Dedicating specific spaces for the purpose of accomplishing specific tasks is important for anyone who is trying to get anything done—but especially for kids, and especially when kids are trying to get schoolwork done.
Even for families that usually send their kids to public schools, during the COVID pandemic when many schools were either fully or partly remote, homeschooling became the reality for pretty much everyone. Whether you currently homeschool full time, just want to have a dedicated study, or an art space for your kids, these 7 homeschool room ideas will help you create the perfect space to unlock creativity!
1. StairSlides offer Creative and Active Breaks!
For kids who attend school outside of their home, there is a clear separation between school and home. However, for kids who are homeschooled, the line between working at school and relaxing at home can be a little more blurred. This is great in some ways—when kids are homeschooled, they can be more involved around the house and learn more about cooking, gardening, and other tasks and skills that they probably wouldn’t be exposed to in a traditional school environment. However, this makes it even more important to take breaks and establish a schedule so your kids know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play.
Our StairSlide is perfect for integrating some active movement into your kids homeschool schedules—if they need just five minutes to get the wiggles out, the StairSlide is sure to do the trick! Kids love slides, and bringing out the StairSlide can provide much needed nuance to the drag of school. If kids are studying for too long with little creativity, they can get burnt out. Here are some ways to implement schoolwork into their sliding for some new ways to learn:
- Practice times tables and see if they can get the answer before reaching the bottom of the slide!
- If they are learning a language, have them translate a word while sliding. They won’t know what word you may have them translate so the anticipation will activate their competitive and active side!
- How many slides does it take to name all 7 continents? Encourage them to try again and beat their last time!
- Practice spelling and every time they spell a word correctly they get to take a slide!
2. Homeschool Room Ideas: Create an Art Wall to Encourage Creativity
Hanging art that your child created on the walls is a great way to decorate your homeschool room, build your child’s confidence in their creative abilities, and encourage the creation of more art! If your kids like drawing or painting, wouldn’t you rather display it for everyone to see than store them away somewhere?
Of course, you probably won’t be able to display every piece of art your child creates, but it can be exciting to choose which pieces will get a spot on the wall! Try making it a tradition by starting each month with a curation of the art they created during the past month—they can choose which ones they are the most proud of that they want to hang on the wall, and choose which pieces they want to replace from the month before.
There are many options for displaying your child’s art: bulletin boards with push pins, clothesline-style strings strung against the wall with little clips, frames of different sizes for a real gallery-type look, or even some simple blue tape!
3. Set Up an Intentional Desk Space
Even in a room that is intentionally set aside for homeschooling, it is important to create a dedicated study desk. Most homeschool rooms serve many purposes, just like classrooms in schools—group lessons, art projects, bookwork, and snack time, just to name a few. Your homeschool room will probably feature a few different areas for these various activities, which is important so your kids can feel a sense of change and variation throughout their school days if they are largely spending time in the same homeschool room. Even simply having a comfy chair for reading time and a desk for more focused book work can help your kids feel purpose in focusing on their more difficult work when they really need to!
4. Always Stay Stocked Up on Important Supplies
Having a supply station is a great way to ensure that lack of materials never impedes your child’s desires to learn and create. Organization is key, especially if you are homeschooling multiple kids who are all going to need access to supplies both simultaneously and at varying times based on their own individual learning schedules and interests.
Here are some ideas of supplies that are good to always have on hand:
- Paper (lined binder pages, copy paper, colored construction paper)
- Scissors, rulers, hole punchers
- Pens, pencils
- Paint, paint brushes, markers, colored pencils, crayons
- Tape, glue, strings
5. Homeschool Room Ideas: Hang a Whiteboard or Chalkboard to Write Out Big Ideas
When you have big ideas, you need big spaces to write them on! You might not think a whiteboard is necessary when you and your kids could easily write things out on paper, but some kind of large drawing board really is an absolute must in homeschool rooms! Having a Whiteboard or Chalkboard will allow you and your kids to make lists of things you need to get done and goals you want to accomplish, write encouraging messages to each other, work out difficult math equations together, and draw pictures for creative breaks!
6. Homeschool Room Ideas: Line the Walls With Bookshelves
If you’re homeschooling your kids, you probably have a ton of books! Bookshelves are a great way to keep all of your fun reading books, math workbooks, notebooks, planners, and dictionaries organized and easily accessible. Having one wall completely filled with shelves can be a fun way to create a library and instill a love of reading in your children.
Keep in mind that bookshelves can hold books, but they can also serve many other useful purposes! Bookshelves are perfect for storing supply bins and displaying 3-D art creations.
7. Make Space For Beautiful Messes
Some of the most creative ideas result in the most messy of messes—and your homeschool room should definitely provide space for that. Whether your kids are creating art by flicking paint haphazardly from paintbrushes to canvases, learning about biology by planting seeds in soil, or concocting some sort of experimental science investigation with various ingredients that might result in an unexpected reaction, you’ll want an area that can get dirty so the rest of your homeschool room can stay clean and organized.
If you have space outside, it might be fun to change things up by taking your classroom out of doors, especially if that day’s art project or experiment is particularly messy. However, indoor spaces can also easily be mess-proofed. Find a table that is easy to wipe clean, lay down a tarp to protect the floor and catch anything that might fall or drip off the table, and let your kids learn through play!