A Sneak Peek

Hi there! No, I'm not officially back from my bloggy break, I'm just popping in for a quick post to share this little sneak peek with you...

~giggle-squeal! oh how I LOVE organizing!!~

I just unpacked all of these lovely jars last night and was beside myself with excitement over how pretty they looked all lined up waiting for me! :) This is how I store all of my loose items (manipulatives, counters, things for sorting and sensory tubs). I've been using glass jars and plastic containers to organize my materials for quite some time now and I've found them to be the BEST way to keep those little things contained. I will, of course, be writing a more in-depth post later about how I organize all of our school supplies.

I can't believe I've been away from this space for over a month! I've been soooo busy... unpacking and settling into our new home, creating our classroom and planning our first couple of weeks of school (we start next week! Yay!!), preparing themes for the weekly playgroup I volunteered to run, and taking care of my sweet husband who was injured and had to have surgery last week. All that on top of my usual housekeeper/cook/chauffeur/mommy role. Things are still a bit chaotic so it'll be a bit longer before I begin posting regularly again.

Hope you're all doing well! :)

~Thank you for your comments!~

James' World - Redux!

As promised, here is the photo tour of our new and improved classroom! (warning, this is a long post, so get a cuppa hot cocoa and settle in!)

I am so excited to share this with all of you - the only ones who will appreciate my hard work! Oh my sweet husband appreciates our new classroom, but doesn't really *get* how exciting it is for us homeschoolers to create and organize our learning spaces!

Ok, on with the tour. Oh wait - if you're interested in seeing before photos, click here.

Now if you follow my blog you know I'm leaping whole heartedly into the wonderful world of Montessori. That said, I recreated our space with that method and our new materials in mind.

Here's our Montessori corner... (sorry about the inconsistent light in the photos - some were taken during the day, some at night.)
I was getting tired of our trays accumulating on our countertops, and since James is always wanting to do some type of school activity I wanted to make it so he could help himself to whatever, whenever (*assuming he's had a proper presentation of the items first).

Close-ups of the bookcases...
First, and my favorite, our Practical Life/nature display shelves:

Whenever I walk into the kitchen this is what I see in the adjoining room - it makes me sooo happy!! I plan on keeping 4-6 PL items out at a time with a weekly rotation and a balanced variety of skills. I'll post close-ups of the trays in the slideshow on my sidebar in case you're interested.

This nature display makes me smile everytime I see it. I will publish a separate post about this. :)

Next, the Sensorial shelves:
I will only rotate items as James masters them. I have the remaining box of knobbed cylinders on order and when it arrives they'll all move to the very top of the bookcase. Also on these shelves are the knobless cylinders, the geometric solids and the cookie cutters for our monthly playdough (which has to stay refrigerated and which James has full access to).

Lastly, the Tot School shelves:This is where I'll place our Tot School trays - the activities I create for our letter of the week and any seasonal/themed tasks. One shelf is dedicated to just number and letter type activities and I'll also keep a puzzle or two and some other educational toys on these shelves as well. All of these items will be rotated weekly.

To the right of the Tot School shelves is James' book & music corner. There's a comfy beanbag nearby. Also a basket of musical instruments should James feel the need to rock out. :)

To the right of that is the patio (this is where we do our messy/water activities - it's also where I keep our container garden). Here I keep the toy bins and on that shelf above is where I store our school supplies. I also have an art station set up with lots of yummy drawing tools.
Moving on to the other side of the room...
James' work table, our seasonal board, a few of James' masterpieces :) and over in the corner is a lovely little barn from Santa and a basket of kitchen items next to the PL shelves.

So there you go - our new classroom. What do you think??

Our verdict? We LOVE it. James said "Oh WOW!" when he saw it for the first time. He has been in 7th heaven now that he can pick and choose his activities whenever the mood strikes him. And, I was pleased to notice, he isn't careless about the items. He understands they are special things and is quite good about keeping them nice and tidy. Aw, my little 'Type A' guy... like mother, like son. :)

*Montessori believed it was important to first present materials to children so they may see how to correctly approach the work and thus provide them the opportunity to succeed at it. "Don't let a child risk failure until he has experienced success." ~ Maria Montessori

James' World

Last year I made a post about James' new playroom. It has since evolved into a playroom/classroom and it's my favorite room in the house! Wish I had some place like this when I was a kid!

I always enjoy seeing other people's playing/learning spaces, and since a few people have asked me to, I thought I'd share some pics of what ours looks like...

The room is actually meant to be used as a dining room so it's situated adjacent to the kitchen and living room making it a perfect location for a playroom! It gets nice and sunny in there and those windows look out to the ocean. :) (see why it's my favorite room?) The book nook is in the back corner. The top two shelves of the bookcase hold some of my teaching tools - thankfully I found a new method of storage since this picture was taken (see below).

To the right of the book nook. There's an open patio that we use for messy activities. It's also where I keep my container garden. To the right of the doors is James' "discovery table" (see close up below). I change it up often to keep him interested. That cute little Bobby car and play kitchen are, so far, a total waste of money. He could care less about them for now. :(

Here's an updated picture of my new storage shelf, which my sweet husband installed (thanks, honey!). It's full of more teaching tools. I used to have everything crammed onto the bookcase and in our office, but now it's all in the same room - yay!

Facing the wall opposite the patio doors. Notice the cute kitty on the mat. :} Both cats LOVE sleeping in the playroom! In the corner is the little art station. I keep the basic supplies (crayons & chalk) out in the open, but all the messy stuff (i.e. the good stuff) is kept in my craft closet in our office. To the right of the art station is his ABC station (close up below). I rotate the items on this station, too. Some times I'll put out books, magnetic letters, ABC color pages, etc.

Another shot from the same angle, but in this one you can see his work table, the seasonal bulletin board (close up below) and some of his past art work. He just started an art class this month, so the bulletin board will be full of little masterpieces :) in a few months.

Close ups of ABC station & discovery table. During Tot School time I move the stuff off the discovery table and lay out 3-4 trays of different activities.

Close up of seasonal bulletin board - this is where I get to use all that scrap paper I own and never use otherwise! I'll have to figure out a new way to adhere the artwork to the board though since my little monkey likes to climb up on his chair, pull out the push pins, and bring them to me saying, "owie, mama." (yikes!) Guess I should take the hint!

And finally a cute piece of artwork near the doorway. :)

A Real Good Deal

...as they say in Minnesota. In the Land of 10k Lakes a good deal ranks right up there with hot dish and duct tape. And oh man would I make my dad proud with this deal I found on E-moo* the other day.

9 - count 'em nine - wooden puzzles (2 of which are 4 puzzles in one!) for a mere $25 dollars. And (wait for it...) the basket came with them! You must appreciate how good a deal this is; in Bermuda ONE of these Melissa & Doug puzzles is easily $20-$30. So this was basically 9 for the price of 1. Hellooo!!James LOVES puzzles and seeing as we already had a bunch of our own prior to my thrifty purchase, I was glad to take this opportunity to have some fun: I used said *free* basket and put all of James' puzzles in it and then separated all the puzzle pieces and put them in individual Ziplocs. Then I numbered each puzzle and each corresponding bag of pieces. Makes finding the matching set much easier and bonus - it's a tricksy way of teaching James concepts. :)

*E-moo is Bermuda's online classifieds. You can buy or sell almost anything for an excellent price. Since there are always ex-pats coming and going there's tons of nearly new stuff - usually stuff you can't otherwise find in Bermuda - available for purchase. I heart E-moo.