One of the most common questions I’ve been asked as a homeschool mom, is how do you homeschool without a homeschool room? I’ve homeschooled my children from Kindergarten through High School and am here to tell you that you can homeschool successfully without having a designated room for homeschooling.
Homeschooling doesn’t require that you have a specific place to teach your kids. It is about sitting down with your child in any room in your home and encouraging a love of learning.
It doesn’t matter if it is at your kitchen table, living room floor, a desk in your child’s room or anywhere else in your home. Remember, it isn’t about where your child learns, it is that they are inspired to do so!
Where To Homeschool Without a Homeschool Room
Finding an area in your home to homeschool is easier than you think. There really are only to basic requirements. First, your child will need room to work. Secondly, you’ll need a place where you can sit down while you teach them.
Over the years, I’ve used desks in the living room, the kitchen table and our couch in the living room. Personally, I found that the kitchen table is the best place for us.
By using the kitchen table, it allows me a place to sit when I do need to teach, requires that my children sit properly to work and while they’re completing their subjects I can be doing housework close by should they need me for anything.
Truthfully, you can use any room or space in your house. Just because the kitchen table became our homeschooling place of choice, doesn’t mean it will work for you. You can make any space work. Even if it is a corner in your bedroom, their bedroom or in the basement.
Learning can happen in any type of environment. Just as there are different learning and homeschool styles, there isn’t just one place kids can learn.
Traditional school systems have the sit at a desk method, and some people think if you don’t have a “classroom” you can’t learn. However, no matter where your child sits (lays!) down to do their studies for the day, they will learn and grow! I promise.
Staying Organized When You Homeschool Without A Homeschool Room
Planning
The best tip I can give you for staying organized, especially when you don’t have a homeschool room is to have a plan. I tend to be an OCD, over the top planner.
When my children were young, I used to plan our entire homeschool year at one time. This didn’t work well for our family because my husband tends to live by the moment. I believe God had us start our family business to teach me to be more relaxed in our homeschooling and to live in the moment.
Still, for most of our homeschooling years, I used planners to keep track of what we needed to do and what we’ve done. I wasn’t ever able to find exactly what I needed for a homeschool planner, so I finally designed my own. Remember the OCD? I knew what I needed and wanted, couldn’t find it, so I made it!
Storage Systems
I highly recommend finding a place in your home to create a little storage system. Wherever you choose to store your curriculum and child’s schoolwork needs to work for you. If you don’t have the money, you can even clean out a bottom drawer in a dresser to store your curriculum. Or clean out a cabinet in a room and use that. It doesn’t have to be fancy.
Find a way to keep all your school-related items in one spot. This will make it easiest for you to grab the workbooks or curriculum you need each day. After school is finished for the day be sure to put it back where it goes. This important step will help keep you from losing items.
Throughout our homeschooling journey, I’ve tried many different ways to stay organized without a homeschool room. From storage towers to standard bookshelves, from collapsible storage bins to milk crates. The latter ended up being the best choice for our family. I’ve found that they fit under our TV stand well when school is finished for the day. This makes getting ready and clean-up a breeze for my kids. A couple of other organization tools popular with homeschool moms are rolling drawer organizer carts and bin systems.
Dry Erase Board or Chalkboard
This isn’t a must, but buying a medium-size chalkboard or even dry erase board is a great resource to help you teach. The smaller size will allow you to tuck it in a closet or even under your bed when you aren’t using it. This makes it to where it doesn’t clutter a room and you can use it when you need to.
If you like to have your entire week laid out in front of you, having a weekly planner board will be very helpful. As your kids get older, they’ll be able to easily keep track of what they need to do each day if you use one of these as well.
They don’t have to be just for you to use while teaching or for planning either. When my daughter reached middle school, she started using a personal size dry erase board while completing math. This helped her not have to use and/or keep track of scrap paper, pencils and erasers. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first!
You can homeschool no matter how big or small your home is…without a homeschool room. A desire to teach + love of learning = homeschool success.
