I'm looking for more ideas for creating a learning environment in our home school. Please share your ideas! What sort of things do you do and/or set out for your children to do to make learning fun, natural, and to foster a healthy curiosity and independent learning?
One thing I learned about in my unschooling days (which are returning I think) is strewing. You buy a new toy or dig out the geoboard or puzzles the kids haven't played with in ages and put them out on the kitchen table for the kids to discover.
My kids LOVED their bulletin board which we changed with the seasons and changed when they wanted it changed.
For Christmas, we got the kids a Leapfrog Talking Globe and one of those gel ant farms. They couldn't send the ants for a while so we've only been watching them for a month or so. The kids have learned all sorts of things about them that they wouldn't have on their own. As for the globe, I have it out in the family room on a short bookshelf. So anytime, they need to know something about a location,etc...they can either just look at the globe or better yet, turn it on and learn even more. These 2 things have done better in our house than anything else I've tried to use to "sneak" any extra learning (at least so far).
When my kids were younger, some friends gave us desks they had fr their boys. My boys were THRILLED to have those desks! When dd was old enough, she, too, wanted a desk. We had an area with posters on the wall, the desks and a little table. They moved away from that later, and preferred nothing. Well, I allow them to study and do their work wherever is comfortable. That's allowed them to relax some, and they like it! My younger ds has lots of energy, so sometimes walks while reading, and lays on the floor the couch, or part on the floor and part on the couch! It's interesting the postitions he's found and is comfortable in for studying! We did stuff outside on a blanket sometimes, or took walks in the woods around here, built forts for the ancient history nomad section, etc. Outside activities, especially for younger ones is a great learning environment! So maybe flexibility on where and how they study.
For the older one I just make sure we have tons and tons of interesting books and movies on a variety of topics. For the younger one I have certain toys and items I put back that can't be played with everyday and every once and a while I pull them out and they are like new to her. I also make sure the little one spends just tons of time outside using her imagination.
Instead of building a "learning environment" my dh and I plan on turning our family room into a library/game room. We will put a game/art table in there, lots of book cases, and a desk or two, but also a reading chair, maybe a bean bag. That is the hope, anyway.
Well our version of our "learning environment". Is that I took out the t.v. in our living room, replaced it with our books, put up our maps, put our globe, have a table readily available for any type of activity. So, basically our main part of our home is centered upon learning. Their reading books are always in view along with their educational books. I decided that in my opinion it was more important for us to have a home that is surrounded with learning at all times, then have a formal living room. (Granted our house is small (900sq ft)) ----------- Katie, Do you have any pics of your bulletin board? That would be cool to see.
Good thread! I pick out books at the Library from the youth department each week and have them on the table for the kids to look at. Drawing books, cookbooks and craft books are good for learning activities as well as group activities between the siblings. The nonfiction books on places in the world or animals, or machines they will all read and look at before the next week's visit.
We are well-trained mind based unschoolers. How's that for eclectic? I have a "history basket" and a "Science basket" and the kids can do whatever they want from those baskets when they're doing History & Science Several times a month I add and remove things from the baskets (like twice a week) They check them frequently, once I removed everything and left those ancient china treasure chests, they loved it. Other times, I'll put videos or DVDs or CDrom games in there, or a list of websites for them to check out. They can focus on whatever books and aspects of history they like, but I determine the time period, and we go chronologically every 4 years. I came up with this idea because we used to have "centers" in our house and the babies would just ruin them, so now we have discreet boxes the little ones can't reach. The little ones have their own box. One great thing we do is NO TV before 6pm, and since Dinner is at about 7pm, it usually never gets turned on at all. good luck, have fun.
