(A quick side note before I jump right in here…..Sheesh!  I’ve been trying to blog since Sunday night.  We started back-to-school on Monday…more on that later…and I have not had a spare minute since it seems.  Sorry.  I think I am going to have to start getting up at 4:30am to blog.  Or maybe hire a nanny.  I’m not sure, but I’m going to find a way to be on here more regularly!  Promise!)

Okay, now on to business…

This week the theme for the Not-Back-to-School-Blog-Hop is school rooms.  I have had a lot of fun perusing the pictures that everyone has posted of their rooms and such.

We are trying something new this year…the dining room table.

I have never liked the idea of doing school at the table.  Mainly because before Cap’n Jack Henry came along and took up a lot of our space, we had a whole bull-honkin’ school room.  I also didn’t want my dining room/kitchen space to look like this all day long….

But this is the way it has to be for right now.  As you can see, our living room (in the background) is home to much of Jack Henry’s “stuff”, so it just makes sense for us to be down here where he can be entertained.  The kids and I all have totes that we keep the books and manuals that we will need for the day, so it makes clean-up in the afternoons easy.

The above was a picture from our first day back to school.  It went fairly smoothly.  We only had two major meltdowns.  Jack Henry did great.  He spent part of his day at the table with us eating reading a book.

I found a little basket that we already had and filled it with small plastic cups.  It made a great table organizer for all the odds and ends that we need throughout the day.

Chalk?  Chalk?!  Why would we need chalk?  Well, because this messy area is going to be a wall chalkboard by next week…

Yep!  The whole wall…I can’t wait.  That area has been a dead zone in our house for a while, a total catch-all for clutter and junk.  Now, at least it will be functional.

Of course even with all the new bells and whistles of the dining room, the kids still find other places to hang out and do their work.

There’s our loft, complete with overflowing bookshelves and the comfy denim furniture…

Both of them have their own desks in their rooms where some work gets done…

Above is Bonny Annie’s desk, obviously.  I’m not the only pirate fan around here, you can see.  It’s in our blood. 

I’m sorry I can’t show you Dirty Harry’s desk.  It is…well…umm…dirty.

They also like to read in their beds.

Bonny Annie again.  I could show you Dirty Harry’s bed, but then I’d have to shoot you.

And then, finally, one of my students occasionally does his lessons on the sofa….

Sorta.

Good gravy.  I can NEVER send that one off to school, can I?