Hey y’all! Our new school year started August 13th. We started out super strong and, I’m happy to say, we haven’t lost too much steam! Obviously, the excitement of week one has worn off for the kids, but mostly they are still putting 100% into their daily work and enjoying it.
So here we are finishing up week 4 and I realized I never did a blog on our school room! If you follow Surviving Seven on facebook, then you probably saw my video tour of our school room, but I wanted to add this blog as well.
Boxed curriculum can cost up to $500 per grade level. I’m teaching four different grade levels… plus, who can buy curriculum online without looking at every piece of it first? I can’t! Not to mention, what if my child is ahead or behind in a certain subject? Boxed curriculum doesn’t allow for that adjustment. I found what works best for us is piecing together my own curriculum with different workbooks and study guides.
I have really come to love Spectrum workbooks, especially for Math, Reading, and Language Arts. I design my own lesson plan to go along with it. It does create a lot of independent work, which is great since I have multiple levels to teach each day.
For Bible, we use a family devotional I bought from Christian Book Store online. It’s called “Old Story New: New Testament”. Each story is broken down into weeks, and each week has 5 days of devotionals. Each devotion has you read a passage from the Bible, then it has some commentary and questions to go along with it and encourage discussion. We love it so far!
Our Science book, which we received as a gift, is called “Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science”. It’s basically Bible and Science in one. We love it too! The kids love learning how science connects to the Bible. Sometimes, we do a little extra studying (videos, activities, etc) to go along with the lesson for the day.
I bought these storage containers at Walmart (five for $5). The kids each have their own where they can keep their workbooks, notebooks, pencils, and extras. These containers double as a way to divide up the table space for the kids too.
I chose this particular table for many reasons. First, I’m sure you notice the color right away. I am not a purple freak! Haha! I did, however, do some research on colors and found out that purple is supposed to help promote focus and creativity. So, here we are with a purple table. Second, yes it’s a folding table with folding chairs. I’m not cheap, I just thought it would be nice to be able to put these pieces away during the summer. This creates more space in the room to be used for other things when school is not in session.
I know I have talked about my anchor charts before. I showed you all the ones that are posted on the wall in our room, the ones that everyone benefits from. These particular anchor charts are smaller (on printer paper), and laminated. They are for my 4th grader. She keeps these in her container to use with her math lessons.
These lesson planner books are my favorite! I got mine at Joann’s on sale for $4 each, but you can also get them online from the company that makes them, Creative Teaching Press. I have one for each kid, and I use it to keep track of what they do in each subject each day. It works great!
I love our hanging organizer. Right now it’s holding things they need for their animal research project for Science (I will post more about that and their current Social Studies project in another blog). Our white board looks sad, I know. Don’t judge, haha! I plan on buying a new one, just haven’t done it yet. I use it a lot. I use it to post their bi-weekly spelling lists, reminders, goals, and I also use it for teaching. It goes thru a lot on a daily basis.
I think that’s most of it! If anyone wants to see more, be sure to check out my video tour on my page, Surviving Seven, on facebook!
Hope you enjoyed my blog!!!
~~Heather~~
~Proverbs 22:6~
Surviving Seven 