What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Saturday, August 27, 2011

The Readied School Room


Summertime is kind of a free for all in this house. I do what I must do (gardening, canning, yada yada yada) and the children can pretty much do what they want (puzzles, drawing, playing outside, making immense messes) with no schedule and very little oversight.

It works for us, all except one small little fact:

My school room is CONSTANTLY trashed. They 'create' in the schoolroom while I 'create' in the kitchen. Their idea of 'cleaning up' consists more of shoving scrap papers and gluesticks in every nook and cranny. puzzle pieces in piles and crayons under, over and around every.single.thing.

I wouldn't ordinarily show you the results of an entire summer of unsupervised creating, but you see.... I was DARED. You know who you are, Missy. Besides, a good "Before" and "After" always makes you feel good.

So I will mortify myself, humble myself publicly, and give you all a great big glaringly obvious proof that "HA! I DON'T DO IT ALL." Unless of course, 'doing it all' means living around a mess for an entire summer. In which case, I "do it all" rather WELL ifIdosaysomyself.

Before pictures:


*shudder*


*yes. I admit. I contribute to the mess-making merriment from time to time.*


*gasp!*


eek!

* and NO. I am not going to get a close up of the summers-worth of pizza night crumbs under that table or the milk stains atop it. I am not ready to be THAT humbled.*

Thanks to an rainy, dreary AWFUL week, you get a school room that is clean and readied for the fast approaching homeschool year but rather awful pictures of it. :-)


There was a loaded-to-the-brim basket of paintings, drawings, etc. in that corner before. I sorted through it, emptied it and put it back on top of the shelves where it belongs. The bulletin board is fresh and ready for new artwork! Yay!


I am *kind of* addicted to school supplies. Especially crafty stuff. ESPECIALLY when you can get them for pennies or free during back to school sales, which is the only time I get them. One thing I am passionate about is children having access to create WHENEVER, WHERE EVER, and with WHATEVER they can and part of that means always having ample supplies available to them. So I stock up on glue, crayons, colored pencils, scissors. paint and PLENTY of paper.

I don't think you can ever have too much. This basket is full of EXCESS stuff to be added as it is needed.



I took down the waterways poster, but kept up the human body stuff so that we can review it one more time at the beginning of the year.


You wouldn't believe how much JUNK I cleared from these shelves and then burned. It was a massive bonfire, you can be sure. wow.


*ahhhhhhhhhh. Refreshing.*

Now, if I only had my plans in order......

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Mine is this close *holding fingers 1/2 inch apart* from being ready!! :) I did a WHOLE switcharoo from our kitchen/dining area into our family/play & now school area! :) Do you have any good ideas for a name for my family/play/school room?? ;) I am stumped.

Thanks for sharing your school room! I LOVE seeing others ideas and ways of organizing things!

Unknown said...

Oh...this blog sometimes has neat handmade gift ideas...maybe you are already familiar with it...http://www.skiptomylou.org/

and how did the quilt photography gig go? :)

Anonymous said...

Is there an award for the 'blogger who beats herself up the most'. Well you win it. Please stop being so hard on yourself and guilty. You apparently do not know people where children hardly read during summer, think art is 'stupid' but spend hour upon hour on TV because it is their 'baby sitter'. They also play the odd 'safe' video games. They have mothers at home too, not at work. All these families are christian and some of them even homeschool.

May I gently say, the mess and clutter your children make is on the outside and can be cleared away. Their minds are not cluttered and so is their spirit and innocence. You are a great mom and a home maker, your house looks lived in and your children loved. Anyone can see it.

N

Anonymous said...

I *LOVE* your school room!

b in va

Leah said...

>Their idea of 'cleaning up' consists more of shoving scrap papers and gluesticks in every nook and cranny.<

Yeah, when they're thirteen,they STILL THINK THAT'S WHAT CLEAN UP MEANS!! (only now it's socks and underwear and candy wrappers and crumpled up football schedule papers under the beds and shoved in their drawers!!)

Okay, so we're both in this for the long haul.

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling that first Anon commenter 'N' doesn't understand your wit -- I find your candor and deprecation endearing and have no doubt you know full well that your family is being tended to beautifully and with the best of priorities.

-Jen

Terri said...

It looks beautiful, Rebecca. I hope you have a wonderful school year!