Our Homeschool Wall ~ and Hello There!
September 10, 2014
Well, my friends - I'm back!
It feels good to be posting again - it's been nearly a month! I hope you've all been well. How was the end of your summer? Or more importantly, how goes the start of your fall? We're still in "lift-off" mode here, but things are starting to settle into place ...
I have some pictures of a homeschool "wall" I'm organizing in the kitchen but before I get into that, I thought I'd share a quick recap of where our boys are now.
:)
So as most of you know, we are a homeschooling family of six. We live in Massachusetts, not too far from Boston. Bill and I have four boys and this will be our 15th year homeschooling!
Our oldest ("Bookworm") is now a sophomore in college, and our second oldest ("Crackerjack") is a sophomore in high school. Our third son ("Earlybird") is 12 years old and autistic. We don't really assign him a grade as he's working at different levels. And finally, our youngest ("Little Bear") is just 15 months old! And he's as busy as can be - running all over, curious about everything, loves books and music and trucks and to sit in the dirt and just play. He's an absolute joy and I'm thrilled to have many more years of homeschooling ahead of us!
Speaking of homeschooling, we're getting ourselves rolling with our lessons this year. And to kick things off, I set up this "wall of information" in the kitchen ...
US map on the left, and World map on the right. In the middle is a homemade family calendar ...
So I was looking for a wall-sized calendar - something with big squares for plans and notes that the whole family could view. This is something Earlybird especially looks forward to ...
What day is this? Where are we going? And how many days until insert holiday here?
:)
Since I'd already splurged on a great big desk calendar this summer (one that doesn't start till 2015), I decided to see if I could pull one together with materials I had on hand.
And as it happened, I could!
I started with a bright red posterboard purchased last month for a Red Sox game. It was Little Bear's first time at Fenway and we were going to be one of those families that hold up an attention-getting sign in order to get on camera ...
"Hey, NESN - it's my first game ever and the Red Sox have been world champs my whole life!"
(Lol.)
Well, we never ended up using that posterboard so it was all ready to go! And that was my calendar base. I then used apple-shaped post-it notes, a letter stencil and a black Sharpie to create the header: SEPTEMBER. Then I used lined post-it notes for the days of the month. The lines help me keep information neat and the notes not only stick really well, but will be easy to replace next month.
The maps are for reference of course, but something I like to do is find news articles that we can tape on the maps for the week. We also like to watch the weather report and then check the map to see where "active" or "severe" weather is happening.
And this here is a poem display ...
I stapled index cards to a ribbon and hung it from the top of the door. It's a great visual for Earlybird who has been reading the poem aloud each morning for me. We chose "Crickets" for the month of September. This door stands between the kitchen and dining room which is our active learning room these days - still under construction, so more on that later!
Well my friends, that's all I have time for today but I will be back again soon to share what we've been up to and what's coming up. I hope you will drop me a note when you can and let me know how things are going for you and yours!
In the meantime, thanks so much for stopping by and please take care of yourselves and your loved ones ..
See you here again very soon!
❤