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A Tour of Our Homeschool: Desks and Tables

A Tour of Our Homeschool - Desks & Tables

Over the years, I’ve spoken to many people who are considering homeschooling or just starting out. At some point, almost all of them have asked some variation of the following question:

What does homeschooling actually look like?

And they don’t mean it in some vague, theoretical way. They mean: What does it literally look like? 

They want to know things like… How is my school-room setup? Do I even have a dedicated school space? What shelves do I use? How and where do I store my homeschool curricula? Do my kids have binders or cubbies or how do they keep their work organized? Do they each have their own desk?

So, in this series of posts, I’ll be giving you a detailed look into the physical set-up of our homeschool. 

3 Useful Discipleship Tools for Christian Parents

3 Useful Discipleship Tools for Christian Parents

Christian parents often feel like they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or, maybe more accurately, we’re standing on the Rock in a hard place.  We’re called by the Lord (our “Rock” in Psalm 18:2) to “bring [our children] up in the training and instruction of the Lord” but our “post-truth” culture makes that a seemingly impossible goal. 

Traditional, Christian morals and values are eroding in our society at breakneck speed and we’re constantly inundated with messages contrary to Biblical teaching. Once-a-week, Sunday school flannel board lessons may have cut it thirty years ago (arguably), but times have definitely changed. 

Schoolhouse Teachers Mini-Review: Our Experience So Far

Schoolhouse Teachers Mini Review title on watercolor background

I’ve mentioned the SchoolhouseTeachers.com website here and there on this blog in the past. Last year (2018), I won a year’s membership to the site and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by it. In fact, I think it will be a staple in our homeschool from now on! 

Someday I plan on writing a full, detailed review but, until “someday” comes, I wanted to fill you in on our experience with it so far. 

Our Homeschool Summer Break Strewing Experience

Our Homeschool Summer Break Strewing Experience title with cardboard tubes

This past summer, I was looking for ways to keep the kids involved in something productive but not too formal (that is, no 24/7 Minecraft allowed… but nothing that would require too much work on my part, either).

Among other things, my plan included intentionally setting out interesting activities for my kids to find and explore if they wanted to (aka “strewing”). If you haven’t yet, check out the prequel post – Our Homeschool Summer Break – Year 5 – for a little more context and my original summer plan. In that post, I promised you an update on how it went and here it is!

Our Curriculum Choices Year 6

Our Curriculum Choices Year 6 title on chalkboard background

I can’t believe it’s August again!

That means it’s time to share our homeschool plans for the year ahead. (If you’re curious about what we’ve used in the past, check out this post which has links to all the previous years.)

Year 6 Snapshot

We’re really in the thick of it now. I’ll be homeschooling my fifth and second grade boys and their three year old sister (whose unreliable, dwindling naps should make for a crazy-making an interesting year). 

Strategies for Buying Homeschool Curriculum: A Grocery Store Analogy

Strategies for Buying Homeschool Curriculum title on grocery aisle background

Is it just me or has our society overcomplicated things that should be fairly straightforward? 

Take food, for example. The overall process seems like it should be pretty simple. Grow or buy food. Cook food. Eat food. Done. 

But when you get to the grocery store and spend the first 15 minutes just trying to pick a breakfast cereal from the 129 choices available, you quickly realize this might be harder than you thought.

Ways We Customize The Story of the World Curriculum in our Homeschool

Ways We Customize the Story of the World Curriculum in our Homeschool title with stacked books

(There may be affiliate links in this post – click here to learn more. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)

We love The Story of the World history curriculum.  

(And, given that I loathed history when I was a kid, it’s no small potatoes for me to say that I love a history curriculum!)

After using Tapestry of Grace Primer for my oldest son’s first and second grade years, we started Volume 1 of The Story of the World and haven’t looked back.

Our Homeschool Summer Break – Year 5

our homeschool summer break year 5 title on grass background

I’d like to start this post with an apology for any neck injuries you may have sustained by following this series of posts.  It’s been like watching a tennis match!

Back and forth I’ve gone, trying to find the sweet spot for our summers. More academic? More relaxed? Over-scheduled? Lazy days? Seems like we’ve tried it all.

We’ve finally caught up to real time in this series – we’ll be heading into our 5th official homeschool summer in less than a month! 

Our Homeschool Summer Break – Year 4

Our Homeschool Summer Break Year 4 on grass background

If you’ve been following this series (if not, start here), you’ll probably have noticed a pattern by now. We seem to keep ping-ponging back and forth between work-focused summers and play-focused summers, always trying to find the sweet spot.

Year 3 was a summer of virtually no advanced planning and no academic work. So, you probably won’t be too surprised when I tell you that Year 4 was the complete opposite. 

(And, according to my oldest son who was just reading over my shoulder a minute ago, Year 4’s summer was “horrible!”  Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.)