Our Homeschool Learning Room

Our learning room is in our basement and no, it is not a classroom. We use it sporadically; more often in the winter. It's primary use is storage and organization. I keep all of our homeschool resources, craft supplies, my teaching supplies and my haven't-seen-the-light-of-day scrapbooking supplies in this room. It's just a great space for returning everything to it's spot.



There's a reading chair...


a shoe organizer which I use for organizing all of the little stuff...


and cupboard doors covered in rolled corking. This stuff was a nightmare to apply. No More Nails finally did the trick. Do not use a spray adhesive!


We have bins for toys,


bins for finished curriculum,


and bins for work in progress.


Our can't-live-without item is this rack. We separate and store all of our essential drawing tools.


We always have a never ending trail of completed masterpieces lying around the house. I choose or the kids choose their best ones and they are stored in these boxes. It makes me feel less guilty for throwing away the other masterpieces!


We have our reading nook,


and our work table. I love the shape of this table because it allows me to get a little closer to both kids.


Thanks for coming on a tour of our workspace.

Tree Planting at the Lake

A Beautiful Spring Day

Art Lesson - Shapes

Today we were studying shapes in our art lesson. We discussed how shapes can appear to have a width and height, but depth may not be known. Some shapes in pictures are obvious and some aren't because the depth is unknown. We discussed the painting "The City" and how the artist used shapes. The kids had to create their own city image. They were not allowed to draw anything. They were only allowed to cut and paste. They needed no help from me! Mickey's is the one of the house. Mason's is of course the one of the car and Kieran's is the perspective of the city. Can you pick out the CBC building?

A Day With Friends

Today we spent a nice day with friends. We wrote some Haiku, made some carp kites (to prepare for our display on Japan at the Expo) and had a tea party to celebrate a birthday.

A Mild Concussion

On Easter Monday we went for a walk/bike ride with some friends at the lake. The kids were biking and the adults were walking and talking. Of course Mickey took off as fast as she could and left the boys in her wake. We didn't even get a chance to tell her to stay close by and slow down. She's had her share of falls so when she fell this day, I must say that I didn't go to her as fast as I should have. She fell (and not going at a high rate of speed either) when she had slowed down and the strong wind caused her to wobble. Long story short, we noticed that there was a significant crack in her helmet, and based on her slight loss of memory and some lethargy, I decided to take her to the emerg. Turns out she had a slight concussion. I felt a little silly once I was there, because of course she bounced back and appeared to be completely fine. The doctor did tell me though any hit to the head (especially when there's damage to a helmet) should result in a visit to the ER.

So her helmet did what it was supposed to do. Next helmet however, we are going for one of the more reputable names (Bell, Giro, etc..) and have the bike guys assess the fit. I knew the basics for fitting a helmet but after doing some research there's a lot more to it than I thought. And yes, she's asking when she can bike again! Whew!

Easter Weekend

Just a few pics from Easter weekend...