Setting up for Homeschooling

Welcome Friends! My first blog post on my adventures in homeschooling. I have two boys who will be pre-k and 1st grade this year that I will be homeschooling. I have spent the last year researching and preparing for this moment and I am so excited about starting this venture. For the past month I have been organizing our "playroom" into a Homeschool classroom and trying to incorporate playing areas separate from the learning stations. Here is what I find is really needed to get started for your homeschooling:


1) A desk for writing, homework and other seat work with no computer
2) Project table
3) Bookshelf
4)File cabinet with hanging folders (ours has this within the desk)
5) Small table or desk with computer
6) Have a reading area
7) workbox system (I will get detailed into this in a separate post)


I will be taking advantage of other areas such as my kitchen at times for cooking with the kids and the tv downstairs for watching educational programs. I will also be taking things outdoors for play doh, painting and other messy but fun activities lol!!


Above our seat work desk there is a calendar, charts for "today, yesterday and tomorrow," chart for weather, poster on what shape we are learning and a chart on seasons. To the right on the wall I found a really neat world map at Costco for only 7.00. The calendar and other charts I spent a total of 2.00 on at Target =D For my workboxes I am going to work with two systems here. I have two stands that have plastic drawers on the left of our seat work desk and this will be for worksheets and other paper assignments. I also have a workbox system with plastic bins on our book shelf and I will be going over what I include in those. 
In my next post I will discuss my plan for the type of homeschooling I would like to do, what our daily schedule will be like. I am so happy you are here to share this adventure with me and I welcome comments and suggestions and talk over coffee if you like. This can be a FUN and EXCITING experience and not so scary when you have someone beside you to offer advice and ideas along the way. So have fun and be sure to name your homeschool...we are the Doodlebugs Homeschool and so when your child is asked where they go to school they will LOVE answering with "Doodlebug Academy" =D teehee! So official sounding. Here is a picture of our seated work desk area:

Here is a close up of the Calendar I made. The Calendar base again was purchased at Target for only 1.00!!! How cool is that? I was going to make one myself using my Scrapbook cutting machine but for the time saved and it was going to cost more in paper...this was a GREAT way to go! I didn't really care for the month charts that were included with it so I made my own =D I made paper piecings from collections that you can find at Little Scraps of Heaven Designs (I am on their design team) so here on this blog you will come across many crafty things that I make with scrapbooking for our homeschooling =D By the way if you are into scrapbooking, I would love for you to visit my scrapbooking blog HERE ...well anyway here is a closer view of the calendar banner I made:

I would love to share our homeschool adventures with you, to encourage you and to help contribute to your own journey in homeschooling...I will be posting more on setting up for homeschooling so come back shortly!