Homeschool Beginnings

"Begin at the beginning,", the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."  -Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

So we are lucky enough to be able to start homeschooling our younger two kids at the beginning of their learning "career".  I can't express to you just how excited I am to have the chance to help my daughters become life-long learners, rather than just a memorizer of information, to pass a standardized test.

Right now, we are learning our letters and numbers.  At 2.5, she "knows" them all, but only by rote.  So in an effort to get her ready for phonics, we will be doing a kind-of relaxed "Alpha-Boot Camp" to get her familiar with each letter and learn to recognize them, and to grasp the concept that the numbers stand for something.

Family message center

Just showing off our new FAMILY MESSAGE CENTER!

Total Cost: under $4

click the picture to see it bigger!

I wanted a place to gather all the info that my family needs: phone numbers, appointments, menu plans and such.  But I think those organizers at the store are so boring and ugly!  So I decided to make one for myself.  I wish I could remember what blog I saw this idea on, I would link it.  (14 May 2001: I saw it on Redheads Craft More Fun)

This one is nice and WAY cheaper than the store bought ones - I made it with some scrap fabric from the attic and a garage sale frame.  If you go out looking for a used frame to do this with, make SURE that its made of SMOOTH GLASS and not plexiglas or that textured no-glare stuff.  Those NEVER come clean!

I took the old (UGLY) art out of the frame and covered the backer board with fabric.  I just pulled it taut and taped it on the back, so that if I ever want to change the background I can.  I'm TOTALLY looking forward to being able to change it for the holidays or the seasons! 

The parts that you write over are just plain typing paper that I drew a calendar on and a 7-space "list" on, and cut a bit of construction paper a little bigger than to make it stand out a bit better.  I added the phone list at the top and the notes oval at the bottom and cut a fancy design in the black frame of the oval.  I glued the typing paper to their respective frames, but the paper is only tacked to the fabric with a little dab of glue stick, just to keep them from sliding.

Being that this is glass sheet in a frame, I can use BOTH dry erase markers and wet erase markers on it, which makes it easy to change the stuff that I want to change frequently (like the weekly planner there on the bottom left, or a honey-do list) and keep the stuff that I don't want to change semi-permanent (like the calendar or the phone number for my obstetrician!)

Stuff that's permanent (the school attendance line, our cell phone numbers and the squares for the blank calendar) I put UNDER the glass on the typing paper.  If that stuff ever changes, I can open the frame up pretty easily and swap the paper out for an updated one!

Super easy, this project took about 2 hours total (and that's because I spent a lot of time cutting the fancy shapes in black paper and hand-drawing the calendar blank) and super frugal since I used scrap fabric from the attic and a $3 garage sale frame!

I would LOVE to see if anyone else makes one for themselves!  If you do, post a link in my comments!

-The Messy (but a little more organized) Mommy