Our new classroom!

Yes, we haven't been home educating for long... Actually, I broke my toe and a part of my foot, so had to rest up, and basically all home edding stopped. It had pretty much already ground to a halt anyway, because I was finding it exhausting to run around after Addie with all the different parts of the curriculum in different rooms. Initially it seemed like a great idea, but after a while I started to not like it, and when Daddy was cooking, Addie always wrecked the classroom area of the kitchen. Not a good start, and not a good way to instill order! So, we took some drastic steps!

We have converted our small office into a single bedroom for when Nanny or Jay comes to stay. We have converted our dedicated classroom downstairs into a family room (well, both these rooms are works in progress). The major thing we have done is turned our big double guestroom into the classroom upstairs! I love it! It means we can be up there without distractions, and also without distracting Daddy from working, and also, we can make a slight furniture move and accommodate a blow-up double bed for guests (or we might get a sofa bed for the family room, who knows!)

So, here is our new classroom - I am starting again basically, and so some shelves don't have stuff on them, but they will be coming soon! This room is also so lovely because it gets a huge amount of light, even on a dull and dreary day, and has good lighting for when we need a bit extra. I also have a storage cupboard.

This is the view from the door of our lovely huge window and the field opposite where there are normally horses! The tour will start from the right hand side!

This is where I am currently storing the map cabinet (turned around so little fingers cannot get to the puzzle pieces yet), the continent boxes, a desk for an older child (nowhere else to put it!) and on it I will have a CD player and musical stuff. You can also see our calendar which will be kept there for the time being!

This is the reading corner where Addie can choose a comfy seat or a chair to sit on. She loves it here.

This is where I will put all things cultural. There is also a floor mirror, mainly for the new baby, but Addie really loves looking at her floor work in the mirror too!

This is the Practical Life area for non-wet stuff. Again, this is still being built up, and on the top I will have reading books etc when Addie is older. She also has a little table and chair against the wall (I will put some calming images on this wall). This is currently doubling up as the snack table until I can think of a better place for it! The 'wet' practical life activities will stay downstairs.

This is what we have in the corner behind the door! We have from right to left what will be language shelves, maths and sensorial (which will become more maths shelves in the 'elementary' (primary in UK) years if we stay here that long!). I have all my non-fiction books categorised on the top shelves, the next 2 shelves down are currently for storage of materials, with the bottom 3 being used for actual work. Eventually, it is the plan that all shelves will be used for work. On top of these shelves I have my albums and other materials stored. You can also see at the top right of this picture a glimpse of the other small window I have in the room. It is long, but not very high, but great for storing a few additional plus-size books and also my supplies.

 

Downstairs we have our dining room which will be for cooking, art, messy botany stuff like planting things and most wet practical life activities. As you can see there is a great blank board for our Autumn display I am making, and there are a couple of things Jay has made for his learning (based around the IB's learner profile/characteristics of learners). This is also the room I teach him in.

We love it. Hope you do too...

Not much happening... on the blog anyway!

I haven't posted here since April! There is a semi-good reason - I am pregnant, and not really felt up to doing much, so Addie has had to play a lot more by herself, which is not a bad thing, by the way (although some people think it is terrible!). Also, our business has taken off and we have had Daddy at home all the time (which makes it hard to get into a routine to be honest, work and school-wise). What we have done since April is:

- chosen a nursery for Addie to attend one day a week which is a mix between Montessori, Reggio Emilia and Forest School. Actually, the kids tend to spend 90% of their time outside which is the main reason we have chosen this particular nursery, and actually if it didn't exist, we wouldn't be putting Addie in nursery at all to be honest. She will get some good socialisation though, which is a great benefit, and it is all supported by Montessori undercurrents and the environment will be familiar as there are materials on the shelves that will also be around the house too.

- the whole drinking from a cup did not happen! My fault, it was too messy! That is an awful thing for a Montessori teacher to say, but I guess many mummies think the same... That is one thing we have had to really analyse and look at is how we can actually support Addie in a Montessori way and take a step back every now and then. It isn't that she isn't loved or given affection. However, we have had to realise that if we are asking her to do something, only one of us should be doing that, not both at the same time (although sometimes backup is needed!). Also, not to distract her when she is concentrating. It is so much harder to not interrupt your own child than a child in a nursery. I kept interrupting her to ask for cuddles, or if she was ok, or if she needed something. She didn't! I did! If she needed something, then I would soon know about it, so we have had to just observe, and leave her in whatever activity she is doing, unless she is about to hurt herself or damage something.

- it is never too early to start disciplining a child. I do not mean with a cane or beating her! I mean she needs to learn the consequences of her actions, and if she bites (she does that when she is teething) she needs to say sorry, and she cannot do anything else until she has apologised (a kiss). If she throws things on the floor, like yesterday at my Gran's house she just started to wreck a pile of papers she had on a low surface, she needs to pick them up. I know what she can and cannot do, but I would rather she did not have help in this, because then she will always expect to not be able to do something herself. If she doesn't get it quite right, but does it all, then that is what matters, and I can always correct it when she is not there or without her noticing. This fits in with the Montessori work cycle, where a child chooses what they are going to do, they do the activity and then they are equipped with the skills to be able to put that activity away themselves, and completing the full cycle of work. It is never too early to begin that (although at first this is a challenge I have found!).

- Over the past weeks, I have introduced several activities to Addie. In a way, I think she isn't quite ready to do the things I have given her to do, although perhaps I am being a little harsh seeing as she has never done them before and has never seen them done either. I will keep at it, and see how we go.

- We have decided that we will formally start schooling Addie on 16th September this year! We want to get into a routine, and with her starting nursery on Mondays, this will be a good preparation for her to get used to not playing with her other toys all the time, and to start doing more challenging things. She needs it. She is getting bored very quickly and wanting to do bigger things, so we need to provide an environment for her to do that. The things we are preparing are:

 - the house. In fact, the whole downstairs! We need to make it function as a home, but I also want it to be a Montessori prepared environment too. We have a designated classroom, but if we want to have a whole range of activities, it isn't really big enough for our needs. Also, how can you explain to a 17-month old that she cannot go into the lounge and other areas of the house for so many hours every day? It is her home, and we are home educating, so we have decided that the home needs to be a place of learning, not just one room. So... we are adding some additional shelves into our lounge (a good excuse to go back to IKEA!) so we can use it for language exposure/lessons when she is older. Our dining room already has a collapsible table, so we are rearranging it so that during the day it can be put away and there is a good space for Art and nature stuff - we will attempt to grow plants, have a nature table etc in there, which is great because it has the patio doors as the whole of one wall, and Addie loves looking at the birds and other things in our garden! 

The most logical place for practical life is the kitchen. It has the right flooring, and we have a redundant shelf we can use for activities, as well as a matching shelf we aren't really using in the office. We have also bought some toddler tables and chairs (one of each for each room) so Addie has her own surface. The only problem is that in IKEA (I love that place!) they seemed to be more her height, and now we have got them home, they are a little high (she cannot stand on the floor and do stuff easily on the tables, but can get onto the chair and then all is fine).

In the actual classroom we will have 3 different areas seeing as this room is the one where it is all school stuff. Sensorial (an area with materials to develop a child's senses), Maths (many Sensorial materials are later used in maths anyway), some science, geography and history (these all combine to an extent later in the curriculum). She is too young to have these areas yet, but at 2.5yrs she won't be, so we will just be introducing ideas and concepts at this stage, planting seeds for the next stage in her development.

We have (well, I have, because I am in charge of schooling we have decided!) chosen to be very organised. This is something we are really not good at at all, but Addie needs a sense of order in the learning environment, and also the home, and I feel for that to happen, I need to feel super organised too. Now many homeschool parents may or may not disagree with me, but I am planning quite a rigid learning plan for our homeschool. I think I will put these in another post, because this is already a long blog post! So check out my next one for those plans!

I will also add the photos of Addie I have taken over the last weeks of her doing various things, and I am intending as part of me being organised, that I will be using this blog to record her progress for family to see. 

Til next time!