Our New School Room

I have not completely finished decorating it yet, and a few boxes still remain, but I wanted to share a few photos of our new school room. It is in the basement, so the lighting is not great, but I am so excited about having a room dedicated solely to school!

From the back of the room:

I plan to rotate what I hang on the large wall in the front. This month, I will have a map of the US, showing the electoral votes from each state, which we will use to discuss the presidential election.

From the front of the room:

On the other side of the stairs behind the desks, we have our family room, with our computer, so the kids can watch movies or use the computer as part of school.I can't decide what to put on all of those built-in display shelves yet...

From the pantry side:

Our laundry room is through that door, so I can work on chores while the kids work on school! We also have a small half-bathroom in there, which is convenient during school.

From the laundry room side:

I put a desk through that door, in the pantry, so the kids can take tests without distractions. Ben actually puts himself in that desk frequently during the day, because he discovered that he can concentrate more when he sits alone.

All-in-all, our school room works well for us. Now, if only I could get the rest of the house this unpacked...

City Mice, Country Mice

This school year so far has slightly resembled the fable "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse."

In August, when school began, we lived in a smallish brick home on a busy street in the city. For recess each day, the kids played outside in our small backyard, with strict instructions to never leave our property or get too close to the road. They quickly tired of playing in the small yard and yearned for more freedom - freedom I could not grant because of the neighborhood in which we lived.

At the end of September, we moved into our new home, on 5 acres of land in the middle of the country. The kids roam the property, playing in and out of the woods, leaping over the small stream, never tiring of playing and exploring.

Hannah has named her favorite trees, and she constantly shows me interesting bugs she finds. The first day, Hannah excitedly brought me a giant leopard moth caterpillar, and this weekend, we laughed together at the dancing of a colony of beech blight aphids on a tree branch. We also found a particularly odd cluster of bugs, which we finally identified as adult and nymph oak tree hoppers. And, this evening, Becca discovered a walking stick in the living room as she headed up to bed. The kids love looking up and identifying all of the interesting species of bugs.

Of course, the one type of bug none of them like is spiders, particularly the wolf spiders which keep coming into our home. Yesterday, Hannah picked up her sneaker and a large one fell out, and today, one kept creeping out from under the wall in the school room as we worked. Josh finally caught that one this evening and relocated it to the barn, hoping that might keep it from returning to the house.

We also all enjoy seeing wildlife we rarely or never saw in the city - dozens of deer, chipmunks, squirrels, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees, Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, downy woodpeckers, and red-bellied woodpeckers. Two mornings, we even had a great blue heron land in the yard! And, this is only autumn. I cannot imagine all of the birds and animals that will be here in the summer! Hannah has been begging to work on her bird project again, creating her own bird guide for all of the different birds she sees. I love that all of this nature and beauty surrounding us inspires them to want to learn.

(See the deer in that photo? I am amazed at how well they blend in, especially in the evening.)

We have definitely had to adjust quite a bit to living in the country, but we love it. My kids (and I) may be "city mice," but unlike the mouse in Aesop's fable, we feel perfectly at home in the country and have no desire to go back. This city mouse would rather be a country mouse any day!