Well, we spent a few of our "sick" days going through every room in our house. We got rid of all the toys, books, clothes, and other misc items that we just aren't using, or don't promote the "feeling" or goals our family wants to focus on. The seminar said, and this is especially important for home schooling families focusing on leadership education, that the family room where we do the bulk of our studying should be void of distractions from learning- tv, computer, video games, etc. They suggested all of those electronics be put in a separate entertainment room. Other great suggestions such as a large area for the younger children to spread out and play, comfortable seating to fuel discussions and lots of reading, and of course, books, books, and more books should be in this room! They also suggested we have a learning closet in our family room where all of the "learning" activities are kept. It all made sense...but when you live in a small apartment and only have ONE room... it could get a bit trickier!
But we figured it out, and here is the result:
Our New and Improved Family Room
The feeling has completely changed in this room. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed not having the computer or a television in this area. It makes it much easier for us to curl up with a book, then turn on a show or play around on the Internet. Not that those things are necessarily bad, but they don't foster the goals of leadership and learning that we want to be prevalent MOST of the time. And when we really want or need those things, we just head upstairs (we moved the computer to our bedroom).
Now they were pretty specific about bookshelves as well. According to the Thomas Jefferson Education model, there are phases that children and adults go through to learn that require different levels and topics of study. The first phase is the Core phase which is roughly ages 0-8, followed by the Love of Learning phase which is roughly 8-12, and then Scholar phase which encompasses much of your teen and adult years in different scopes. So, we created bookshelves to accommodate each phase. The boys have their own Core shelf, Savanna has a Love of Learning Shelf, and right now James and I keep all of our books on our Scholar shelf. This may seem a bit unnecessary and rather boring to read about, but trust me, when you are schooling your children and they come to you and say, "I don't know what to do!" and you can just point and say you can read or do anything on that entire shelf- it is helpful! Plus, the younger children look at the older shelves and anticipate being ready to read and study those some time in the future. They see us and their older siblings pulling books off those shelves and they want to do that as well.
Here is the boys' Core shelf. It looks pretty tidy in this picture, but it did not last long. And that's okay! Another perk to them having their own shelf. They can put all their books any way they like. Plus, I hid it around the corner so it isn't an eye sore (hence the vacuum!). Their bookshelf mainly consist of books about values, right and wrong, good and bad, and true and false. There are many great classic children's books and adaptations. We hope to add greatly to this shelf.
My pictures got out of order, but here is our learning closet. I couldn't get the entire closet in one shot, so see below for the upper half! The kids LOVE having all their stuff out and accessible. All of this stuff was crammed in their closets and we didn't use half of it- out of sight, out of mind. Since we have done this, they have played with almost everything in this closet and are having a blast and learning a ton. The other trick to this learning closet, which I highly recommend, is a lock- yep, we have our structured "learning time" from 8am-1pm daily. After that the closet it locked, and they can play with their other toys or do other activities. It kind of sets it a part as special and they look forward to the morning when it is opened. It also keeps it from being completely destroyed when I busy upstairs, like right now!
Back to our bookshelves: Here is our Scholar shelf.
These next two are both Love of Learning shelves. The deal with Love of Learning is that this is the period in a person's life where they develop a love for all learning. So, there is no order to a LoL shelf. Nothing is alphabetized and it is definitely not sorted by topic. When a child/person wants to learn something, they have to go through all the titles discovering many things they might not have if they were simply looking for a specific book or subject. Sneaky, eh? It is working too!
Oh, I had to throw this in there. I am most excited about the new pantry I got out of this whole deal! Finally a place to put all of my stuff!
Since we organized our home and decluttered, the feeling and level of learning has sky rocketed. James and I will come downstairs and find learning going on at all times of the day- especially in the evening! Instead of the computer or tv on, the kids are playing together, reading to each other, practicing skills- it is SO amazing what a little change in furniture and possessions can do! Another topic the seminar pointed out which I never really thought of before: Evenings are a great resource for families wanting to increase inspiration and learning in their homes. If you think about it, almost all the big events- political, social, business-related, etc.- are held in the evening. That's because there is power in the evenings. And I can attest that creating an environment that uses this power to fuel bonding and education has turned our evenings from robotic (staring at the tube) and boring, to lively and fun! And I've caught some of the action- just see for yourself!
(Yes, there is a tv back there- but we don't have cable and it is only there for our p90x workouts- there isn't enough room to work out upstairs or the tv would have been a goner too!)
11-12-2209-11-21-2009
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