Welcome to The Homeschool Village’s first ever Tour of Home{schools}! We are so excited that you stopped in. We hope that you will find encouragement and ideas for all types of spaces, styles and personalities.
When I started homeschooling, I envisioned turning our playroom into our homeschool classroom complete with neat cubbies of books and materials in labeled boxes, a desk or two, an art table and a white board hanging on the wall.
I did my best to create this perfect homeschool classroom. I moved unnecessary stuff out of the playroom, moved in desks, organized and labeled, and hung the white board. I had created the perfect homeschool classroom – or as close as I could get to it.
We used it for about a month.
Turns out that we didn’t need a classroom to learn. In fact, a classroom inhibited much of our learning. It was not much fun for the kids or I stuck in that room or at the desks. The kids actually couldn’t concentrate in that environment. Their minds wandered and I became the angry teacher/parent.
A Different Approach
We started experimenting with taking parts of our studies out of the classroom. For instance, we did our reading cuddled together on the couch. The kids were so much more engaged and actually wanted to read for longer periods of time.
We did our science at the kitchen table and no one worried about the mess. They loved it when Dad would stop home for lunch and they would get to show them what they were working on while he was dining on leftovers.
Earlier today, we went outside on the patio and played a word game. It gave us the opportunity to get some fresh air, check on the garden and watch the chipmunks scurry into their dens in the mulch of the flower gardens. Right now, my son is reading on the couch and my daughter is notebooking at the kitchen island as I write in my comfy chair. It just feels natural and peaceful doing homeschool this way.
The joy of learning was getting stifled in the formal homeschool classroom. It came back when we just learned where we lived. We took education even further out of the box and just decided to learn where we live.
Do you homeschool in a classroom or just learn where you live?
A special thank you to our series sponsor, See The Light.
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