School Room Setup

I mentioned that I've updated the schoolroom twice without posting much about it.  This was due to the fact that I updated it, and Link didn't find much he was interested in, so I had to update it again.  After that, I got my new material and had to add some of it.  Then, we went out of town and had company so he hasn't been back in the room since the second update.

I figured even if we didn't do much school time, I could at least show my setup.  I added a sorting activity with quarters, nickels and pennies.  Link really enjoyed this one.  At first he didn't realize that there was a difference between the quarters and nickels, but after repeating the presentation another day he noticed it.  He did this one several times, one of the few activities he's ever repeated.

The scissors are not supposed to be there :)

 This is the 'b' box.  First I did just objects, then the next day I added the pictures.  He's not that into repeating things if they aren't different, so I try to change what's in the box to get more use out of it.  I only put about 10 objects in at a time, even if I have more.

 

Matching objects from the box to the pictures

Below is an activity I made up on the fly.  I had this bag of shapes and I don't think he's ready to use it the way it is intended, so I just had him sort each shape into the little glasses.  He only did this one once, but he explored the objects for a while afterwards.  He put the round shapes back in the bag, then messed around with the rest.

These only lasted two or three days.  Then I had to completely change the room.  I moved the art supplies to the corner.  Then I put several pieces of felt on the shelf to lay the red rods on.  I tried to group the sensorial activities together here.  So just to the right of the red rods is the picture below.

When I was cleaning the closet out I found some dice.  I thought it might be interesting to have Link sort them by color, but also see if he could recognize the similar shapes.  Below that is the first cylinder block and the geometric solids.  The first time I put the solids out, I used the box they came in and put the bases and stands out as well.  It was very heavy.  Since he really just needed to explore the shapes, I decided to put just the shapes in a basket.

Right next to this is the pink tower, which doesn't fit right now.  I made some sound bottles, but did the presentation all wrong!  I guess I should have read up on that first.  I'm going to put them in two different boxes and try again.  I still have out the beginner pattern blocks.  I think I'll get the next step up soon and replace these.

I'm going to have to make that shelf taller for the pink tower.

I don't have a lot of practical life out right now.  A lot of what we do is done in the kitchen.  Plus, I don't have any good ideas right now.  I do have the dressing frames almost finished but there is no end in sight right now.  I made them a little small and need to find something to attach them to.  Maybe in the next week or so you'll see them.

The beans are missing for the sweeping...

 And this is what's left, grouped together.  The orange box is now a 'c' box.  I have out the frog, horse and tree puzzles.  The sandpaper globe.  Melissa & Doug word puzzles.  I know, I need to work on this area.

That pretty much fills up the school room.  I plan on putting out the brown stairs soon. The geometric cabinet is already out, you may have seen it below the red rods.  But I have not given a presentation on it yet.  I plan on doing the presentation tray soon, then moving to the cabinet.  I'll have to review everything again to see if there is something lacking.  The room is filling up faster than I expected.  I'm sure that soon I'll have to remodel, move the computer, and adjust shelves.

I'm a little worried!  We'll be gone a week and a half in November and one to two weeks in December.  Then we'll all be staying with family for the entire month of January - until I have the baby.  Then we'll come home and I have a feeling that doing school time with a newborn is going to be very difficult!