Homeschool Style: Do What Works
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By
Sarah Hercules
- Jan 18, 2024
Do you ever scroll through social media and drool over other homeschool family’s pictures and posts? Their morning baskets are full of perfect books for every holiday or season, a matching craft, and a cute chalkboard sign that has a cute saying for the day on it. The family is gathered around the basket with each kid smiling at mom and happily sharing the craft pieces. Behind this picture-perfect family is a wall-to-wall bookshelf full of beautiful books and perfectly placed knick-knacks. There are maps and inspirational quotes on the walls, plus other themed decorations to really pull it all together. A schedule for the day hangs between a couple of white desks. These desks are organized with the stack of school books which will be done in order, the top being done first, and so on. The pencils are all sharpened and in a cute mason jar that has the child’s name etched into the front of it. What an inviting, enriching environment of learning this mom has created and the children are all there, smiling, and eager to soak it all up.
I look around my syrup-covered table, books haphazardly laying on the shelf (or more likely on the floor), not a sharpened pencil in sight, and no cute themed decorations hanging and I wonder if we are really doing this homeschooling thing right after all. I don’t have the time, money, space, or creativity to make a picture-perfect homeschool room, and now, as an experienced homeschool mom, I realize that that is okay. We can have a minimalist homeschool space and educate our families effectively.
As a family of eight, we literally do not have a room in our house we can use to dedicate as a “homeschool room.” We use our kitchen table, our family room couches, and our one large Ikea bookshelf as the room divider between the two spaces. We have a drawer that is supposed to be filled with pencils, but it rarely is. A gallon-sized bag of old broken crayons, and another bag that is meant to have markers, but the lids are missing on half of them, so who knows if any of them really work. Each kid has a dollar store basket on the bookshelf that houses their school books and activity sheet binder for the year, and we have our BookShark readers and read-aloud running along the top shelf. Our entire year of homeschooling six kids fits in seven cubbies. I used to wonder if that was enough. Would my kids still want to learn or even be able to if we didn’t have a dedicated space? After all, schools have classrooms and other moms on social media seem to have specifically committed homeschool spaces, so how could I homeschool if I didn’t have a space for my kids to learn?
In our previous house, we did have an office that we transformed into our “homeschool room.” The kids helped paint the walls sky blue and we painted a huge, awesome Dr. Seuss mural along one wall. I even found some old school type desks, you know the ones, the chair with the desk attached to it that you kind of have to slide into, which is fine as a kid, but no way as an adult going to comfortably sit in one of those things, that type of desk. We had it all set up and guess how often we did school there? Never!! Actually, I think we tried a handful of times, but it was a hot mess that ended with the kids and me crying. We always ended up on the couch.
In our previous house, we did have an office that we transformed into our “homeschool room.” The kids helped paint the walls sky blue and we painted a huge, awesome Dr. Seuss mural along one wall. I even found some old school type desks, you know the ones, the chair with the desk attached to it that you kind of have to slide into, which is fine as a kid, but no way as an adult going to comfortably sit in one of those things, that type of desk. We had it all set up and guess how often we did school there? Never!! Actually, I think we tried a handful of times, but it was a hot mess that ended with the kids and me crying. We always ended up on the couch.
I quickly realized that learning doesn’t happen because you are sitting at a desk or because you are surrounded by a picture-perfect space. Learning can and should happen anywhere and everywhere. We can learn in our homes, outside, in the car, at the grocery store, in a library, at the park, at a friend’s home, or anywhere else. We can learn hanging upside-down off the side of the couch or sitting on our bed with the blanket pulled over our head and a flashlight in our hand. It might even be while sitting in the car waiting for another child to finish their music or sporting activity. Or in an RV traveling the country. Learning can happen anywhere!
If you live in a home where having a dedicated homeschooling space is available and that’s important to your family, that’s great! If you wish you could have a committed space, but you just don’t have the space, that’s great! If you have no desire to have a dedicated space, even if you could, that’s great! It doesn’t matter if you have all the things or are minimalistic in your homeschooling. What matters is providing an education for our children; where we provide that education is different for everyone. So, if you’re like me and are far from having a picture-perfect homeschooling space, don’t worry. You can still homeschool successfully and you are in good company!
