Many times parents feel that they should have a room in there home designated as a classroom and all will be well. Although that may be the case it is not entirely necessary. I for one have a ‘classroom’ but it basically houses all our books, games, and homeschooling materials. My children manage to follow me around the house and never sit at the table in the ‘classroom’.
What we have determined is that our children love nature and use that as our ultimate classroom. Some children love to draw and mine do, so I have nature journals for each of them. The nature journals are simple notebooks that each child decorates to make their own and then are used to record their experiences in nature.
We enjoy our trips to the zoo, so they have pictures, hand drawn of their favorite animals along with facts they find interesting. We also have included our trips to the beach and photographs of unique shells they have found. They love learning about the creatures who live in the shells too, because they are just beautiful shells to us but homes to special little animals.
Homeschooling to us is an adventure on a daily basis. We believe children are always learning, so why not make it interesting and fun. It is much more fun to pick leaves and identify them then just reading about them in a book. My little guy is into insects , which I am not too fond of, but we go outside and search for bugs and learn about them up close and personal.
Make nature your outside classroom or better yet your ‘living classroom’. You will never run out of subjects to learn in the great outdoors.
Some tips:
- Bring a notebook or scratch pad on walks
- Encourage your child to draw what they see
- Photograph items found in nature and learn more about them at home
- Create unique lap books with items found in nature
- Don’t be afraid to explore
Most importantly have fun.
The beauty of homeschooling is the ability to make schooling what you are interested in and never be afraid to explore.
It is amazing the different subjects that can be learned by a simple walk in the park .