Welcome to Our Homeschool Discovery Room

WELCOME to our Homeschool Discovery Room, formerly known as the playroom! Enter through the door on your right in the first picture below.

Sally Clarkson, speaker and author of numerous books on motherhood and parenting, inspired me in her book Educating the Whole-Hearted Child to fill our primary homeschool room with opportunities for discovery hence "discovery corners."

Discovery Corner #1: Geography

We have here a world map, US map, and lastly an Ancient Egypt map which after tedious labor this perfectionist finally got taped perfectly together. I'm excited about how we'll chronologically be studying Bible, history, and geography together starting with Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament Genesis - Joshua (Veritas Press). 

I catch the boys all the time examining the maps, and their favorite thing seems to be looking at the flag of each country. Caleb said this is his favorite corner in our room.
And of course, you never know when you might need a break to shoot a few AU hoops! 

Mom's Wall

As you turn to your left, you'll see our next wall. On the top we have our Handwriting Without Tears numbers for Luke (JK) and Jonathan (PreK), my bulletin board, and my verse for the year that I just so happen to find on sale at DaySpring.com! More on that down below.

My bulletin board includes:

• Weekly schedule for each boy
• Reading reward dog tags
• Monthly overview calendars for Luke (JK) and Jonathan (PreK)
• Author study of the month 
• Character virtue we're focused on that month. 

Author Study: We start school with Curious George and H.A. Rey for our first author/illustrator study. I do this mostly for my PreK/JK little guys, but Caleb (1st) still enjoys a lot of these picture books too! 

Discovery Corner #2: Imagination Station

I don't think a day goes by that the boys don't pretend to be a superhero, knight, ninja warrior, cowboy, etc. It never ceases to amaze me the number of "bad guys" hiding out in our house.

Discover Corner #3 Learning Toys and Manipulatives

Plus curriculum, mom's resources, and supplies up top!

 

Discovery Corner #4: Magnetic Chalkboard

I was so excited to finish my magnetic chalkboard project this summer! The magnetic primer won't hold anything heavy but works perfectly for our intended purpose - magnetic letters and numbers.

Discovery Corner #5: Music Making Corner

We have a basket of musical instruments, guitar, drum set, and microphone. It's probably the loudest corner of the whole house.

Discovery Corner #6: Build It Corner

Here you'll find small legos, large legos, mega blocks, giant and skinny pipe builders, zoob building set, cars you drill together, etc.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree 

I bought this at the local Knowledge Tree, and Jonathan (PreK) will be adding his letter of the week to the tree as we go.

Discovery Corner #7: Reading Corner

Beanbag, pillows, blankets...nothing fancy but cozy and inviting. Here we keep our Highlights Hi-Five and Clubhouse Jr magazines and library basket, and under the hockey table you'll find all the books we have on audio, earphones, and boom box. Also the air hockey table often doubles as a desk for mom! 

Library Basket

A librarian noticed how many books we were always checking out and upon finding out I was a homeschool mom, she told me I needed to be tagged as an educator on my library card. She was quite the encourager! Now I can check out up to 50 books, plus the two older boys have their own cards. I know that sounds like a lot of books, but when you add up letter of the week books, concept books, poetry, unit study, author study, readers, read-alouds, picture books, etc yes, we get a LOT of books! As with anything and everything in our house, the best way to keep up with something, is for it to have its own place. Library books go back HERE!

Discovery Corner #8: Workbox Center

Here is our main work station. Handwriting Without Tears alphabet letters, calendar time board, phonics charts, and our workboxes.

I saw workboxes a couple of years ago on Confessions of a Homeschooler blog, and she gives a great video tutorial. I didn't really feel I needed the workbox system last year while teaching PreK and Kindergarten, but this year as I began to think through how I would school three, I decided the workboxes might be a big help. I won't go into much detail now about how I use them, but basically the boys move the tag from left to right when they finish the worksheet or activity in each box. There is a "mom" tag if the box requires my help. This allows them to keep moving through their independent work while I help someone else. It also helps me quickly organize everyone's work the night before each new school day and keep track of where we are during the day.

Jonathan's workbox (left) Luke's workbox (right)

Caleb's workbox

(This pic was taken at the end of the day and you can see he has moved all his tags to the right.)

The lego table often doubles as Jonathan's desk.

Clinging to His Word

This summer I prayed and asked the Lord for a verse that I could cling to during our homeschool journey this year. I know there will be days when I'm discouraged, afraid I'm failing, worried I missed something, guilt-ridden for my impatience. When the enemy's lies and my flesh began to pull my heart and mind to an unhealthy place, I will cling to His truth in Philippians 4:8-9 and meditate on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. "And the peace of God will be with you." If my mind is constantly thinking about such things, that is what will overflow into the lives of my children as, with God's help, I am shaping their little minds for His glory. 

That is my prayer!