Time4Learning

• Over the next 30 days, I will be reviewing Time4Learning. They offer anelementary school curriculum, middle school curriculum, high school curriculum, and tools like the Getting Started Homeschooling Guide. Be sure to come back and read about my experience!

Time Flies!

Oh my goodness time flies by quickly.  It has been awhile since I posted and I have a lot to share.  I will start with the most recent happenings.

I am one of the new product reviewers for a fabulous site, Musings from a SAHM .  Erika has wonderful reviews and giveaways, as well as wonderful recipes and stories of being a mom and homeschooler.  Drop by and check her out.

Stay tuned for my first review!

Amber

Available for reviewing: Amber is happily married and has four children – three girls, ages 5, 9, and 15 years, and one boy, age 3 years

My name is Amber and I am very excited to be joining the Musings of a SAHM family!  I am a retired school teacher from California.  My husband and I, along with our 4 kids ranging in age from 3 -15, recently moved from the hustle and bustle of California to the serene country life in the cornfields of the Midwest.  I am a stay at home mom for the first time in my life and I love every minute of it.  I have the pleasure of homeschooling my two youngest children and find that it is quite a bit more challenging than being in the classroom.  When I am not busy teaching my little ones, I am a dance mom, new blogger, wife, and DIY mom.

www.musingsfromasahm.com/our-review-team

The Best Laid Plans of MICE and Men

Well, it has been a few months since I last posted and was hoping that by now I could share with you my new schoolroom, but my plans were unexpectedly changed by the invasion of MICE and BATS.  Yes you heard right!  MICE and BATS!!  If you know me, you know that I HATE MICE!  Now when I started this project I saw evidence of the mice and did my best to ignore them and remedy the situation.  My husband set traps and faithfully went down everyday to check the traps and check and make sure they had all run away before I went down.  This worked ok for awhile until one day he came back upstairs to get a plastic bag.  Now I knew that meant he needed to clean up a trap, which I tried not to think about it.  He came back upstairs holding the bag at arms lenth so I knew something was wrong.  He came back in the house and told me that a BAT had gotten stuck in the mouse trap.  That did it!!  I promptly moved out.  They can have it.  I refuse to go back down there.  My poor husband had to move everything back upstairs and live with a mess for the last few months.  I am a city girl and have no desire to learn how to commune with this type of nature. The basement is slowly being emptied out and I won't go back down until a contractor shows up on my doorstep to rennovate the entire basement.  That could be a few years.

So I have been very busy trying to fit a schoolroom into the play room.  No easy feat, but it's is coming along.  I hope to post pictures soon.

Scrubbing, Vacuuming, and Dusting, Oh My!

So one of the biggest dilemmas  a homeschool mom has is where to do your homeschooling.  I have read many homeschool blogs in the last 6 months and there are those who use a converted room in their house, or their dinning rooms or the kid's playroom.  I considered using our dining room, and even had it set up.  But I quickly discovered that wasn't going to work.  I had most of the items I use stored in the basement and every time I needed or forgot something I had to walked back down to get what I forgot.  So I finally decided since everything was already stored in the basement why not set up a classroom in the basement.

This is looking into the room from the door.

This room was used as a work shop by the previous owners.

This is looking from the center of the room towards the door on the right.

One of the nice things about our 98 year old brick house is that it has a full basement with 7' ceilings that is the same size as the 1st floor of our house.  It is separated into three rooms and has all brick walls and concrete floors.  While it would be nice to fully renovate one of the rooms for a schoolroom, it simply is not in the budget.  But with a little elbow grease and some imagination I can turn the room into a workable space for a schoolroom.  So the last five days I have been scrubbing, vacuuming, dusting, hauling, pushing and arranging my little heart out.  I have about 5 more days of organizing all of my teacher stuff from the last 20 years, and a little trip to Ikea to make before I will be finished.  I have gathered every unused piece of furniture and every educational toy I could find and put it in the schoolroom.  I look forward to showing you my finished product.  In the meantime, I leave you with a few before pictures of the space lovingly referred to as the "schoolroom".

The Beginning!

Life sure has a funny way of turning things upside down.  Six months ago I would have never imagined I would be living in a 98 year old house in the middle of the corn fields of Northwestern Indiana.  I remember not too long ago wishing for a more simple way of living.  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!!
So here we are living in a little town in northwestern Indiana with corn fields and wind turbines all around us.  Things here are much different than the fast paced life of Southern California, and it is a welcomed change.  This lifestyle change will afford me the opportunity to home school my two youngest children, but it is a very large undertaking.  I have created this blog as a journal to chronicle my journey in educating my children.  So here we go!