Sweetness and Light

School Room Update

Violet and I like to rearrange the school-room from time to time, and the beginning of a new academic year is always a good time for this! Our room is basically square with large windows taking up all one side looking out to the backyard and we've strategically placed our birdfeeders here so we can benefit from all our fauna; a little flora too as there is a beautiful fuschia plant courtesy of my dear father, a gift to me on mother's day this year :)

Anyhoo, on to a few pics ~

A front view looking in from the kitchen & eating area. We used to have the loveseat on the wall where the mid-height bookshelves are located now. Those are Matthias and Seamus' shelves, they are quite untidy at the moment, but, hey, it's a work in progress!

 
A look to the back right corner. Violet's shelves are next to the couch and the storage closet, which is in a state of re-organizing too. She is going to tidy it up for me and put some things down lower for Sean-Paul such as craft items he can access on his own, etc. The crate sticking out contains all the books we are not using any longer and selling on amazon. The Geography Center  is also tucked in nicely there as well.

 
And a third pic looking out the windows, my favorite part of the room :) This is why I wanted the couch moved is so I can have a better view out the windows to see all the bird action whilst reading aloud. There was usually a glare from our location across the room, so I will have my camera at the ready and will probably move the bird books and binoculars over next to the couch for an easy grab :)

 
Sean-Paul's little red table is nicely positioned here too so he can muse out the window while he's coloring or doing any number of activities at his desk. That very messy shelf located in the far-left corner is his, which is currently being overhauled for the new year. My Montessori shelves are pretty bare bones right now too as I am selecting activities to load up, but not just yet, I want them to be fresh and new when he sees them for the first time!

Have you done anything new in your school area this year?? If you don't have a particular place for schooling, where do the kids tend to gravitate when then read or do their studies??

I'm so glad you stopped by today, many blessings!

Just in Case....

...you need a little inspiration to go and spiff up your learning area, visit Jen, you'll be glad you did!

That's all for now :)))

Out With the Old, In With the New

Well, a new year has dawned it's our One Year Anniversary today, and we're making a clean sweep here at Sweetness and Light.  Not the blog, silly, but our attitudes, the learning environment and the cluttered spaces of our lives in general!  Oh my, you say, isn't that a bit drastic?  Well, hey, it's a new year and as a person who thrives on change, I always like to purge and start a new year with a semi-clean slate!  Here are some of the things we've done so far to ready ourselves for some new beginnings:

• Re-arranged the learning space.  Let's face it, Sean-Paul is not going to be any less of a toddler in this new year and he really needs his *own* area other than a just few toys on the floor anymore, therefore he now has his very own learning corner where I will rotate his favorites each day/week!! (I'll post some pics sometime next week, when we resume)
• Violet's room also got a purging and rearranging to make room for a brand new reading corner, rather than her bed.  She has stuffed her reading basket full of all her favorite books and loaded up her newly acquired reading chair (from the learning room) with cushy pillows and blankets for some true reading comfort!
• The boys' closet got a complete redo to accomodate some wonderful new legos, wood toys and clothes from St. Nicholas!  They are very happy with the de-clutter and have named one whole shelf the "lego shelf"!  St. Vincent de Paul Society was very pleased with the box of gently used toys we dropped off as well from the clean-out!!
• The Christmas tree has been taken down.  I'm a bit sad about this as we usually leave it up until Epiphany, however, with a toddler in the house, it's just not fair for him have to stay away from it, even with the un-breakables on the bottom, he seems to have acquired a six-foot reach when it comes to the tree!

Whew, it looks like we've been doing alot, but all of this has happened very casually and slowly as we are still celebrating this lovely season of Christmas with the anticipation of Epiphany and the visit from the Wise Men in just a few days!!

I'm so looking forward to doing Alice's wonderful Epiphany Tea, it'll will be a nice surprise for the kiddos!!  Thanks for visiting today and May God bless you in this year of new beginnings with Peace, Love and Joy!