CHRISTEPHI

Two years. That's how long we spent in Exploring Countries and Cultures. We moved between those years and while we didn't gain much in the way of square footage, we did gain a space to homeschool in that isn't also where we dine.  We moved mid December 2014 and by January I had everything set up and ready to go. But that was then and over the course of the past year I've tweaked our space several times as we've figured out what works and what doesn't.  Now that it's time to start a new school year, I've put away the flag banners and redecorated with Egyptian and Greek artifacts. The way we are managing school papers is probably our biggest change this year.  I have given up three ring binders (I'm always behind getting stuff filed in them anyway) in favor of a simple series of manila folders.  Get student sheets out of one, put them back into a different one. At the end of the year I'll gather the stack and take it to be spiral bound. No hole p...

Before we moved, we lived in a 900 sq. ft. duplex with a multipurpose kitchen that served as our cooking room, dining room, home office, and school room.  When we bought this house we added about half again as much living space.  The kids now get their own bedrooms and though the kitchen is smaller now, we gained a finished room in the basement that has been turned into a family room/school room! On one end of the room is a bright fluorescent light in the ceiling.  I positioned our table near it because it lends itself well to bookwork.  We all sit at this table when we need to fill out worksheets or write or draw or color.  There is built in storage behind the table that we use to corral all our school books for the year.  We haven't implemented workboxes since the move and might not since things have been working so smoothly for us so far this year. Hubby's treadmill is down there which is nice when it's bitter cold outside and one of the...