Homeschooling has grown in popularity in recent years, and with an abundance of equipment in the market, it has never been easier to set up your own home learning area.
Whether you’re teaching young children through early years education, or guiding older students through exam preparation, you’ll need to be well prepared.
This is where a touch of home organisation can make all the difference. But, before we look at some essential homeschooling equipment, lets first take a look at your classroom.
The Classroom
It’s possible that you might be teaching from a home office, a spare room or even outdoors – weather permitting. Wherever you choose to base yourself, make sure it is a creative space. Try and keep it separate to the rest of the house, so that your children understand it’s not an extension of being at home.
Also, choose a room that is well lit, and has plenty of space for putting up creative artwork, noticeboards or memo boards for instance.
Give due consideration to children-sized desks and chairs to ensure your classroom is comfortable, as well as a productive workspace for everyone.
Teaching equipment
Depending on your teaching style, you’ll need a board of some kind to write and share ideas as a tutor. Much like a traditional classroom, a shared whiteboard is a popular option as a focal point. This makes teaching easy by sharing information on the whiteboard which can be wiped clean after use.
If you have a small room, this is also a smart way of optimising space as small whiteboards can also be wall mounted.
Stationery
That’s right, you’re going to need to stock up on pens, paper, books and filing storage amongst the many other pieces of stationery you’ll require.
This can, however, be quite costly, as well as bad for the environment (paper especially). So, why not modernise your home school and introduce reusable dry erase whiteboards that can be wall mounted or used as a portable mini whiteboard.
For older students, a desktop whiteboard or whiteboard pad is a great tool for all kinds of activity – from quick maths to writing exercises. Or, for younger children a dry erase magnetic whiteboard tile is a staple every household will benefit from. This not only has novelty value, but is also an easy to use tool, encouraging little ones to learn to write. It comes in a host of colours too, so each child can have their own version.
Getting Creative
Creativity is at the heart of any learning, so you’ll want to invest in equipment that helps to ignite and inspire ideas in your children. Whether you’re brainstorming, sharing ideas, coming up with plans, or creating a mood board, you’ll want to make it fun and interactive for children.
For instance, a mobile easel is a useful piece of equipment for quick jotting down of ideas – like storyboarding or learning new words. It also has dual use as a magnetic whiteboard easel, or you can easily attach a flipchart pad if you’d prefer to save your notes on paper.
Whilst for more explorative creativity, there’s plenty of great notice boards available. These are fun for children to share their thoughts and ideas, display artwork and projects, or bring their dreams to life.
For instance, you might be cutting out images from magazines, or creating artwork, that can be centrally displayed on a memo board.
Technology
The digital world has connected us in ways never before dreamt of. Today this has made homeschooling even easier, from apps to websites, laptops to iPads.
Therefore, you’ll need to check that your classroom is up to speed with connectivity. This includes having WiFi access, plenty of plugs and connection leads. From Google Classroom to homes schooling websites, this will enable you to share ways of working online with your children.
Summary
When it comes to home learning essentials, there’s a few investment pieces that will enhance your teaching ability. Whether you have a small home office, or large space, there’s plenty of versatile tools that will enhance your working day and your children’s educational journey.
Most important of all, these tools will create the right environment for learning in a constructive way for everyone.
