OUR HOMESCHOOL / VIRTUAL SCHOOL SPACE

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It’s that time of year again! HOWWWW!?!?!?

Didn’t summer break JUST start?!

I don’t know about you, but August came QUICK, and I’m excited to share with you our homeschool/ virtual school/ I don’t know what in the world is going on or what I’m doing school areas! (insert emoji with girl holding her hands up saying “I don’t know” here)

I truly don’t know if we’ll ever go to school in person this year, and I know many of you are in the same boat, but please know that whatever you are doing or end up doing - you’re doing the right thing.

There are SO many opinions out there, and at the end of the day, you just gotta take them with a grain of salt and do what’s best for your family. Sure, yes listen, hear people out, and be open minded to others, but…

Nobody knows your family better than you.

So, here’s my opinion…Make a decision, stand firm on it, and own it. You gotta do what’s best for your people.

Soooooo let’s get to it!

 

We’ll be doing a hybrid between mama taught homeschool, virtual school (with two a day mandatory zoom sessions with a teacher), and therapy. It’ll be crazy, but we will ALL get through it and be stronger on the other side! (I think teehee)

First up is our main school table (which just so happens to be in our master bedroom). Nothing fancy, just an IKEA table, with some cute things on top to make it feel a little less boring.

I’ll link as much as I can towards the middle of this blog post if you keep reading! (The chalkboard itself was a DIY by Blake, just simple chalkboard from Home Depot + a cut / stained frame)

 
 
 

Like this! (And then I store the other ones in a little baggy below the board)

I used a cork board so I can just screw in little eye hooks and hang bags from them for easy grab and go!

I’ll share the items hanging from them below! It’s the weather board items, a compass, block numbers, my printable circles, a cloth + permanent markers, shapes and colors!

 
 

Here’ my big girl in action at her first day of mama’s school!

 
 

They did their schoolwork yesterday and today, which involved the letter A/B, the sound A/Bmakes, what starts with A/B, the shapes in the words we drew, the color of those items, the date of the day and a few other fun ideas.

This worked great for the girls and was easy for me to guide as well. We’ll do a new letter each day to guide the work.

Off of the calendar board, they also did weather, days of the week, and learned N, S, E, W and left and right, which we’ll continue working every day.

 

And because they did their work, they each got to select a sticker for their individual charts!

I got a bunch of stickers from Hobby Lobby and Target so it’s a fun process to let them choose a sticker each day.

 

This is the playroom closet that holds allllll of our activity bins. These bins have items like coloring books, paints + canvases, puzzles, legos, playdoh, kinetic sand, magnets, music supplies, fine motor activities, coin counting, flash cards, and more!

I highly recommend having an activity closet (or area) somewhere in your house that allows you to keep these items in one place and organized. It’ll help you keep inventory of what you have, and don’t have, and allow you to pull things out on rotation so kids don’t get tired of a certain activity. We also pull these bins out to take with us when traveling!

The girls know this is the “ask before you open the doors” closet, so they aren’t allowed to pull anything out of here themselves. It’s like the special closet! Which makes it super fun and exciting for them.

As far as sources: the chairs were a yard sale find, the baskets are a mix of IKEA, target and Home Goods, and the pink bins are Target and Walmart.

We’ll be using this closet a lot for homeschool, because there’s so many educational items in here, many of which you can see below!

 
 

And now for the good stuff!

SIMPLY CLICK ON THE NUMBER BELOW AND IT’LL TAKE YOU DIRECTLY TO THE LINK FOR THE PRODUCT SHOWN ABOVE!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Here’s what I love about each!

  1. The girls have bookbags, but I got the purple one for myself this year and LOVE IT!!! especially for $20! The colors + simplicity are outstanding!

  2. We’ve had our same name stickers for three years now! I love that so many come on a sheet and we can use them for so much! Bookbags, bento boxes, water bottles, clothes etc! They’re dishwasher safe too and many can be thrown in the washing machine!

  3. I wanted a “treasure chest” for the girls that held our stickers + treasure box items and the caboodle works perfectly!!! It also brings me all the 90s nostalgia, so I’m not mad about that.

  4. We love using these clear folders to trace on! I’ll put a sheet underneath the clear part with my letters or numbers and they trace over them with marker and it’s easily wiped off so they can use it over and over again. It’s really great to teach littles how to stay on the dotted lines! And there’s a bunch in one pack!

  5. One of my favorite purchases for this school year were these wooden block numbers! I’m a sucker for wood items, and these work perfectly for teaching at home!

  6. I love both of these sets of highlighters! They work great for myself and for the girls. The colors and style are so fun! Here’s one and here’s two.

  7. We’ve had this clock for over a year and the girls adore it! It’s great for teaching the girls numbers and the concept of time! A great gift option!

  8. I don’t have these exact crates, but I have similar ones and I love them for school storage or craft storage! I do LOVE the colors these come in!

  9. Our FAVORITE sunscreen that I ALWAYS ALWAYS rave about!! The girls use this on their face nearly every day, and they both have sensitive skin / eczema issues yet they don’t have any problems with these! I also use this on my face!

  10. Another favorite purchase this year was our home weather station! It’s great for teaching the kids basic concept of weather!

  11. We LOVE these masks for the girls cause they actually cover their mouth and nose AND the ear parts are adjustable which is perfect for kids with smaller or bigger faces! Plus the tie dye pattern is so trendy right now!

  12. Y’all know I LOVE my bento boxes, and we have a million of them, but these are some of our favorites! I love pairing these with our custom name stickers and the girls love eating out of these! They’re great for preparing lunch the night before too!

  13. Our FAVORITE crayons in the whole wide world! Pricier but so WORTH IT in our opinion. They are washable, non toxic, and the colors are superb. They last a long time too!!!

  14. The girls have had these bookbags for 2 years now and they’re still practically brand new! The colors are incredible. Pricey, yes…but I plan on these lasting a very long time for them!

  15. We’ve also had these water bottles a couple years now and they’re still holding up strong! Also paired well with the name stickers, and I love that they keep their water cool on these hot Texas days!

  16. My number one most recommended tool for teaching numbers and math!! This has been on our Christmas gift ideas the last couple years and so many of yall rave about it. It’s great for teaching simple math!

  17. We got the girls new tablet cases this year, and I love both of these! The colors are simple, the style is cute, and the ports are all easily accessible for the girls!

    Here’s the bear one, and here’s the other brown one.

  18. This store has the CUTEST pencil cases I’ve seen this year and there’s so many options at great prices! Here’s a couple of our favorites!

  19. I’m a sucker for reusable utensil cases for the girls to save on plastic, to ensure the girls don’t get hurt with metal ones, and cause they’re just super cute. LOVE the color options of these + they’re a great price and come with chopsticks! Yes!

  20. We have the letters from Bacon Bit Co, but if you can’t find those in stock, this set is a great option that we have too! I love the colors and the wood block style!

  21. Our favorite headphones for the girls while we’re traveling and if the girls need to listen to something on their tablets for schoolwork!

  22. These pencil sharpeners are just adorable! Nothing else to say! They love them!

  23. We play with watercolors nearly every single day, so I’m all about watercolor sets. They’re generally mess free / have little cleanup / have all the colors in one spot, and just work great for littles to explore their creativity!

  24. My NUMBER ONE favorite item we purchased this year were these lunchboxes. I’ve been on a cute lunchbox hunt for sooooo long and finally found these adorable ones that I’m obsessed with! I plan on the girls keeping these for a long time!

  25. This store also has the cutest little notebooks for the girls! So many cute cover options for kids and adults too!

 

Here’s a look at most of those items here! Some are variations of those items, but very similar!

 
 

The girls’ lunchboxes and bookbags stay on their letter hooks in the hallway by their room for them to grab and go.

Here’s some hooks similar to ours!

 
 

And these are the baskets I gave to the girls to kick off the 2020-2021 school year!!!

 

I mean really?!?! Does it get any cuter than little kids with scrunched noses in blue light glasses? heheh

 

And my sweet big girl with her two missing teeth! How did she get so big?!?!

 
 

Well, there ya have it! That’s how we’ll be attacking this school year, until the next curve ball comes our way.

Remember, you don’t have to make anything over the top, and really - YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE ANYTHING AT ALL. Just do what will put a smile on you + your littles’ faces, and for us, this makes us smile.

We just wanna make some memories with what we’ve got.

If you wanna reference this post, be sure to pin this image above or any image throughout the post to come back to! That way you’ll always know where to find it.

HAPPY SCHOOLING FRIENDS!

XX, Amy