Getting the School Room Ready for the New School Year: Part 1

This past week has been blessedly quiet - our first truly quiet week of the summer.  My daughter started tapering for the Speedo Champions Series swim meet in our Section of the United States, so she didn't have any double practices all week.  After a summer of double practices 3 times a week, it was wonderful to have only one practice a day!

I did a lot of organizing and prepping for the new school year this past week with a focus on getting our school room in order.  I made a huge list of tasks that I wanted to accomplish in the school room and have been slowly working through the list.  Organizing and planning definitely take time!

So, what have I accomplished so far?  One of the biggest projects that I completed was to move all of the books on the low bookshelves below to another location.  The books are primarily picture books and nonfiction books for younger children arranged by topic.  While this arrangement was wonderful when the children were a bit younger, now only my youngest regularly pulls books from these shelves.  Therefore, I decided to move the books to make room for this year's curriculum, the children's independent reading books, and all of our history books for our Ancient History study this year.

I moved all of the books to our living room in our low cabinets under the bookcases.  Of course, to make room I had to go through all of the games that were currently stored there.  By culling some games that are much too young for our children now, and moving the rest; I was able to clear out ample space for the picture books and nonfiction books that I want to keep.  I did manage to cull a small box of books, but I kept almost all of the books.  Here are the books in their new location under the living room bookcases.

I also purchased a cozy rug for the area in front of the bookcases.  Hopefully, this will become a cozy place for the children and I to gather in the school room.  I still have more curriculum and independent reading books to move to the newly organized bookcases but I am quite pleased with the result. 

In addition to the big book-moving project, I reclaimed our dining room from new curriculum and end-of-school year assessment notebooks.

I also cleared off the small table in the school room by the workboxes.  I had been piling odds and ends there all summer.

Lastly, I put up the Ancient Egypt bulletin board set that I purchased from Amazon.  I just love the way it looks and the pictures have been getting my children excited about our Ancient History studies!

I still have lots of odds and ends I want to accomplish in the school room and with planning before the new school year starts for us on August 2nd.  But, I'm feeling quite positive about all that I've managed to get done so far!