Home Sweet Home (School)

Homeschooling as a method is incredibly versatile and is something that is nearly impossible to define when it comes to the purposes and goals of individual families. Anything and everything can fall under the homeschool umbrella. Methods, materials, resources, times, or places that any one person or family prefers will work well as long as they are suited to that family, and as long as a child has free choice of whether to use them. Today I have listed several of the materials and supplies that many homeschool families have in their homes. This is by no means an exhaustive list and notice that I have completely neglected to mention curriculums, workbooks, and lesson plans, only because they do not matter one iota in the greater scheme of things, and the main ingredients listed provide the firm foundation upon which everything else rests.
–# 1 Supply) One of the first components of any HS program (and most homes with one or more children in it) is SPACE. More than anything else, children need room to spread out, spend time, and play to their heart’s content. Contrary to popular belief, healthy children do NOT happily sit in one place with their hands folded in classrooms drinking up knowledge. They move around pounding the furniture, fiddling with toys, and making noise. Space can be defined as a general room where there is minimum furniture and maximum floor space, nooks and alcoves that are devoted exclusively to children with tables, chairs, and pillows, or simply an entire house where no one is forbidden to get dirty, make messes, or drag things around for whatever reason makes sense at the moment, at any time.
–#2 Supply) BOOKS. In my humble opinion, books are probably the most important items anyone can have in their house beside food and water. Books may mean the difference between education and ignorance in most subjects nowadays, and even if a child (particularly a boy) does not seem interested in them at first, the very fact that they are valued and integral parts of the household will speak volumes for the future days when a child becomes detail oriented and begins to require better information about various subjects. Along with books comes the mandate that parents read regularly to their children from Day 1 (of course), because this simple act alone develops vocabulary, imagination, attention span, listening and visual comprehension skills along with a whole host of other things (including general knowledge and even mathematics), so it is a valuable/important use of time. The value of reading cannot be overestimated in any education, and the majority of homeschoolers rely on the library and personal book collections to do the bulk of their teaching for them.
–#3 Supply) PAPER and WRITING TOOLS. Paper and writing utensils are almost as important in the homeschool setting as venerated reading materials. It doesn’t matter what type of paper it is or what kind of implement gets used (though markers and smooth mediums such as pastels, paints, etc. offer very little resistance on paper for young children and are very easy to use). Most children do NOT use paper for what we would expect or want them to use it for, btw ( meaning highly complex poems, stories, or math problems, LOL), but most use it for drawing pictures or making the occasional sentence or phrase to complement what they have created. Certain masterpieces may appear on the refrigerator as valued works of art, but most end up on a pile on the floor or on the table somewhere, finished and forgotten. Occasionally a kid will become an avid writer or artist while still young, but most homeschooled youngsters who have been allowed to follow their own inclinations do not become highly productive on their own or focus their energies to that extent in the beginning. I have noticed in kids that art and writing seem mainly to be a function of the moment with the sole purpose of supplementing the theme of play, and when those themes have been played out at a later age, the desire for communication in earnest takes over and the available materials get used in a more efficient way. A practical paper supply that we have found in our house consists of old computer sheets that are still serrated on the sides and that have to be torn apart piece by piece. The kids found this to be a bit of a pain (pulling it apart over and over again), but they soon realized that they could unfold several sheets at once and make long, complicated murals of fight scenes, space battles, and such. See? Necessity absolutely is the mother of invention:-).
–#4 Supply) BLOCKS and BUILDING SETS. Different types of blocks and building sets are imperative to have around the homeschool house, simply because they are such open-ended objects and offer so many possibilities for imaginative play. My crazy boys make towers, every type of structure known to man, weapons, living things, monsters, characters, shapes—- and I have seen girls use blocks in wonderful ways too, creating houses, villages, towns, and even shrines for imaginary creatures. There are umpteen building sets available in the educational universe today and unfortunately many of them are ridiculously expensive:(. The best and most basic toys we have found so far have been wooden blocks of various sizes (found at second-hand toystores and yard sales), legos and megablocks (found at yard sales, as hand-me-down toys, or set by set on holidays and special occasions), tinker toys (old sets we had when we were young and yard sales), and several assorted building sets that are not well known but were picked up in various spots like yard sales and given as Christmas gifts. It is wonderful to know that it is not even necessary to spend money on building materials when it comes right down to it if you can be creative. We have had some of our best fun with leftover pvc piping, scrap wood which was cut into small pieces and sanded down, and smooth branch logs which were cut into various thicknesses to build and stack with. Remember that one cheap toy that requires a person to come up with a novel solution is better than 100 expensive, battery operated building machines that serve no purpose other than to be built and passively observed.
–#5 Supply) The last ‘Home Ingredient’? ACTION FIGURES. Now, when I say ‘action figures’, I don’t necessarily mean the superheroes and movie characters that are standard issue Wal-mart fare (though there is nothing wrong with those if children like them), but the important figures to any child are dolls, characters, animals, monsters, and any other object allowing him/her to set up pretend scenarios of impersonation and elaborate character displays. In our house we keep buckets of knights with their horses, dragons, and a wizard or two, zillions of large and small stuffed animals (especially beloved by my cuddle-happy 8 yr. old), other figures of people—action or otherwise—and a collection of animals having to do with farm, ranch, wildlife, and zoo. In addition to action figures it must be said that there is an elaborate costume box stuffed to the rim upstairs that gets used on various occasions. Old halloween costumes, sheets, clothes, hats, scarves, and masks get stuffed into it on a regular basis, and all props are used for spur-of-the-moment games and in-depth theatre projects.
This is just an overview of the types of things that one normally finds in a homeschool or child-centered household (despite those that are added, taken away, or never used to begin with:)). Since it is next to impossible for anyone to ever anticipate the needs and interests of a child in these situations, it is best just to keep a well-stocked house with a myriad of resources available at all times should anyone need them or find them necessary to use as a stepping stone to more important things in the future. The environment in a Homeschool house is 80% of the child’s success, and while materials in a home are important, the attitude of the parents is paramount to dictating how and when those items will be used, and what, if anything, will be learned by them (in another post:)).
Catch you on the FS,
Anonymom:)