Looking for support, reassurance and information?
Join Beverley's The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook online group.

Preparing the Physical Learning Space

© Beverley Paine

The following is an exerpt from Getting Started with Homeschooling Practical Considerations for Parents of School Age Children

Children learn wherever they are and at any time of the day. You can't stop them doing it! You can build on this by planning quality learning experiences for them. Quality learning experiences are those where everyone makes the most of the time available, and is happy with what they are doing and resultant outcomes, and where skills and information are retained for future use.

Quality learning experiences don't often happen by accident although many will occur without your intervention or planning. Your children will naturally seek out learning situations to avoid boredom. If your children aware demonstrating the classic symptoms of boredom, or are irritable and fighting among themselves or with you, preferring destructive over constructive behaviours, then it may be time to seriously consider the physical and attitudinal aspects of their environment. There are many factors which can contribute to unhappy home schooling situations and most are easily remedied.

Physical Environment

Spending time preparing your home as a place for learning is essential. You will find you will use the whole home, inside and outside. Outside also extends to the community: see Part 8 for more information. This section deals with the immediate home environment.

There is no need to prepare separate or distinct 'learning' areas. Setting up a 'school room' may seem a nice idea and look good, but such spaces are seldom used after the first few weeks! Organised or structured learning activities, including working from books, usually occur in the family room or living areas. Some existing areas in the home are already ideally set up to locate certain activities, such as kitchen for cooking, science and maths, table or tiled floor for art work, etc.

Schools often go to considerable expense to replicate the many natural learning resource and features of the home. Take advantage of what you already have, thinking creatively about which areas, existing furniture and features you can exploit in your learning program.

The following list of suggestions has proven useful to homeschoolers:

• A free table (not the dining table) for unfinished, in-progress work/projects is handy, perhaps even essential.
• Visible storage, at child level, for books, art/'craft materials, toys, games, etc. Using clear containers or trays for consumable items reminds children they are there to be used, and often encourages new activities. Things in cupboards, drawers or opaque containers are quickly forgotten.
• Places for celebrating learning by displaying finished work; for example - walls, shelves, windows and ledges.
• Easy access to reference and fiction texts which are at your children's current levels of understanding and beyond will encourage daily use. There is no point having books in the house if they can't be accessed by interested readers!
• A system of storing and organizing educational materials; for example, bookshelves, filing boxes or cabinet, computer. Encourage the children to share this responsibility. Avoid too much clutter, which can result in mental confusion, disorganization, losing or misplacing things you find you suddenly need, and annoying delays to learning activities in progress.
• Have places to put, store or display the many collections that will evolve over the years which the children won't allow you to throw out!
• Locate most of the learning activities in the rooms you tend to use most, usually the family room near the kitchen. Children tend to concentrate their activities around where you are - they like your company and you can easily get on with the chores and see to their needs of questions.
• Involve the children in planning an arranging the spaces they use for their activities. Organise the physical layout of your home and garden to suit the needs of everyone in your family. You may need to re=define traditional uses for rooms!

Most families homes eventually end up looking a little like junior primary classrooms, taken over by the artifacts of children and parents very busy learning. Try to keep one or two rooms free of learning related objects, to escape to and relax in.

Although the above points are good to consider, maximizing learning potential involves a lot more than providing access to resources in a child centered way.

See also:

Preparing the Learning Environment:

Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you? Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating offering encouragement and reassurance to families wanting better outcomes for their children.

Thank you for your gift contribution!

Option 1 $1.00 AUD Option 2 $5.00 AUD Option 3 $10.00 AUD Option 4 $20.00 AUD

Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.

Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.

"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people." Vanessa

"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!" Davina

"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others." Lesley

"Thank you once again for your prompt and friendly service.
I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am in the morning, I 've been encouraged!" Louisa

"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how
valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community.
I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now.
And I'm very grateful." Gythaa

Want to learn how to write your own education plans to suit
your unique children's individual learning needs?

Looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips ?

Over 1000 reassuring and informative articles to help
build your confidence as an Educating Parent

You are invited to join Home Education Australia!
One well-organised space to find and share information,
resources links and more to support all home educators
across Australia, including a directory of posts and threads , where you can source all your needs related to home education and find what others are seeking and finding within Australia.

Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!

We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine

The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.

The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.

Tap into Beverley's experience through her books "Your books, your blogs helped me beyond words... they helped me to find comfort in knowing it is ok to choose exactly what is best for my family." Nisha "Your books and information are mind blowing and already I am feeling good about this new experience." Diane Connect with Beverley and ask questions through her online The Educating Parents Homeschooling and Unschooling Facebook support groups.

"Your guidance, understanding, support & words of wisdom changed our lives." Leslie "I feel specially inspired by Beverley's words and, the more I read her comments, the more inspired I feel, since my need for support, respect for different parenting styles, and information are fully met." Marijo

Natural Learning and Unschooling Pack Each Pack contains a copy of the following: Natural Learning Natural Learning Answers A5 or A4 Learning Naturally Diary Learning Maths Naturally A Sample Approved Natural Learning Program and Review Only $29 or $33 Select A4 or A5 Diary A5 diary $29.00 AUD A4 diary $33.00 AUD

Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.

Without revenue from advertising
by educational suppliers and Google Ads
we could not continue to provide information
to home educators. Please support us by letting
our advertisers know that you found them on
The Educating Parent. Thanks!