RumpusPlayDiscovery Room

This is for K.

Because she asked.

And I needed something to do.

Let's start in the corner, shall we?

Games!
Next to toys.

(er, the dartboard is a magnetic dartboard, no sharp points. 'Case you were wonderin'.)

Going clockwise to the next corner...
That would be music.Keyboard, bongos, cluster bells, maracas, tamborines, preschool piano, cymbals, guiro tone blocks, music disco box, cowbell, xylophone with sheet music, jinglebells, train whistle, and oatmeal box with drumsticks. Rat-a-tat-tat.

Two large bins - one sports stuff - balls, bowling, baseball mitts, etc...
And then vehicles - school buses, cars, airplanes, and so forth....

Moving toward...
Dress Up!
And pretend paraphernalia.Scarves hanging on the left - winter scarves and silk scarves.
Hats and arrows at the top. (The bow is hanging on the right side of the shelves.) A giant net, a doctor's kit, and puppets. Fancy stuff is next - make-up brushes, sherriff badges, diamonds, fancy beads, mirrors, and jewels. Belts and holsters in the red box. Bottom is a stack of clothes, and bumblebee rainboots. Hats Galore to the right. Oh - and One Purple Boa.

Next are the two bins for Thomas - one large one for track, and another large one for Gallant Old Engines...
Going around the corner - past the door - is the Building Station.Littlest Legos, Lincoln Logs, Jenga blocks, building wooden blocks and Marble Run chutes on the bottom.
Aah - now we come to the pretties.

Specialty papers (in the folders) and watercolors at the top. In the green basket are Mama's fancy's - oil pastels, my chalk pastels, my expensive coloured pencils, and my water color pencils. Out of reach, if you will. (Know that Madd, and Trev, when he wants them, has her/their own. I am not cruel, she just has different standards about what is acceptable condition for her art sticks than do I. She has two shelves of tools- paints, crayons, pencils, brushes, etc upstairs in the den!)
Next shelf is also art- beads (for Madd, but tiny ones, and out of reach) in the yellow tray/box, pens, pencils, tape, glue, glitter, etc in the blue shelves/tray/box thingy, mounted markers, and washable tempera paints.
Next up are the containers, with buttons, wooden shapes to be painted (or not), pompoms, and heavy paper shapes. Lots of clay in the wooden tray, pipecleaners, googly eyes, plastic strings, and other such fluff in the white boxes.
I made this myself, thank you.
Me (to Eric): "D'you know what this is for?"
Eric: "To keep them organized?"
A smiling/laughing me: "Well, that would be sort of excessive, wouldn't it? (But a fair guess.) "It's for keeping them intact, so the lids don't get lost."
Eric: "Ah, good idea! You're so smart!"
I can't take the credit, of course. Friend Teri has one, and DS offers them. I just didn't want to buy one...Next shelf is reading stuff - with trace-ables, workbooks, and alphabet ideas. Just in case anyone ever wants them. (Bought pre-unschooling - when Trev was three or so.) And a gorgeous wooden alphabet puzzle.

Bottom is the LiteBrite (couldn't fit it in the games section) and About Our World books. Egypt, archeology, pirates, Lincoln, different countries, national geographics (only a few, need to remedy that), etc.Next up is Math.
Scale, timer, abacus, peg puzzle games and jacks, magnets with giant bottle of filings :), pattern blocks, and math books. Then geometric shape building blocks, cuisenaires, one inch cube blocks, and dominoes. At the bottom are the puzzles and the tangrams. Meter stick hangs on the side.

Lastly is Science.
We have Helga, our rain gauge, our visible man (he needs to be rebuilt - with super-glue this time) and the microscope.
Next shelf holds our WildLife Fact File books, our dinosaur cards, and our animal cards. In the big green box is all of our microscope stuff - petrie dishes, slides, covers (I found them!) prepared slides, bluing, and eosine y, etc. The red box holds magnifying glasses, battery making stuff, prisms, and various sciency sorts of things. On the bottom are books, our plant press, and our physics kit. Bug catcher (one of several) hangs on the side.

Madd came down and played, after all.
It's a playing sort of room.