Truth is I didn't feel like waiting anymore to share! LOL I was just WAY too excited with all of our hard work and changes that I just had to share!
As you know from a previous post my beloved grandmother recently passed away. I didn't even have to think in order to know what to do with the inheritance that she left me. She was such a driving force in my own education and love of learning I wanted her to always be a part of learning and education in our home and the lives of our children so it was through her that this schoolroom was built.
The first order of business was figuring out shelving. I hated all the cheap fiberboard walmart shelving we had before and the general closed in feeling of the schoolroom. After looking around I fell in love with and decided on using the Ivar shelving from Ikea. Not only are they unfinished REAL wood they are inexpensive, beautiful and easy to assemble! We also went with Ikea for my new desk (expidet with desk attachment), the computer table (kritter w/ matching chair), the practical life cubbies (expidet on it's side) and the pre existing personal cubbies under our TV is also an expidet from Ikea. I also found this awesome set of small wooden boxes (set of 3m 2 smaller and 1 large) that work PERFECT for displaying material on the shelves in a really pretty way!
Second was to order tons of beautiful Montessori materials! This was soooo much fun for me and something I have always wanted to do! I ordered the bulk of my materials from; Montessori Outlet, Kid Advance, Ifit Montessori Alison's Montessori and Caliber Montessori. I researched, thought about it, slept on it and came up with my list of materials I wanted in our classroom. I then also figured out what I would make and what I would buy. I also went onto Montessori Print Shop and collected the printables I wanted to use in our classroom and began the work of printing, laminating and cutting out the materials. All in all so far I would say I have printed, laminated and cut out close to 1000 sheets of paper! I took a very long time but I figured it would be worth it to have the bulk done and ready for use.
I also put our lovely virco desks in the basement! Really we don't use them and I thought long and hard about it and didn't feel them to be necessary as we are not aiming to replicate a B&M school. T opted to keep his though so we put it in his room so he has a place to work alone if he chooses.
So without further ado here is our new Montessori inspired classroom!
The hubby put up the tapestries to span the gap between the knee wall and the ceiling because T kept looking over the knee wall down the stairs and it made us very nervous! Turns out they are gorgeous up and we love them! The yellow map hung on the knee wall is loop material so you can velcro things to it! I plan on making lots of laminated items to put up as we study geography!
The view from my desk towards the Montessori shelves. You can see the Ikea futon we have here in front of our school TV as well as my blue teacher's cabinet and the drawers I keep my step daughters' afterschool supplies in. You can also see the higher up shelving my awesome hubby put up for me. Up there lives educational board games, science books, history encyclopedias, T's keyboard, a few science kits and my Montessori albums.
Our homeschool TV area. We watch our documentaries here, T does his piano lessons here, master reader is done here. You can also see the boys' personal cubbies that have their supplies in them ( yes I color coordinate my children)
This expidet is where our practical life trays live. I try and cycle them out frequently so they do not get too old.
Here you can see the window side of the schoolroom as well as the grammar farm that lives on the rug in the middle of the room.
These are our language shelves. The bins above hold our printable materials for grammar and the pink, blue and green language series. The left shelf has pink, blue and green materials on the top shelves. The bottom shelves is the grammar materials. The right shelves hold our metal insets, sandpaper letters. melissa and doug letter matching puzzles and a box of latin readers.
These shelves are our sensorial materials. On the top shelf lives our plants then come our geometric shapes and geometry cabinet. One shelf down is the pink tower, brown stair and a box holding blindfolds. The shelf below holds knobless cylinders, color boxes 1, 2 and 3. Bottom shelf has the toddler pink tower ( brown stair is currently downstairs). The corner shelf has our CD player on top ( we have classical music, guided meditation cds and such in our CD player at all times. On the shelves there are our geometric nomenclature, Kaleidoscope, pressure cylinders, touch tablets, sound cylinders, constructive triangles and on the bottom shelf live our knobbed cylinder blocks.
Here is a better view of our art corner. The easel is from Ikea as are the smocks hung on the wall and the bygel rails that hold supplies in colorful cups. The blue cart to the left holds the free use supplies so the kids can easily get to them. I have a mat on the floor to make cleanup simple as you can just wipe it off! The basket holds our work rugs and meditation cushions.
This is our map stand and maps. I got the stand and 4 of the maps for a killer deal from Caliber Montessori who is going our of business and was liquidating their stock and ridiculously cheap prices! I plan on remaking the flags for our flag map because it really bothers me to have plastic flags with all of the beautiful wooden stuff all around! on the floor under the stand lives our world map and the control maps for each of our maps. On each side of the stand lives our long red rods and our number rods.
To the right is our art cabinet which has magnet locks on the doors. I keep the bulk supplies in here as well as supplies that require more supervision. The shelf above lives all our art paper and on top pf that is our spinning organizer with scrapbooking scissors, glue and art pencil case. there is also some paint pallets and for the moment our wooden science tray.
Squee Montessori math oh how I love thee! Bygel rails hold calculators, pencils ect. You can see all of our math materials here. Most I bought however there are a few home made materials here as well like the addition charts, teen & tens boards, spindle boxes and the checkerboard. I will come back later and add here what is all on the shelves but for now we'll leave it at math materials LOL
More math shelves and the little shelf with our continent boxes on it. GASP yes I know there are a few plastic items here LOL.
Our cultural/geography shelves. On the bottom you can see two of my homemade land and water form trays. On the top shelf, the bear is from Harrods in London and the panda my brother brought back from China.
So there you have it our brand new Montessori classroom! I am so in love and have a hard time not wanting to be in the room all day long!
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Wow, very nice room!! :)
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