First Day of School

Today was our first official day back to school. I still haven't received all of my curriculum, but I wanted to get started anyway. This will be our 16th year homeschooling. Between that amount of time and the fact that my mother-in-law is a retired school teacher, we have more than enough materials. I could pretty much get by without ordering anything new. Even though our new stuff isn't here, we had a full day. I even managed to get my goofballs to smile a little ...

Then there is the obligatory homeschool-mom-teacher-selfie. UGH! I put the same picture on Instagram in black & white, which I think looks a little better. 

Below are a few photos of our classroom. It's in a walk-out basement. The room is large, so it's a great place for school. However, the pictures pretty much look the same from last year. I'll probably rearrange things in a year or so. That is, if the books don't take over the house.

I often have people telling me what a wonderful classroom I have, how organized I always seem to be, and what a great learning environment it is for the kids. Yeah, I guess so, but usually the room is a mess. We live in it. We learn in it. And in the summer time, it's pretty much neglected. I started working in it last week, but then put off doing anything over the holiday weekend. I had intentions of fixing it up, but never got to it. This is what it looked like just YESTERDAY ...

It's all cleaned up now. I got all the books organized and all the boxes and laundry put away. I was shocked I managed to do it in one day. Anyway, we are excited for the 2014-2015 year!