Tips for Decorating Your Home to Make Homeschooling Environment Efficient
Whether the global pandemic and the need to stay at home and conduct online learning made you see numerous benefits of home-schooling, or you’ve been educating your child this way for years, it’s vital to set up your place to help them learn.
You can take steps to make your property a more effective environment for kids of all ages who learn at home rather than at an external school.
Create a Dedicated Space for Learning
Your first step should be setting up a dedicated learning space for your child. If you have an office or other walled area with a door that you can designate specifically for you and your child to use for learning time, that’s great. If not, try to find a spare corner, side of a room, or even outdoor space that you can zone for home-schooling.
Having a set area to work in will hope you and your child focus better when it comes time to complete exercises and do other studies, as the ritual of being in the one spot can work wonders on the mind.
Ensure There’s Plenty of Storage
Regardless of where the schooling takes place in your home, you need enough storage area to house all the gear generated through homeschooling. You’ll want to set aside some drawers, shelves, cupboards, etc., to house your child’s things and yours. It’s best to have separate spaces so you can keep items differentiated and make it easier to organize lessons and supplies.
Update Your Modem and Wi-Fi Plan and Add More Power Sockets
For most parents and children, a high percentage of research, accessing learning programs, talking to other homeschooling families, and submitting homework occurs online. As such, your home needs to have quality internet service. In fact, this is probably one of the most high-priority tools you need.
If you haven’t replaced your modem for many years, it’s wise to invest in a new one to ensure that your signal doesn’t get lost regularly due to connection problems. Plus, check your Wi-Fi speed often. If it seems too slow, it’s worth upgrading to a better plan to enjoy faster page loading and uploading and downloading speed.
You also don’t want to face going over a small data allowance limit and having your internet service throttled back. Ensure you have a plan that gives you plenty of data allowance to work with. Furthermore, consider if your place needs more power sockets, Ethernet connections, and the like. Home-schooling requires access to computers and other electronics, so you may need to install extra outlets or cables to make learning easier.
Declutter and Organize to Minimize Distractions
Like most of us adults, children are prone to get distracted by anything around them when they want to get out of work. Think about steps to minimize distractions that could continually interrupt their focus and make it harder for them to study. For example, it pays to declutter rooms so there’s less “stuff” everywhere for them to see as they attempt to work on projects, especially anything related to their toys, video games, movies, and the like.
Organize spaces as best you can so distracting items are kept out of sight, and your child can hone in on their coursework more effectively.
Update Your Child’s Bed
We all know we need enough quality sleep each night to be productive. Proper rest enables us to focus and concentrate, have the energy we need to work multiple hours, and stabilize our moods. If your child isn’t getting decent slumber regularly, home-schooling them, and getting them to complete other tasks, will be much harder than necessary.
Many things can get in the way of deep sleep, but a bed that isn’t suitable can have a significant impact. If your child has been sleeping on the same bed for many years and complains of it being lumpy, saggy, or just generally uncomfortable, it’s worth investing in a new product. Whether you purchase a single or a bunk bed mattress or some other style, a new product should help them both fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer.
Ensure your child has a decent pillow to lay their head on each night, too. Pillows wear out more often than we often think and need replacing every year or two. Check that the pillow your young one uses suits their body size and sleeping style so they don’t get a sore neck or back and headaches and other discomforts.
Other tips for updating your home to make home-schooling more effective are ensuring there’s enough lighting for your child to work by, upgrading to more ergonomic furniture for their desk setup, and investing in helpful backyard resources. You may want to put in a compost heap, some garden beds to grow fresh produce, a play center, and a sandpit, among other things, to help your child learn, play, and grow outdoors.
You can get by with just the essential resources and home setup when it comes to home-schooling. However, thinking through the learning environment more carefully and making relevant changes can positively affect how well your child progresses over the months ahead.