Not Back to School

I have been having so much fun over on the Not Back to School Blog hop at iHomeschool network.  I decided to participate but as usual I am a little late so I am including my curriculum and school room all in the same post.

Well, it is that time of year again, school time.  I was sooooo done with school last year, I think I was ready for summer around Christmastime.  I am equally as ready for the new school year to start now.  I am ready for routines and excited for what we are going to be learning this year.  Last year I bought a boxed curriculum for the girls thinking it would be easier with the new baby and while I am sure it was easier, it was boring and the girls and I were pretty uninspired all year.  Each day seemed to be just about getting school done and not enjoying it at all.
This year we are starting history at the very beginning-creation.  I am using My Fathers World Creation to the Greeks for history, science and Bible for my second and fifth grader.  We have done it for two days so far and are really enjoying it.
For reading/literature the girls are just going to be reading real books and we will be practicing narration and book reports.  Ellie is starting with Treasure Island and Emma is reading the first Ivy and Bean book.  We will be reading books that pertain more to our history time period along with other good reads as well.  Emma will continue working on her phonics as well, I am actually ordering something for that today, not sure what yet.
For grammar Ellie is using the fifth grade grammar book from Abeka, Emma will be finishing her 2nd grade book (Bob Jones) from last year as we did not do much in it.
Ellie is going to be using Institute for Excellence in Writing this year, I am really excited about this as I have heard it is great for moms too.
For math we are using Teaching Textbooks this year.  It is our first year with this and the girls are a little apprehensive about doing their math on the computer but I am thinking it will be a great help to me as we will have another new baby and I have a three year old and one year old to chase as well!
Ok, so that is our curriculum this year, now for our school room.  I did not change much from last year, I added drawers for our daily work and I think that is going to be a big help organization wise.
We do school in our family room, luckily it is a big enough area to have a large bookcase (the ikea expedite) and table along with our family area.  We do not do school just at the table, we start our day on the floor on the carpet all together and we do a fair amount of reading cozied on the couch.

And for the sake of honesty, our family/ school room is rarely this clean!!!!

You can see read about other great school rooms and curriculum at iHomeschool Network.