Raising More Roof

Today they are working on the roof over Tommy's room!

 I ran around the house taking pictures of all the angles of this new section of roof. Now we are going to see what our house will really look like (although very few people will probably ever see this side of the house since it is the back, back part of the house.)

 Here's the back of our house that will be constantly used I'm sure. I'm so excited to see what the screened porch will look like eventually. 

 They are getting the rafters up on the roof really quickly. and it's really cool to see how they joined the roofs together. 

 After lunch, they had even more rafters up. 

 The entire back of the house is done now except for the roof over the screened porch. 

 I love the perspective on this picture. 

 Dan is attaching the roof to the other roof - it's a little crazy how the two line up, but it was a lot of fun seeing how the roofs attach together. 

 I snuck inside and WOW! This is getting so exciting! 

 The roof over the kids bathroom upstairs. 

 The roof meeting above the dining room. I need to ask why they created the star pattern. I'm guessing it's for more support though. 

 After Tom came home, we went back outside and got to witness this GORGEOUS sunset!  I may be sad sometimes that we are without all those trees, but God reminds me that he's still in control when he sends such a beautiful sunset!

 Anyway, back to the house - they finished the main section of roof over the house. Yay!

 They added ceiling joists for Tommy's room too. 

 Section where the roofs meet next to Tommy's room. 

 Tommy's closet.

 View out our office window. 

 The homeschool room with a ceiling. 

 The door to the homeschool room with my handsome hubby and beautiful daughter! :)

 View of the office again - this time I noticed that we have ceiling joists! :) So many exciting things! Eeek! :)

Peeking out of the roof from the girls room. to see the new section of roof they've added.  

 Looking up at the roof over the girls room and Tommy's room. 

Bathroom wall and Tommy's wall in the back. 

 Tommy's room again.

 View of our back porch with a peek of the roof. :)

 Finally, the finished view of the back of the house. Tomorrow they will probably put the plywood roofing on top of the roof. Can't wait to see what happens! :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! At the end of November I decided to clean up our homeschool room and take some pictures, but it got a little crazy what with putting our house on the market and selling it, so since it's the new year, I thought I'd show off our spruced up Homeschool room, since the new year is all about clean starts, right?

Here is the view of the homeschool room once you reach the bottom of the stairs.

 Here is where we do school almost every day (sometimes we go upstairs, but it's usually down here). 

 This is our whiteboard. 

 I have our daily schedule posted at the top so I know what we should be doing next.

 I've also adapted the border to serve as a growth chart. The kids are loving it!

I also created a paper to show the kids how to "properly" color a paper so they can earn three stars too. Tommy didn't have the motivation to color as nicely as I thought he could, so when I saw this idea on Pinterest, I quickly created one for him and it works AWESOME for him. His coloring pages are SO much better now. :)

 This is my box of Teacher's manuals - and my kids are only in kindergarten and 1st grade! Crazy!

 I recently reorganized this closet to hold all of our school-related items and a few other non-school items. I love it now!

 The girls love playing in the kitchen here and selling food and toys to each other. 

 Behind the kitchen is another closet that I keep the kids school books and craft supplies. 

 Each kid has a stack of drawers with one drawer per subject so they know EXACTLY where to find their book. It isn't a flawless system, but it sure helps the kids get their schoolwork done quickly. 

 An example of what is kept in the Bible drawer. 

 I also gave each kid a notebook with a copy of their daily schedule. Each kid has a different schedule with a few things overlapping.  

 Inside each notebook, they have a calendar to cross off each day. I also included any special field trips or birthdays for the month so they can have something to look forward to. 

 Tommy has started loosing teeth, so I found this cute Tooth Tally Chart that I let him color in if he looses a tooth in that month. So far he's lost 2 teeth this school year, for a grand total of 6 lost teeth. 

 Then I've also included a blank map of the United States that we color in as we learn about each state. We sing the song "Fifty Nifty United States" and then I let them color a section of the coloring page for that state.  It takes about 3-4 days per state, but they seem to be enjoying it. 

 This is the playroom that the girls play in while Tommy finishes his seatwork. If he finishes early, he gets to play too. 

 This is where the kids turn in their "graded" papers so I can file it away. They also get to work on the date/weather/season on the magnet board. I'm amazed at how well they keep it up. 

 Next up, we have our reading nook. 

 I found this map at walmart and it is perfect for writing what date each state joined and the number in which they joined. We're actually going in alphabetical state order, not order in which they joined the US, since that's how the song does it. 

 The book shelf recently (as in today) got organized and labeled (I love my label maker). We'll see if it helps keep the books in a little better order. Probably won't, but it will at least help me put them back so I can feel sane. :)

 Our last stop is our calendar/morning board. 

 The kids LOVE this part of the day. We start with the number of days in school, followed by the Date/Make the Date. Then I let each kid choose a shape/animal/letter/color/attitude/state of the day. I also have a pictoral representation of the rule for which vowels go with K and C - in case you didn't know (I didn't), it's K goes with I and E, C goes with the other three. (A, O, U. )

What kind of fun things do you do for your kids education?