After we cleaned up, it was time for first day photos. Indy is a ham when it comes to photos, so getting something relatively normal takes some work. I think we did pretty well though. Isn't he handsome?
Then it was finally time for school! We had a really great day. This year we are studying Medieval history, geography of the middle ages, chemistry, math, spelling/language arts, Latin, German, and chess. It's all rather ambitious, but I think we'll do fine. We don't do every subject every day (because we'd never finish) so that helps. On the first day we did history, spelling, language arts (Indy's least favorite), Latin and math (which is on the computer so he loves it). We also did some of our Davis dyslexia therapy words in clay. He really likes to do these. We had some issues getting Indy back into the swing of writing (he's PAINFULLY slow), but that will come back in a few days (I hope).
At dinner that night, Indy told James Bond all about his day and how awesome it was and how lucky he is to be homeschooled where he can learn fun stuff and not "regular" school where it's boring. Hurrah! We also verbally went over our Latin words, which impressed James Bond mightily. :) I think we're in for a great year.
I've never posted our school room, but thought now is as good a time as any. Our school room is our 3rd bedroom and also doubles as our guest room (I won't be showing you that half though as it's still in the works-almost done, but not quite ready to be revealed). Our third bedroom is really weird because it has 2 doors which makes furniture placement difficult. One of the doors (the one we use most) leads to the hall (Indy's bedroom door is opposite) and the other door leads to our bedroom. It's very odd considering the room we're in isn't technically the master, though it's bigger. Indy is in the master because the bedroom we're in is close to the front door and I didn't want James Bond waking Indy up every morning at 5:30am when he goes to PT. I've tried to make the room as functional as possible and it was set up this way most of last school year, so I guess I did okay.
Since it does double as a guest room, I didn't want to put too much cutesy school stuff up (plus, we find all that rather distracting), so I kept it to a world map, a framed wipe board (I spray painted a hideous gold frame that was 75% off at Hobby Lobby red) and found 2 beautifully framed chalk boards at Home Goods. The bookcase as desk attachment are from my favorite place in the world, IKEA! The chair with its back to the chalk and wipe boards is mine. It was a hideous brown chair that someone threw out. A coat of the same paint I used on the frame and it's as good as new. The chair opposite came from IKEA and was already red. It was in the Fundgrube section (scratch and dent/display models) and I picked it up for about $15, which isn't bad considering it started off at almost $65.
Another view. The walls are actually a very bright yellow that Indy and I both love. I chose yellow because I read somewhere along time ago that kids learn better in yellow rooms. I went with red accents because, well, I love red and the combination is really pretty.
This photo is much closer to showing the true color of the walls. You can also see how we start our morning. On the large chalk board we write the day (also in German), date, and do the weather (also in German). Indy loves this part. I also use the space under the chalk board on the door to hang posters or charts if we need them.
I keep all the books we'll need for the week in the cubby next to my chair, which is much easier than going to the shelves in the closet every time I need something.
The guest half of the room is on the other side of the bookcase. I used it to divide the room so we can focus on the school half and so guests don't have to stare at all our school stuff. We use the daybed to sit together and do our reading. There's also a black and white checked chair that I love (also a steal from the Fundgrube section at IKEA) and a TV that Indy can watch movies on and play the Wii (but the Wii is reserved only for weekends).
I hope you've enjoyed hearing about our first day back and touring our school room. I'm linking this post up to the Not Back to School Blog. Click to see other school rooms.
