Back to school

School Year 2013-2014

They sure do grow fast don't they? Just looking at last year's back to school photos it's amazing to see how much they  have changed. JT in 4th Grade and KT in 2nd and the addition of kinder #3 just turned 5 months. 

This year we are continuing with many of the same curriculum choices, lots of free play and Legos, our local homeschool co-op and everyday learning...

His favorite "subject" is reading! 

KT loves to do school and they actually both never complain when it's time to buckle down! I am always impressed that even in their free play time- they do alot of their own  newspapers, mini books, and comics. 

We are at the phase where they are in charge of their own independent work. 

They start school by 9 am each day, With the baby it's become really hard to do school with them, and so we adapt by doing read aloud's and "school with mom" whenever there is a free moment instead of on a schedule... sometimes we don't do read aloud's at all.. which has been hard, but I know it's a phase..

KT #2 is just 5 months now... 

KT Loves ART... she is always drawing, or painting. She has been taking Art Class this semester in Co-op and loves it. They are using Creating a Masterpiece for their class. It's a wonderful DVD series.

                                                              She is always moving!

Here's to another wonderful year of being able to school our children! 

Here is the newbie....this was taken a few months ago... =)

Thank you for visiting, 

School room

Joining in the Not back to school blog hop this week! 

We just moved into this home last summer. I realized I never had posted pictures of our school room since we moved! You view our previous school rooms here.

It has changed a bit over the last few months, but not much.... It's fun to go back to old posts and see how much we have grown.. and how our learning centers have changed. 

View from the Craft room looking into the school room....

We took out a wall to join the craft room with the school room. We love it! As we tore it out we found an old door here... Cool stuff!

                               This area holds the books of the week... I love these Ikea shelves

We have since moved the workboxes to the craft room and put a desk for KT in it's place. She has been wanting her own desk forever. Now to see if she will actually use it! =) 

Craft room:

We had to combine my sewing area, and the kids their own space as well as storage. I love the size of the room- it's average and a perfect square .. but the furniture I already own made it hard to work with. So I am slowly working on this space till we get it just right. 

 We completely re-did this room a few weeks ago.
Not sure yet how we like it.. the kids enjoy it so far. I still need to put their art on the wall... again, just using what we have already... 

                                                       Still need to finish painting.. .

I made each child their own ART WALL... They love it.  Keeps things from getting out of control too! 

With the new baby, I am nowhere near ready to start school! 

I am always inspired by the posts from other bloggers at the "Not back to school blog hop!"

 I hope to get started with school sometime in September. =) 

Thanks for visiting! 

Outdoor Play....

What do you do when you have a backyard full  of Dandelions?

Build a Mud Pie Cafe of course!! 

The kinders and I were talking about how they made such a mess the other day making mud pies on the back patio, and having to clean it all up when they were done.. So I suggested we make a spot where they don't have to clean it up!

Pinterest had some great outdoor mud pie stations for inspiration, and we set out to make our own for FREE.

We picked up some pallets ( FREE!!!) and got to work! 

I am 39 weeks prego, and so they were able to do almost all the work on their own.. choose the paint colors, carry the gravel , screw in the pallets, make up the menu... This was their thing. I found some items in the garage to help them organize it a bit, and we had lots of craft paint on hand.

 Here is what we created!

We had this extra gravel on the side of the house left over from the previous owners. We laid down a scrap of weed cloth and poured this one. It took them 9 trips of shovels to bring it over here... But now we won't have to deal with growing in there, and I won't have to worry about extra muddy shoes when the water and dirt fun get's crazy!! !

I showed  JT how to drill the pallets to the supporting tree house wall... It was hard.. the drill was heavy and the screw was hard,but KT helped hold the drill up straight. =) It was a good lesson for him. 

Letting them do it on their own.... 

Plus, how am I supposed to fit in there? =) 

While we were hard at work... Brinkley had a nice snoozer!!! 

We had an old large box we screwed onto the pallet  for the "work station" and an old plant rack to hold their "dishes."

Here we found an old shelf  then added some chalk paint to take "Orders"

An old water pipe we spray painted Silver ( only color on hand) and used for a fun drop box on the side of the Cafe... 

Lots of paints were brought out, and KT's Pinwheel was the color inspiration for their Cafe ... Thankfully we had lots of craft paint that daddy just brought home from the states!

Buckets to collect "ingredients" in

Important Tool: Rocks for smashing and mixing! You MUST have a rock for this job you know.... =)

                                             Some left over wood for making "Tickets"

ORDER UP!!! 

                                   (Yes, Dandelion is spelled wrong... totally my fault! LOL~!)

And now it won't get rained on! So great isn't it? I am proud of them! They stuck it out till it was done.