Home school ramblings

The concept of home education, aka home school, or homeschool -- spelling varies by person, is met with various responses: you're crazy, you're crippling your children, are we actually doing it?

Ask this question to a hundred different home schooling parents and you'll probably get a hundred different responses. Despite that, there tend to be three main reasons: for better academics, a better social environment and to escape a negative situation. For us, it started as primarily reason number 3 for our youngest son (at the time halfway through first grade), but quickly morphed to encompass reasons number 1 and 2.

I've rehashed the "why" more times than I care to remember so I'm not going to do it again. The details have become mind-numbing, which isn't to say I won't answer questions, just be prepared for long answers. Remember, I have brevity issues.

So, onward to the pictures. We bought our home in 2005 with the knowledge that we'd be moving in about 2-3 years. As it turns out, we are not moving for a little bit longer and I've found myself longing for a dedicated school room. Until that time, we make do with what we have. Here are the pictures of our "school" the day before we started this fall.

These are our supply cubbies.



*yes, yes, you've correctly spotted a sad layer of dust on the desk. It's there in order to help the entertainment center feel more confident and self-assured in its dust-covered status. I take very seriously my furniture's state of mental health!

Individual bins for each child's books.



This is our book station. Books being used by everyone go here and they tend to shift out. Currently, the almanac and atlas along with the globe and a copy of The Great Horn Spoon reside there.




The master cabinet. Here rest the novels for the year's study, teacher books, DVDs, and any workbooks that will be used throughout the year but are not currently in use.





Now, it's almost noon on this Labor Day holiday, and as we spent the bulk of yesterday with friends and not home (aka not cleaning or being productive in anyway), I must run and begin to attempt to restore order to the chaos that is my home on an almost scarily daily basis.