Our New Home School Room

I imagined the post I was going to write about this time of year.

It would sound something like, "Well, I just sent my youngest off to kindergarten! 

I now have three hours a day all to myself!  

I'm finally going to have time to tackle all of those projects I've wanted to get to, but haven't had the time for.  Yay!"  

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sometimes, I think I know how my life is going to turn out ...what each stage is going to look like.  And then life happens for reals.  SOmetimes it looks the way I imagined it would and other times... times like this, it doesn't.

About mid summer, while enjoying a much needed family vacation, my husband and I started talking home school.  Something we always considered as a possibility mAybe at some point.  But it was a big fat maybe.  Our children's school is a great school.  We have absolutely loved it and often talked about how lucky we were that our children got to attend such a great school.  But the more we talked about home school this time around, the more it sounded like it was what we were supposed to do.  But I needed to be sure.  So I prayed about it.   A lot.  

I felt at peace every time.  

And so..

Instead of sending my three kiddos off to school this fall, I'm going to be homeschooling them.  I am a nervous wreck about this.  I mean, it's my children's education we're talking about.  Pretty important stuff.  But it feels right.  So I'm taking a leap of faith and we're doing this home school thing.

Luckily, our school district has a great homeschool program.  I also have a good support group of friends who have already gone the home school route, people I can lean on when I'm at the point where I want to pull my hair out.  And the bottom line is, right now I know that this year, this is what is best for my children.  In some ways, I'm really excited to be teaching and learning right along side my children.

And the other exciting part???

I got to decorate another space in my home.  Because of course we needed a specific place in our home deticated to home school.  Well, maybe not neeeeded.  But wanted, yes.  And did I need it to be functional and nice to look at?  Yes and yes.  Because I really like looking at nice spaces and if my kiddos and I are going to be spending 1/2 - 3/4 of our day in this area, it needed to be easy on the eyes.  :)

Our school room is located in our newly remodeled basement family room.

 

I scribbled out this desk idea for my husband.  The next day he bought some plywood and made it for me.  He's awesome like that.

I found three chairs at Goodwill that fit perfectly with this desk. 

I spray painted them all the same color and reupholstered the cushions on a couple of them.

(The chair in the middle still needs a cushion.)

 This table and chair set up is for working one on one with each child as I'm teaching them a new concept.

Sign:  Be Patient and Kind and Forgiving.  

Great classroom and life rules to live by.

And then of course, an American flag that we say the pledge of allegiance to every morning. 

We have been in school for almost a week now.  Overall, it has been great!  But there have been moments that were really hard too ...and I've thought to myself, I can't do this!  I'm just going to put them back into regular public school again! 

But then I get an awful knot in my stomach at the thought of doing that.  Sometimes that seems strange to me because, like I said before, we love our neighborhood school.  

So I guess this is one of those times that I just have to trust in God.  

He knows my children.  

He knows our family.  

He knows what is best for us and why.  

Even when we can't see it ourselves.  

So this is one of those times in life when I just have to move forward with faith.  

I know we'll be blessed for doing so.  :)