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We’ve homeschooled in three different houses, so we’ve had many different spaces for homeschooling. When we moved into our current house, I set up a dedicated homeschool room. But after only a year, we realized how much it didn’t work for our lifestyle. Because the reality is, the “school” part of homeschool is just one part. You can’t separate learning from your everyday life. So having an entire room dedicated to “school” wasn’t the best fit for our family.
It might work for your family to have a dedicated room! Maybe it helps your kids be more focused on their bookwork or you just enjoy having one location for all your school materials. I really like having dedicated spaces for art supplies, books, games, learning materials, etc. But it seems to work best to have them distributed throughout the house in a way that integrates them into our daily life.
In our first home, a modest 1200sq ft home in the city where we had four kids, and very minimal space. We didn’t have an extra bedroom we could turn into a homeschool room. We had a partially finished basement, but my kids were small and it was super inconvenient for us to go down there for any kind of schoolwork.
So the kitchen was the hub for our homeschool. We started by putting a small cabinet in the kitchen for some school and art supplies, and bookshelves in the hallway and in the bedrooms. Eventually we turned one corner of the kitchen into a little school corner by putting up a few posters (like an alphabet chart) a calendar, and a pocket chart for putting words to make sentences or poems. We also put a couch in our kitchen. Maybe not normal ;) but we LOVED it. We really enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen as a family or when we had people over, and it made for a cozy reading spot.
All of our school activities took place at the kitchen table, on the floor, or on the couch. And this worked perfectly – especially for our small kids.
In our next house, also a small home (that finally had some wonderful outdoor space!), we experimented with different spaces… but we always went back to homeschooling at the kitchen table, on the couch, or on the floor.
You can look at the combined homeschool/playroom we had for awhile here.
Now our family is in our home that has enough space for a homeschool room – and we even set one up for awhile.
But we’ve found that since our homeschool is so integrated within our daily life, having a dedicated homeschool room really doesn’t make sense for us. What does work for us is creating spaces in our home that encourage natural learning. And whether or not your family has a homeschool room or a playroom, you can do this anywhere in your home!
Here are some simple ways you can set up your space to encourage natural learning:
Learning Invitations
Learning invitations are one of my favorite ways to encourage natural learning, creativity, discovery, and exploration. Some people call this “strewing.” Basically, you are setting out a gentle suggestion for learning. You aren’t saying “Hey kids, let’s do this activity now!” Instead, you’re inviting them to learn on their own, without a lot of direction. And they get to choose to participate or not.
This could be putting craft supplies on the table (and maybe a book with craft ideas). This could be a book they are familiar with and some puppets to retell the story. It could be books about a country, a globe, and a blank map of a continent. It could be a learning game, a set of alphabet blocks, or some snap circuits. It could be anything that might inspire your kids to learn or explore!
Here are a couple of examples I’ve done:
Valentine’s Day Learning Invitations
Story Basket Learning Invitations
Using Baskets
This may sound simple, but having activities in baskets where they can be seen and used regularly is something that’s made a huge difference in our home. This works especially well for toddlers and preschoolers! I’ve always had a special preschool playschool corner for my toddlers and preschoolers to play and explore.
This works great for older kids too, though. For example, we have baskets with models of the human body, baskets with maps and flashcards and books about countries, snap circuits, sewing and knitting materials, and wood carving tools.
Accessible Supplies
Many times, just having supplies and materials available and ready to use can spark a child’s desire to learn, create, or explore. If you want to cultivate a love for art or music, you should have art supplies and musical instruments in your home. If you want to encourage your preschooler’s sensory development, use sensory bins, sand or water tables, and playdough (I have a great playdough recipe).
I know that it can be tricky if you have materials you don’t want your littles ones to get into, though! It has worked for us to have art supplies like scissors and paint on a higher shelf or in a cabinet, but keeping toddler safe crayons and paper in a lower more accessible place.
Interest-Based Activities
Find ways to develop your child’s interests with materials, activities, and books that line up with the things that excite them. Or let them dig into things that you are interested in, to see if it sparks a new skill or hobby!
If your child is interested in building, provide opportunities for them to build. Give them nails and scrap wood and let them create without a lot of expectations. Get books about building houses and let them practice writing letters on sandpaper before using it to sand a piece of wood.
If your child is into bugs, find books about bugs for your home library. Give your child magnifying glasses, bug catchers, and drawing tools to observe and document the bus they find.
If you are gardening together, give your child their own space to plant seeds. Invite them to work alongside you as you bake, chop vegetables, or mend clothing.
Using Screens Wisely
Believe it or not, screens can be a way to encourage creativity and discovery when used wisely! We don’t do many video games or shows, but my kids have learned a lot through using the computer for creative writing, making movies, and using Microsoft Paint 3D for practicing graphic design and making little cartoons. Just set boundaries for the screens that you’re comfortable with!
Books
We love having a home library corner in our family room school room, because books are the center of our homeschool! But when we had smaller spaces, we put baskets of books throughout the house, rotated books from the basement each month, and had bookshelves in our kids’ rooms.. or sometimes even the hallways.
But in my opinion, books are one of the greatest ways to encourage natural learning! Your kids can explore so many different topics and ideas, find answers to their own questions, and read about different viewpoints or experiences. If you can pair books with a hands-on activity or experience, that will just solidify the learning even more.