Learning Room…or Play Room?

As I have mentioned before, JayBird and JellyBean really love the new learning room. They often bring toys from their bedroom into there, which is not what I intended, but is fine by me so long as we tidy up at the end. They also enjoy using the Tot School toys for open ended play fun. I try not to interrupt them during these times they are playing nicely together. Even if I have an activity or preschool oriented thing for them to do, I don't interrupt the sweet, and sometimes rare (but getting more common) times. I certainly won’t squelch their desire to play and have fun together…and maybe even learn a little something along the way (counting? colors? cooperation?)

Our Learning Room

After four garage sales to raise money, many coats of paint, and several trips to Ikea, the Learning Room is complete. As JayBird would say, "First it was an office. Then it was an office and a bedroom. Now it is the Learning Room!"

We made these bookshelves out of rain gutters from Lowes. They are completely customizable so you can size them exactly how you'd like. They make a great place to put books facing out so that your children can see them better.

Covers of books are much more attractive than the spines of books.

Below the bookshelves are two woven baskets to keep library books in or to easily move book around the house. Above the bookshelves is a curtain wire from Ikea to hang the kids' artwork. 

                  
The little desks are actually side tables from Ikea. They are only $7.99 and come in 8 different colors! We looked at several children's desks and decided to go with this inexpensive option that works even better for us. They can each have their separate space, which is needed right now since JellyBean is a toddler and wants to grab everything, but then we can also pull the desks out and put them together if we want a joint space. We then added children's chairs from the children's dept.


My desk (which is no longer available in white) is in the middle which, as you can tell, hides my computer when closed (and any junk and clutter that may accumulate!) It also has three spacious drawers. One drawer houses our current home school books and curriculum. The other two are not yet being utilized. The bins on the top are also from Ikea, though I can not find a link for them. We also have this corner basket organizer, however it is not up yet because I have not decided where to put it and sort of forgot about it as we designed the room and put up the bookshelves.

                   
This is JellyBean's Tot School cubby area from Target which hold her Tot Trays. Tot Trays hold fun activities that toddlers can do on their own or with others. These activities expose tots to early learning skills in a fun way. They can easily take a tray down all by themselves, do the activity, and ideally they learn to then put the activity back on the tray and back into the cubby. I will rotate the activities that go in the cubbies, especially as I build up my activity stash. Activities can be anything like drawing, gluing, stacking, pouring, sorting, and so much more. Anything that teaches some sort of early learning concept or fine motor skill works! And later, activities can coordinate with learning numbers and the alphabet. Have a fun activity idea? Please share! To read more about Tot School and Tot Trays, click the linked phrases above.

Since homeschooling mamas are always interested in storage, here is a picture of my closet. A little more than half of it has shelves. I also added some plastic drawers. My closet filled up fast! I really could use even more space! I must keep pretty organized (although it is not as organized as I would like) otherwise it starts to overflow with things and then I feel like I really don’t have enough room in their! I store things in a variety ways, but mainly in storage totes or in cardboard magazine files.

Now this wall, although it looks quite barren, has a pretty neat function. Did you notice my kid's "names" on there? The wall is magnetic! This is so much fun for all of us! JayBird enjoys spelling out words with magnetic letters. JellyBean enjoys forcefully pushing them off the wall. (She's sort of in a destructive mode these days.) It is only magnetic half way up the wall. I will probably hang learning posters on the upper half as needed.

I have even more pockets of storage hanging on our door. Not all of the pockets are in use yet, but I am sure I will find things for to occupy them. This happened to be on clearance at Joann's a while back. Below is our calendar purchased from the Dollar Tree. It is a good starter calendar, but I don't think it will hold up very well. I'm already in the market for a more durable one.

We are so happy about this room! In fact, it is my favorite room in the house because it is so bright! The intention of this room is to be a learning room and not a play room, although I can't seem to keep the kids out of it! I often find toys from their bedroom have wandered in. The room definitely has the new and fresh feel to it for them. We all end up spending a lot of time in this room, whether it is for focused learning ("school") time or for learning through lots of play.

Now we all know...looks can be deceiving! Our Learning Room might make me seem creative and such, but really, I can't take the credit. My inspiration came from another home schooling mama's Reading Room. She was my inspiration and now I have a truly inspiring room! I just love it in there with the bright colors. And thankfully, so do the kids!

Into my readers' hearts:
~ Do you have any Tot School activity ideas to share?
~ Do you have a calendar that you love to use with your children to teach them the month, days, etc? If so, send me a link if it can be purchased online!
~ Do you have a designated "school room" or area? Feel free to share information about what is working for you or share a link to your blog with pictures of your school room.

Ready to Learn!

"Mom...let's learn!"

"When are we going to learn?"

"Mom, let's go learn in the Learning Room."

These have all been comments from JayBird (age 4) in the last couple of weeks since we have finished the formation of our "Learning Room". He is obviously excited about it...and so am I! JayBird will eagerly share with others that "First it was an office. Then it was an office and a bedroom. And now it is the Learning Room! We are going to LEARN stuff in the Learning Room!"

I'm so glad that JayBird is excited to learn. What he doesn't realize though, is that he is learning all the time, whether in the Learning Room or not. It's like sneaking in veggies. I still serve vegetables with our meal at the dinner table as normal but I also sneak veggies into other unsuspecting places. You know, like adding pureed red pepper to spaghetti sauce or zucchini into scrambled eggs or muffins. Or even spinach into brownies! You do know what I'm talking about, right? (Well if not, then you should try it sometime! Your kids will never know!) So just like I sneak veggies into my kids' food, I also sneak learning opportunities into so much of what we do. Although, it isn't really sneaking because JayBird loves to learn! So I don't have to be sneaky about it. Now we also just happen to have a beautiful space for some of our learning to occur, though we are undoubtedly using the rest of our home, our yard, and the whole world around us to learn every day...with everything we do....everywhere we go. We turn many opportunities into a learning opportunity. But for those more planned, focused times of learning (like when serving vegetables at the dinner table in all their full glory) we now have our Learning Room. It is done just in time to start our Little Hearts to Heaven (from Heart of Dakota) preschool curriculum. I'll share more about our Learning Room with pictures in another post soon.

Join us as we all learn together, in our Learning Room and out! Much of our focus will be on what we are learning through our Heart of Dakota preschool program as we learn phonics, math, science, art, drama, and music through Bible stories. This is mainly JayBird's preschool program, but JellyBean will be along for the ride and join right in with us as she can. Afterall, she does seem to think she is as big as her big brother (whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the circumstances!) We will certainly share many other things we do in addition to our actual curriculum since learning continues to happen all around us. Please let us know that you are here, learning along side us! Send us a comment here and there. Share your ideas with us! Let us all learn together and inspire one another!