Now that the school year is upon us again, a lot of us have had to quickly adapt to being home school teachers.
Among all the various challenges faced by newly-minted homeschool students is finding the right space for it. Even if your kids never had a hard time paying attention in class (and it’s okay if they did – we all do, sometimes!), it can be even harder at home, with all the distractions and diversions they can encounter.
Kinda sounds like when you started having to work from home, right?
One of the biggest things you can do to help your kids focus is to give them a change of scenery sometimes. Studies have shown that, for office workers at least, a chance to work in different spaces around the office (or at least getting the opportunity to stretch your legs and walk around) can do wonders for your focus and ability to stay productive – so why can’t you do the same for your kids?
Of course, classroom space at home isn’t exactly going to be as varied as it might be at school or in the office, so you might be hard pressed to come up with another area for your kids to work in. If you have a patio or any sort of porch outside, an outdoor classroom might be just the thing!
Creating an Outdoor Homeschool Room
Outdoor homeschool rooms have become increasingly popular lately, especially due to the amount of kids that have found themselves suddenly taking virtual classes online. If you have a porch or patio, this can be a great way to give your kids a little space to themselves to take their lessons online, while enjoying the outdoors for as long as they can before it gets too cold out.
Setting one of these up isn’t difficult, especially if you already have a porch or patio that your family uses outside:
- Power supply – Make sure they have a place where they can plug in their laptop/tablet when it starts to run down, even if you’re just running an extension cord outside
- Writing surface – Even with as online as everything is these days, your kids still need a place to fill out workbooks, write in notebooks, or just set their computer down. Try to get a smaller end table or home office desk that your kids can sit at off to the side to help give them a little privacy and help them feel like the space is their own
- Desk storage – If their desk or writing surface has the room, a few desk organizers can help keep their writing supplies organized – and stop everything from blowing away!
- Wind blockers – Speaking of wind, as nice as working outside can be, Mother Nature can get in the way sometimes. Wherever your kids’ desk winds up, make sure to set up something around it to block the wind – a corner of your house, maybe some fabric walls or heavy curtains, or even a small wire shelf with some heavy outdoor plants on it to help cut down on the breeze sometimes. (This will also help them use the patio as a classroom even as the weather starts to change into autumn!)
After this, you just need to figure out what works and what doesn’t! If the glare is too bright off the back windows you might need more curtains, maybe you’ll need an extension cord for the outdoor outlet, and so on.
What’s important is giving your kids a chance to study outside of their usual environment, and a little inspiration to keep them going during what’s probably going to be the weirdest school year of their lives.
