An excess of priceless masterpieces

Blogging fell by the wayside the past few days as we completed our first week of the new school year. The first week is always full of experimenting... Experimenting with schedules and methods and materials and organizational tactics.

But since this is our third year of homeschool - we had a lot less of the good-idea-in-theory gone-bad-in-practice experience this time than we usually have. Our kitchen closet cubicles & coat hooks have turned out even better than expected as far as keeping everything neat and where we can find it - and I find it amazing how much use we all get out of this one space in the house that was once essentially wasted.

However - I'm teaching 4 out of 5 kids this year. The two youngest presented me with a new challenge: Give a 3 year old and a 4 year old a few crayons and priceless masterpieces are mass-produced in a matter of hours. Priceless masterpieces must be prominently displayed... but... uh where & how? Stainless steel refrigerators were definitely not created for young children (I won't even talk about the losing battle with precious hand-prints.) -- magnets don't stick... and marring the stainless surface with scotch tape is cost-prohibitive in the long run.

When I told Dave my solution he squinted one eye, cocked his head, and forced a smile. He does this from time to time when he's sure I've lost my mind but doesn't want to tell me. (I'm never sure if he doesn't want to tell me because he loves me and feels sorry for me - or because he's afraid of me since I have lost my mind.) But! Now that it's all in place I think he quite likes it.. and I do too.

I used 12"x12" cork tiles and our unused kitchen dining wall - in the area where we just so happen to do most of our homeschool projects - and with a square, a ruler, and a laser level had a cool place for displaying the kids' artwork in under 30 minutes.


So it's not the bathroom floor - but at least we tackled and completed one project so far this weekend!