House Tour - Our New Classroom

It took me a while, but I finally got our new classroom ready for learning.  In our old house, when we decided to do the Montessori curriculum we just worked with what we already had.  In this new house, we had a blank slate to work with and it was a really fun experience to set up the new curriculum.  We set up different areas for each of the areas of the curriculum.  I didn't set up an area for math since that doesn't start until late in the first year.  The first year is very heavy in the practical life curriculum, so I dedicated the math shelf to that instead.  So, without further ado, a tour of our new classroom (to tour Bella's bedroom click here, to tour our entryway click here, to tour our master bedroom click here, to tour our guest bedroom click here).

You'll notice the nice big windows that give us lots of opportunities for natural light and an awesome view.  This is from when we toured the house initially, so it's a 'before' shot:

Here is what walking in looks like now:

I put the table and her chairs right in front of those windows to give her the best workspace.

To the immediate right when you walk through the door is the area dedicated to geography.

 I set up our calendar (I had to remake the numbers and such since the movers lost the original ones), the globe, the land/water/air containers, some flags, and the little house that was a gift from her godparents when they went to Guatamala.  I'm planning on changing out what is inside so it will have little cultural artifacts from various places around the world we can talk about.  Right now it has some weather sticks which we've been adding to the calendar to note the weather each day and an African elephant, which we've discussed in some detail now.

To the left of the door is this wall:

The left half is the sensory section and the right side is the language arts section.  The sensoral cubes contain some touch boards (top far left), touch fabrics (top center left), color tablets (bottom far left), and 2 sets of sound shaker cylinders that she's just started working with (bottom center left).  The language cubes contain 3 different sound object boxes (top right cubes and bottom center right) and the materials for using the metal insets on the top of the shelf (paper and a color pencil).  The sound object boxes that are currently there are A, G and S.  (For more on what is in each box, check out this post) The white checked on the top of the shelf to the left is our placemats for messier activities.  The door to the right leads to my new teacher's supply closet (such a luxury) and a bathroom which is convenient for water activities.

The wall to the left contains shelves of practical life activies:

 From top left to right then going to the middle and lowest row: cleaning up a spill, sorting shapes, a basket with 5 starfish and 5 urchins to organize and sort and count, a telephone to practice telephone manners, a piggy bank to practice fine motor skills and also to begin discussing various types of money, clipping clothespins, cutting paper with scissors, cutting vegetables with a knife, stringing beads.  The tray on top is now on the floor being used to collect things from our outdoor nature time.  Her work mat lives between these 2 shelves.

Using tweezers, an alphabet puzzle, pouring water, stacking cubes, tissue for blowing her nose, and then pouring dry goods (currently plastic jewels that she is enamored with).  On top of this shelf is my bell for starting and stopping class, a lamp and a glass candle holder that I just like a lot.  Just to the right of that shelf is a basket with a few selected musical instruments:

I plan on switching this up a bit, but I'm trying to keep these instruments more 'musical' rather than just 'noisy.'

To the right of her little table is a reading basket:

So there it is, our new classroom!  What do you think?