Back-to-{home}school: our learning room spruce up

Now, right off the bat I want to say that not all--or even most--of our schooling happens in this room. Our Learning Room (a converted dining room) is where our family computer and printer is, our art supplies can be found, wall maps and chalkboard are hanging, a large portion of our family library is (although every room in our house has bookcases!), and our educational resources are.

It's pretty much the organizational hub for our homeschool. But learning happens all over our house ...and yard ...and often other places, too.

Each fall I like to do some cleaning (and cleaning out!), hang a new thing or two on the walls, and just spruce it up in general.

This year I've put our reproduction historical US documents back on the wall since we're studying US history. I've add a few cool printable infographics from Kids Discover about how our bodies work since we're studying human anatomy. A new map of the apostle Paul's world is on the wall since it coordinates with Mr. B's reading. And, just for fun, I made (completely from scraps around the house) a fabric pennant to hang at the top of the room to add some color and general festiveness. :)

It always feels so good to get the room all tidied up and ready to start back!

You can see what we've done other years in our various learning spaces at these links:

And, now to get busy planning...

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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