Introducing Our Lueker Munchkin Classroom

Last fall I was inspired by two other homeschooling moms to begin working on organizing a dedicated classroom space in our house. It has taken some time and is still a work in progress, but it is primarily complete. It has been serving our purposes very well. It is a wonderful way to organize and centralize all of our school materials, it is nice to have a dedicated space for us to work in and because it's in the basement (vs around our kitchen table) there are numerous toys (Jackson's Thomas table most specifically) that he can play with while we work. Here is a general shot of two walls in the room with a couple of our work stations. We have used a number of maps as wall decor and Grammy has purhased several charts for us to utilize as well. We also have numerous clocks around the ceiling of the room of various time zones around the world. We placed a plastic sheet and the foam letters on the floor under our work area so we can do craft projects (including paint) without having to worry about destroying the carpet. I don't want the kids to be worried about messing things up during a learning process/project. Because this was formerly our playroom, we do still have some spaces dedicated to toy storage. This is helpful for Jackson, however, and most of the "toy" items we have kept in the room, like the puppet theatre for example, can also be used for instructional play.

 This is where most of our school materials are stored although we do have one other bookshelf in the room for storage of books, puzzles, games and workbooks meant for future use. The shelves pictured below are where the majority of what we use day to day is stored. Even though this isn't the prettiest arrangement (it looks significantly better than it did when this was spread out all over our kitchen and dining room tables) it is functional. It has been amazing to have a specific drawer for each subject, a paint basket, a general craft basket, a history shelf, a science shelf etc. I can actually find what I need when I need it and it's altogether right where I need it!

 Just a close up of one wall with some of the number and word charts Grammy gave us. The calendar is a little difficult to change out so we will probably begin using this chart for our Spanish studies and/or for displaying projects associated with our weekly Story of the World topic. Like I said before, the room is still a work in progress. I actually have two very specific ideas that I really want to get accomplished so now that I have this blog going and we've officially kicked off Kindergarten maybe I'll get inspired to get those finished up in the next week or two. 

Before ending this post, I want to give a shout out to a couple of people who have been very helpful during the process of deciding whether or not to homeschool and what approach(es) to use. These people have also been helpful in providing inspiration and guidance on putting our classroom together.
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The first is Ms. Mo'mina. I have her blog link, "The Little Professors," in My Blog List. She is a friend of mine from DC and has children almost exactly the same age as ours (except she had twins the first time). She is a constant source of encouragement and support. She is a fabulous sounding board and by having kids exactly our children's ages, Ms. Mo'mina is a wonderful source of information for ideas and suggestions of activities and learning techniques. I would not feel nearly as confident about our decision to homeschool without all the discussions and ideas we have shared over the last, well I was going to say couple of years, but I guess it's been 5 since our "babies" were born! Thank you for your unending advice and creative ideas, Ms. Mo'mina!
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Second, are all the mothers in the Bluegrass Homeschool Learning Cooperative
(BHLC). The co-op we belong to is wonderful! If you're thinking about homeschooling, I would definitely suggest finding a good co-op to participate in. The mother's of older children are an invaluable source of information! Specific to this post, I saw pictures on Facebook of the classroom our BHLC friend, Katie, created for her son, Carson. That classroom made me realize we needed to create a similar space in our home. Another BHLC friend I want to give a specific shout out to is Kelly. We only met this spring but I am already appreciating her tremendously. Kelly recently started a blog, "Adventures of a Kentucky School Marm," which I am loving! I have also included it in My Blog List. She really encouraged us to go ahead and dive into our Kindergarten curriculum and specifically the Story of the World vs waiting until this fall. She was 100% right and I'm so glad I listened to her and followed her advice! Her children are close in age with ours so I'm really looking forward to doing school projects with them in the future! Thank you so much for all your great recommendations!

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Last, but certainly not least, is my mother, better known as Grammy. She is both supportive and a wonderful resource. Grammy is a great resource based on her homeschooling experiences with my brother, Andrew, and myself as well as all her current classroom experience. She is always on the lookout for wonderful books and activities for all three kids. She is a constant source of advice and support which I appreciate tremendously! Grammy has been instrumental in creating our classroom space over the last several months. She has helped first hand with the organization, watching kids while I work, and giving us many things to make our classroom more functional. Thank you for absolutely all you do for us, Mom!

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If any of you have thoughts or ideas for us, our ears are always open!