Creating a Home School Environment

We have just finished our second week in Home School and all, at the moment, is going well; more to follow on the blog about what we are doing this term.

If you have been following our journey for a while now you will know that Home Schooling is very unique and usually goes with what works independently for the family involved. Despite this I did do a post earlier this year on the different styles available in Home Education.

Our chosen style is basically built around Relaxed Home Education:

Relaxed Home Education is the style apparently used most often by home schoolers. Basically, the children do a little of everything, using workbooks for Math, Reading, and Spelling, and taking an Unschooling approach for the other subjects.

The advantage of this method is that the parent feels that the subjects they believe are most important are covered thoroughly. This method also allows the family to choose textbooks, field trips, and classes that fit their needs and interests.

This is slightly left of the typical view of Home School usually seen as a school at home where you see a photo of children studying around table throughout the day; we only formally sit for Numeracy and Literacy.

One thing that is often presumed is that you need to have a formal classroom to home school; however, many families find that their learning takes place in nearly every room in the house. Other families find that having a space set-aside for learning helps them to focus and allows them ready access to on-going projects.

This then creates a dilemma on where to school from. For us, and living in a small home, I didn't feel comfortable turning the whole place into a learning environment. I wanted a place where we can still be a family and relax therefore I instantly dismissed the idea of the Bedrooms and the Lounge.

When you first begin thinking about homeschooling, it can be helpful to remember that most homes with children already have many resources for learning. Books and maps, puzzles, measuring cups and dice, art supplies, paper, pencils and pens. These are just some of the resources that form a foundation of having children let alone used for homeschooling. Practicality I found was key. For example: Access to a kitchen and running water can make simple science and art activities fun and clean-up easy.

With all of this in mind the best option for us seemed to be the Dinning area.

To then take a formal environment and try to make it engaging here are a few things that I have done:

Arts and Crafts

We have a dedicated area for writing materials like pencils, rulers and rubbers. This is then expanded into colouring pencils and paint/brushes. Below this you will also find a box full of craft items ready to be upcycled. We also have some stacked draws that hold coloured card and paper that is clearly labelled.

An area with simple art supplies your child can reach makes it easy for them to illustrate a story or work on writing skills. This then extends to using different crafts within our subjects. All at arms reach.

Reading

To make reading more enjoyable and relaxed we have made a comfortable corner. Here you will find a selection of free reading books as well as schooled level book; in this case we have a selection from the Oxford Reading Tree, following the adventures of Biff and Chip.

To make this a more relaxed event I have placed a Bean Bag and a couple of cushions to creating a comfortable area.

Engaging activities

Having a routine in place I feel is really important. There is a lot of debate around how to start learning when you have home distractions and I have learnt from experience that this can be true.

For us, I have built a simple and engaging task to get us talking and thinking before we sit and start our work. In this example I recently purchased a "Today" Chart. So the first thing we do everyday is discuss what the day is, the date and month, and then the season and weather. There are elements here that are learning through investigation; however this simple routine is built in and gives us a kick start.

The chart itself is fun and the boys are always keen to complete it every morning as for them it is bright, colourful and offers some creativity. This can be replicated in many different forms but its main purpose is to decrease some formality of a dinning area into a free learning space.

Numeracy and Literacy

There is also the concept of utilizing the wall space to highlight and enhance the traditional sit down subjects.

Posters are great for this. Here you will see that we have Numeracy posters that will be included in some of our sub topics; this reinforces and supports as additional teaching aids.

I have also created a word wall: This at the moment features high frequency words used in KS1. Again, like the posters, this enhances lessons and doubles as supporting resources.

Standard Resources

Using the same stacked draws as in our craft corner we have created specific homes for the resources we use. This is broken into a draw each per child and then into subject.

Having this space is important to me as you do need to remember that although you are presenting a learning environment you are also doing so in your home! This is a place to be comfortable and happy and the worst thing would be to have your entire house taken up with books and resources hopefully then  proving that home schooling doesn’t necessarily take a lot of space and gear!

The most important part of turning your home into a learning environment is the atmosphere you establish. A parent’s sense of adventure and delight, combined with curiosity, can set the stage for all kinds of successful learning and from my point of view, prevents your whole home becoming a school.

.