I spent an hour last night rearranging the furniture in our classroom (Ryan wasn’t too happy to find out that I moved the dresser/changing table by myself–I told him I was going to be moving furniture–I don’t know what he thought I meant by that?) and three hours (yes, you read that right, three!) tonight punching stuff out and hanging stuff on the walls.  You don’t realize how many little pieces a calendar set or a “count down to the 100th day doodlebug” set have until you start punching them all out!  I’m really starting to feel like a teacher with all the work I’m putting into this!

Anyway, with the exception of two things, I believe my school room is finished now.  I’m waiting on a second markable map that I ordered from Sonlight–I decided I wanted to just hang it on the wall, and I want to have one side permanently on the U.S., and one on the world, so I need two maps.  (Already, we have one map going mapping the Ingalls journey across the country as we read the Little House books, and I’m going to start a world map “journey of the Olympic torch” as soon as we get the other map.)

I also want to get a church year calendar from CPH.  Getting it isn’t the problem, but deciding when to hang it is a bit tricky.  I don’t need the 2009 one yet, but I also don’t think I’m going to hang a 2008 one at this late date, so I have to decide if I’m going to hang the next one early, or wait until closer to the start of the church year to put it up.  If I do hang it early, we can at least talk about the seasons and festivals of the church year, even if the dates aren’t right.

So, the room is set up.  I moved the bed to one side (it will have to be moved out for guests, but that’s easy enough with the wheels), and put the changing table in the closet, which actually makes sense to me, and creates a nice little separate changing room. There are two bookcases up there, each about half full, and, for the most part, organized.  I have the lamp, phone, CD player and bell arranged on top of the bookcases the way I want them.  The card table and two chairs are set up for my students.  I hung an alphabet and number line around the top of the room on two walls, and hung up the one map I have, marking a space for the other one.  The calendar is up, although I’m not going to put the numbers on until August.  I hung up a clock and the main body of our countdown doodlebug.  I may even post a picture of the room after I get the other map hung up, but no promises.

Wow, I’ve been busy!  I’m still not positive I have all the supplies/curriculum I want/need, but I have enough to get started, and I’ve even written down a daily schedule, which I hope we’ll be able to stick to pretty well. We’re all so excited about this–Turkey and Bunny have watched every step of the way as I’ve tackled this project.  It’s going to be so fun!