Making a New Home

It has been a busy few days... we got the keys to our new rental home and have started unpacking in our new home.  With everything going on (cleaning, unpacking, locating our stuff in unlabeled boxes, etc.) not much organized learning is happening.  But the "as-it-happens" learning is filling our world. 

Bug has been working hard to help us unpack in the most unreasonable manner possible but he is having a ball at it.  He is also becoming quite the little helper when it comes to finding Peanuts' paci and diapers.  Not to mention, we are learning to put toys away when we are done with them.  It can be a struggle but I see this as preparing him for his new time with our Montessori focused toys/ activities.

Peanut is growing and learning by leaps and bounds.  She is alert to everything I am presenting her with.  She is starting to figure out the Ball Game I purchased from Alison's Montessori.  It took about a week after I first introduced her to this activity for her to move beyond investigating just the ball.  She's moved on to investigating the box and has accidentally dropped the ball into it a few times but she hasn't married the two together yet.  It is so amazing watching her learn.

As part of the "moving in,"  I have been seriously considering where and how I am going to create a separate learning and play space.  Learning space being our combo Montessori/Traditional classroom and play space being our area of useless toys that we have acquired and Bug can't live without.

This space is a formal dining room to the back of the formal living room.  The rooms gets great natural light from the large side and back windows.  The side window would work awesome for a nature area as it overlooks a bush/tree that seems to be visited often by birds and butterflies.  It also gets enough light to accommodate a plant.  The only downside is that the room has unobstructed openings to the formal living room and kitchen, which harbor distractions.  To deal with this, I am going to attempt to hang curtains from the ceiling to partition the "learning" space.



This photo shows the Family room where we will have our "play" space.  There are great cabinets along the wall and bookcases where we can organize and stash the toys when Bug is not playing with them. 

There is also a kitchen island just out of the forefront of this picture.  It does not have a bar overhang so I plan to put a stand-alone kitchen cabinet and wash table against it for Bug's kid-sized dishes.

I have a lot to do to get our "environment" ready but I am ready and I can tell that Bug is as well. Hopefully moving in will be swift and relatively painless.