Getting ready for school!

I have been slowly getting ready for school for the kids.  Jocelyn is entering 1st grade; Katelyn will be in her second year of preschool, and Easton will be in...well pre-preschool...I really don't know where he will be...learning his colors, shapes, and letters..actually teaching him how to talk more would be first.  Anyways, I really don't know when we are "officially" starting.  I am kind of still enjoying summer a little too much.  Things are still a little busy and registration for fall co-ops aren't for another two weeks...so I think we will spend our free days just working on brushing up on a few things for last year.  For Jocelyn I am going to just have her read, read, read...and read a little more.  For Katelyn I am going to have her practice writing her lowercase letters.  I am constantly dictating to her and noticed she writes words with both uppercase and lowercase mixed, so she needs a little work distinguishing the two.  When I do decide when we are officially starting school...I am ready to go.  I have all of Jocelyn's lessons planned out for the first day.  In my head...and I am sure hers...it is the dry stuff.  I still need to plan fun activities to reinforce what she is learning.  If you know me at all...I kind of just make up activities as I go along and just come up with things in my head.  I know that doesn't work for everyone, but it works for me...I am all about flexibility and don't stress too much about our school schedule.  Here is a little sneak peek in our school room/playroom.   It is a work in progress.  We seem to move all around the house while we do school.  Jocelyn has already decided she is doing her school work in her bunk bed, but I have desk ready...just in case. 

These are the two shelves in the girls' closet where I store extra school materials.  Some are just supplemental books for crafts or just extras books for certain subjects.

 I made these handy little storage containers using extra wet-wipes containers, tissue paper and packing tape!  No I didn't intentionally buy all of these extra containers...they now come with my order of wet-wipes from Amazon.  I store various different things in each of these like letter stamps, tangrams, school supplies, wood beads, and various counting exercises. 

 Check this garage sale deal out....I got the 8 cube storage unit at a garage sale for only $20!  It was missing one storage bin so I purchased one online from Amazon.com.  In the bins are wedgits, junk, and more junk.  Actually, I consider items in the pink and lavender one junk, but the girls...they put all of their little treasures/trinkets that I hate sitting around our house in their assigned color.    It works out really well for all of us!

This Jocelyn's ugly desk.  It is actually my mom's old sewing desk and hidden underneath is her old sewing machine.  We don't use it anymore, so why not make a desk for Jocelyn.  We don't really use the calendar either, but I switch it out each month to stay current.

This is Katelyn's little desk.  Our old neighbors that we miss dearly offered it to us.  I denied their offer thinking where on earth would I put it...Sean said I should reconsider.  I am glad he encouraged me to keep it.  Katelyn loves working at her little desk.  Thanks Glenda (if you are reading this)

This is where I store all of Jocelyn's "dry" assignments for the day.  I will go into more detail another day about the "workbox" system I going to try out.  I hope it works...

This is Katelyn and Easton's drawers.  I store all of Katelyn's current assignments in one drawer.  Easton has his notebook in the middle drawer.  The bottom drawer are little books I am hoping that Katelyn will learn to read this year.

 So that is it....I warned you...it wasn't very exciting.  It is a work in progress.  If I take one guess I have a feeling we will be doing most of our work in the kitchen like last year...but we will see.