I thought I’d start by showing you a picture of my living room – should I say, “former” living room! I explained to my husband when we started homeschooling that whatever is important to you is reflected in your house, so if homeschooling was important to us it was okay to devote our living room to it. (We still have a family room for play & TV.) Somehow he understood my rationale. Here is a side view of the same room:
That’s the leg of our piano bench on the left – we use the piano during line/song time, and I am giving my son piano lessons three times a week. It’s kind of nice to have there, although it does take up a lot of room.
As I mentioned in my last post, I have two very different ages to work with : 6-9 , since my son is starting 1st grade, and 2-6, since my daughter is 2 1/2. There isn’t too much overlap in materials there! So basically I have two different classrooms. What you are looking at in these pictures is mostly 2-6 materials for my daughter on the low/middle shelves, and “teacher supplies” (books, musical instruments, art supplies) for me on the higher shelves.
One exception is the “shoe cabinet” that’s angled in the corner (that’s from Target, as are all the shelves you see except the two tall ones). In the bins inside are all the nomenclature cards that my son uses for Botany, Zoology, Geography, and History. I’m in the process of switching out the 3-6 three-part cards (picture, label, and control card) with the 6-9 three-part cards (picture, label, and definition). More about his work later – I’ll have separate pictures of his shelves.
So, I was able to purchase things like a pink tower, red rods, cylinder blocks, and the color tablets for the kids to use. In another post (coming soon) I will have links to all the places I’ve used to buy reasonably priced Montessori materials. While I do try to make as many things myself as I can, there are some things you just can’t make yourself. Next time: some specific materials I use with my daughter, as well as info on the companies I bought from.