friend's trip to the beach that she brought back to me. The giant leaf on the wall is one my girl found on our most recent walk.  She chose it because of it's size.  I didn't want it to crumble as it dried out, so I laminated the leaf and stuck it on our wall.  I am definitely going to laminate more leaves this fall.  Laminators are not that expensive and I am so glad I have one! This one from Amazon is less that $25.

Here are our story books, including Fairy Tales, Classics, Poetry, the Bible, Art, and Math books.  The top far right cubby houses all the books I really want to use for CC this year. I just wanted them in one spot to make them easy to find and grab as I plan out our year. The pink basket on the bottom is home to our Audio books and our Monthly Cds from Mother Goose Time.  The green basket is our recent stash from our library.  On top of the shelf, we have our books for this month from

  Mother Goose Time (Little Red Riding Hood and the Lonely Wolf) and our Tea Time afternoon read, Mercy Watson.  Both my kids love the Mercy Watson books!  

They are an easy and fun read aloud.

During the month os September we will be focusing on Family and Pets with Mother Goose Time.  I set up our monthly calendar (love how it teaches patterns with the colored numbers), monthly number focus, and our Theme Poster.  I found the map at Target for like $3 and had to grab it!  My girl already drew on it though.  She a line from Texas to Siberia because "that's the way you get to Mimi and PopPop's house."  Ugh.  At least she knows that a map is for directions.  Our table was $20 from the preschool that was closing down and I love it!  Perfect size for both kiddos.  

I still want to paint the top in chalkboard paint.

I moved this bookshelf back into our room because I needed a place for my things and for my son's toys.  The tall tower to the right houses our MGT curriculum and supplies I don't want the kids necessarily getting into...but is there really anything a toddler doesn't get into?  He opens these drawers all the time.  He also hears "No, sir" all the time.

My deep book cubbies from Walmart.  I love these things!

I have one for Workbooks, Art Materials (paper), Writing Journals, Mother Goose Time, and Classical Conversations.

This shelf holds a few curriculum binders and our Timeline cards.  The teapot is one my former roommate made in our Ceramics class in college.  I have always loved it.

This year we will explore Space with CC, so I nabbed this craft kit from Alex.  I bought a bunch of learning cards from the Dollar Spot at Target, and our Geoboard (love it!) is from MGT a year or so ago.  The basket holds rubber bands and my girl gets this down and plays with it quite often.

The bottom two shelves are pretty much my son's materials.  The big folder box houses coloring books that they both enjoy using.

We used to have a teepee in here that we read in, but my girl fell on one of the wooden stakes, broke it, and I never have replaced it.  I just stacked our pillows under the window and moved our rug to this side of the room.  We have a little light box that is on the floor and the blue basket on it houses all our transparent blocks that are so fun to use on our light.

I got rid of the really ugly wooden cabinet, and dragged this green beast of a buffet into our room.  It holds more materials that I don't want little hands getting into and it provides another flat top surface for all the things!

My dry erase board from Hobby Lobby that I have had for years is home to our Routine cards that MGT sent me a few years back.  I never used them because my girl just didn't need them at the time, but they are perfect as we journey into this new year.  Especially since we are exploring the Charlotte Mason method.  She encourages short increments of time for each area of study but using the habits of full attention and best effort for that small amount of time.  

These cards are going to help us stay on track!

With our new September box from MGT, we received some colorful and very sturdy Loose Letter Parts.  I added some magnetic tape ($3 from Hobby Lobby and then used my 40%) and vo-la! Magnetic letter parts!  Cookie sheets make it easy to take this anywhere.

On top of the buffet we have more materials from Mother Goose!

I placed our monthly manipulates which happen to be shapes, our puzzle that matches our story of the month, and our two math baskets for our first day of learning.  We are ready for September!

Our golden Bailey does not miss out on any action that happens in this room.  She loves us so much and is never far from where we are.  This month we will be studying the letters H, F, and T.  I used wide painters tape to put the letter on the floor.  My son tries to practice jumping over the lines.  He's adorable.

Well, that's our Homeschool space this year.  It'll change next year I'm sure.
I am so excited to document our learning adventures here and I wonder what my kids will think years from now as they look back on these posts.


Have a wonderful school year friends!

New Year, New Classroom Set-up

Happy New Year!

New Year, New Month, and New Preschool Homeschool Room set-up!

Our son turned one at the beginning of December.  Look at that adorableness!  

Don't let him fool you though; he is a destroyer! ;) 

This tornado of a boy has torn apart our preschool classroom, and has staked his claim of what is his, which is EVERYTHING!  And every single thing goes into the mouth.  Every. Single. Thing.

I didn't laminate everything with my girl because she was never into eating paper and tearing things off the wall.  Not so with Everett.  We watched in horror as our adorable pterodactyl tornado of a boy destroyed our classroom for the last 5 months.  Eating much of our Circle Time materials from Mother Goose Time.  The ABC grass was his fave...ugh. 

The MISSION:

Make our homeschool room baby friendly (more toys for him to play with in a controlled area), 

protect our learning materials especially our Circle Time materials, 

put things out of reach for Everett but still easily accessible for Avaleigh.  

Here's what we did.

The above picture is what you see as you enter into the Homeschool room/Playroom.

Everett pretty much dominates this part of the room and Avaleigh has the window side. 

We put the kitchen and all the materials for it in the tower to the left of the kitchen.

Our light box is on top of the silver trunk with all our transparent and colored blocks in the basket to the right.  Everett has a few toys on the carpet as well.  Since our MGT unit this month is Safari, I added his Safari Melissa and Doug puzzle I got him for Christmas into the classroom.

We had to move their artwork display up so we could move everything else up the wall as well.  

My son loves to tear things down.

I reorganized the whiteboard to make the days of the week clouds and calendar easily accessible for Avaleigh.  The theme poster is to the left of our calendar and to the right of the window.   I moved our map so she can see it better as well.  This set-up is working great so far!

We have a new (to us) table! 

A preschool in town was shutting down, and had a big sale!  Since we are homeschoolers, they allowed me to come in early (with the other preschooler owners) and shop before opening everything to the public!  I scored some amazing gifts for Christmas (musical toys and Melissa and Doug chunky puzzles for Everett, and an abacus for Avaleigh), this table (for $20!), and a 7 drawer Sterilite tower (for $5!) that house all our Mother Goose materials!  Such a huge blessing to us!  

Teacher Central.

Our materials are all housed in this corner.  

I usually sit it the little purple chair teaching and guarding this area 

while Everett plays, and Avaleigh learns.  

I reorganized our bookshelf some.  

The bottom shelf still houses games, playdough and puzzles.  

The next shelf houses my old Childcraft Encyclopedias, coloring books, and our Classical Conversations materials, not to mention some safari animals.

The middle shelf holds MGT manipulatives, magnets from our monthly stories, and a supply caddy.  

Second shelf from the top has sensory bin materials in the 6 compartments and manipulatives from previous MGT months.  

The very top shelf holds bins I organized that you can read about here.  

I'll talk about my 7 drawer tower below, but the small tower to the left of it used to lay horizontally and housed our kitchen stuff in my old post.  It now stores more learning games, manipulative, and hides materials in Amazon boxes that I need to go through.

If you read my old post about my classroom set up, you know how much I hated the "ugly yet functional cabinet."  I traded it for this 7 drawer Sterilite tower that has finally allowed me to organize my MGT materials better!

In the past, I just grabbed a bag from the box, but there was so much I was missing when I couldn't see every lesson.  The top 4 drawers in this tower are skinny.  I took each weekly Teacher Guide and the 5 lessons that go with it and placed it into the drawer.  It has made such a difference in the short time that I have used it!  The bottom 3 drawers of the tower are deep and house a bunch of our materials that I don't want Everett into.

Tour is almost over!

It's our book wall, which remains constant in the room.

It houses many of our Usborne books, but also our wonderful stories from MGT.

Everett has his stash of toys including his new (to him) chunky Safari puzzle to go with this month's theme, which I love.

I didn't expect to be doing a classroom redo in the middle of the year, but it was the perfect time, and honestly, I like it even more than I did when we started in August!

Here's to a New Year and new changes that work out!
Be sure to come back for some Safari ideas to share with your learners!

Home School: Preschool Classroom Set-up

Our space is ready for our new 2018-2019 school year with
Mother Goose Time and Classical Conversations!

Watch this video (11 minutes) to get the the whole low down on how I set up our room.

FROM THE ENTRYWAY:

Bookshelves: Rain gutters screwed to 2x4's which are screwed into studs.

Bookcase: cheap from Walmart

Trunk: given to me from my Banana Republic working days

Rug: Wayfair

Art Display: burlap string with mini and regular sized clothespins to hang work

Magnetic Dry Erase Board: Staples

Table: built by husband

Chairs: donated from the neighbor pediatrician who lives next door

Cart: Pottery Barn Kids (on sale for $25 at Christmas 2 years ago)

OUR READING AREA:

We had a teepee in here for a long time and it was magnificent, but one day as my girl was playing she tripped and landed on one of the wooden poles and broke it.  We just need to replace the pole, but there is some wood work to it and we just haven't had the time lately.

On the blog 1+1+1=1, I read about how she used Quiet Time boxes for her preschooler to do individual work.  My girl is a great napper, but if she naps, she will not fall asleep until 9-10pm, and I just can not deal with that and a 9 month old who still won't sleep through the night.  

Quiet time boxes to the rescue!  I give her one of these, send her to her room, and she stays in there for 1.5 hours playing by herself so I can get things done.  These boxes are less than $4 at Walmart.

BOOKCASES HOLD MORE THAN BOOKS:

This cheap-o bookcase from Walmart was about $25 and has served us well for the last 4 years.
It houses all sorts of things... mostly things other than books, ha! Here is a close up....

Bottom shelf : Magnetic tiles, games, Play doh container, container of Mother Goose Time puzzles 

Shelf above: Book bins $1 each from Dollar Tree, one holds our Classical Conversations stuff and                           the other holds my girl's coloring books.  Also on this shelf: MGT manipulatives and      

                     Adventure Force Sea and Safari Animals; blow up globe from MGT

Middle shelf: Sterillite containers holding sensory bin fillers (rainbow rice, green barley and rice, 

                      dried beans, puffs, unifix cubes, and links; also on shelf Watercolor paper 

Shelf above: Book bins (set of 5- one in my daughter's room) from Walmart for $10- one bin for my 

                     son, one for ABC stuff, one for MGT books, and one for the Story Magnets from MGT; 

                     also there is a bin of card games mostly from the Dollar Spot at Target.  I use these for 

                     her Quiet Time boxes.

OUR WORLD:

I am trying to be more intentional about bringing the outdoors in, so we have a little nature tray which is just a dip tray from Dollar Tree.  The map is great for preschoolers and is from our 

Mother Goose Time Curriculum..  Add a globe and you are set!

CIRCLE TIME:

When my girl hears the Circle Time song, she immediately pulls one of her chairs in front of this board.  Our calendar was on our ugly cabinet (coming up), but she was outgrowing it's placement.  Everything is from Mother Goose Time, but I placed magnetic tape behind our weather cards and her monthly sight words.  I love me some magnetic tape.  In the blank spot under the thematic poster that is on the far left, I will have our letters and numbers of the month.

The clothespin clip at the top is for the day of the week cloud.  My girl will also decide on the weather and place it next to the day of the week cloud clothespin.

Underneath our Circle Time Dry Erase board, I have 2 bins.

One for library books (Sweet Pea is recently OBSESSED with the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems), and our Morning basket, which houses my Classical Conversations guide, my MGT Teacher Guides, preschool Bible, The Ology book, glue and calendar cards in a baggie.

THE UGLY YET FUNCTIONAL CABINET:

Sooooo ugly.

I gotta paint this thing.   I think I said that last year.

The very top houses extra papers, stamps, and craft items.  In the middle, are my girl's containers of crayons, chalk, markers and other manipulatives.  But inside this ugly cabinet, I can hide things I do not want her digging in, like our monthly MGT curriculum box, and liquid watercolors.

CHEF'S SPACE:

Toy Kitchen: dontated from a friend who was getting rid of it.

Trays: from Oriental Trading

Cart: Pottery Barn Kids (on sale for $25 at Christmas 2 years ago)

In last year's monthly boxes from MGT, we received a shape each month which I just sticky tacked to the wall.  I do not know what happened to the circle.  No clue. 

This is what the room looked like about 1 hour after taking pictures this morning. :)

How have your organized your space?
Is there something you just could not do homeschool without?  I'd love to hear!
Please comment with your thoughts and I hope yall have so much fun learning this school yeat!

File Folder Games with Mother Goose Time

Hi, my name is Leslie and I am a former public school educator (8 years).

Currently, I home school our little preschooler, Avaleigh, who is 3.5 years old using 

Mother Goose Time- a prepackaged curriculum unit study for preschoolers.

The quality of the things we receieve are TOP NOTCH and as a teacher, I REALLY struggle in throwing this stuff away when were are done. But my house just can not handle keeping all the stuff.

There are some things we get every month though that I do keep- one of those being the 

BOARD GAMES.

I turn these into file folder games and store them in a filing crate.

Here's how I do it:

First I find out where the board game is using the Supplied Core Tools list and dig it out of the box, and then I get the supplies I need: a file folder, small snack bag, pieces, and glue.

First I open the snack bag and staple it to the back of the file folder.  This allows the bag to open completely and makes storing the pieces easy.

Then, I glue the game board to the inside.  I like to do this with the file folder almost closed that way the middle creases line up and there are no air pockets.

Then I look at the lesson and read through the directions on how to play together. 

I also look at the learning goals that are listed underneath the title.  In this case the goals are:

Patters and Sorting 18.2

Self-Direction 2.2

I then look at the back of my Teacher Guide and see what exactly are the expectations.

Self-direction 2.2 is about maintaining attention and repeating an activity until success.

Pattern and Sorting 18.2 is about matching, sorting and charting. 

During the game the child is expected to match colors.

I write these goals and expectations on the front of my file folder, and write the title of the game and whether it is Math or Reading related.  

Now if Avaleigh needs help in a certain area, I can easily find the game to help reinforce those skills.

If I had a class, I would let parents check these games out and play them at home with their preschoolers.  As an educator, you do not just educate the child, but also the parent.  Parents want to help their kids, but some just don't know what to do or where to begin.  As a teacher, you can assess the needs of the child and equip the parent at home with games that the child is already familiar with.    Mother Goose Time makes it possible to share the fun of learning at home- 

creating fun memories in the process.

A win win for everyone.

And all I had to do was glue it in a folder.

Happy Learning friends!