Our New Learning Room

We've been using our new Learning Room since the beginning of September, but all this time we've been finishing things up in there. I finally have decided that it's probably never going to be *perfect* so I took some *real life* pics of it.

So here it is in all of its everyday glory:)

First a *BEFORE* shot for you:

This room is actually the formal dining room of the house, but the former owners had an office in here and it is working out well as a learning room for us. It's not a large room (would have been a small dining room anyway), but with built-in's it's working nicely.

Vince (with the help of Mr. B) created a great built-in bookcase for us with inspiration from some HGTV shows.

It turned out GREAT! I have crammed that sucker as full as possible, too! :) I thought I would never stop finding boxes of books to unpack, but I think we've finally found homes for them all.

Vince also created this desktop area for me. It houses our computer (the one w/all of my homeschool files!), printer, our new workbox station and all of the random miscellany...you know that stuff.

I've also added in another bookcase on the other side of the room. This one is completely full, too! (I've got to learn to purge a bit better).

This is one of my very favorite features in the room: a window seat for reading! I wanted one of these SO VERY BADLY when I was a little girl. Something about a window seat and a good book just sounded like a piece of heaven to me (still does!).

I made that cushion from a piece of eggshell foam and extra stuffing, then covered it with fun fabric from Hobby Lobby. Even though I don't want anyone to look at the bottom stitches on it, I love the way it looks all tucked into the seat. It's comfy, too!

Around the room I have various things on the walls:

Our * Composer of the Month* and *Artist of the Month*, maps, artwork,

our morning board activities, Character Trait of the Month chart and more.

We use our Learning Room ALL of the time! With the central location in the house and having a great table for all types of use, it's truly a functional room for us.

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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