kygeredaway

As a mom to two littles, three and one, I’m just starting out on my homeschool journey. Naturally I feel inclined to do the research to find my style and get inspired.

Before becoming a mother I was a preschool teacher, and I have a bachelors degree in education so I have a decent idea of how to teach. I have read many books about homeschooling trying to find my style, and think about what approach I want to take to teach my own children. I believe that children benefit from many styles of learning, and that taking a varied approach and using different educational styles will help them to be more rounded learners. Life is filled with variety and different ways of doing things, and adaptability is essential for growth and success.

As I was pouring through resources for homeschooling and browsing through Pinterest boards, one of my favorite pastimes, something that always strikes me is how everything is so aesthicially pleasing. Neat homeschool rooms, or spaces, with beautiful materials and lovely vintage maps. Chalkboards with beautiful drawing of the anatomy of a bee or flower. Of course those images leave me feeling inspired, and in awe of the beauty of these spaces. They can also leave me feeling inadequate and confused. My homeschool space, my dining room, is filled with pieces of paper that my beautifully creative, and artistic daughter has taped to the wall using multiple pieces of blue painters tape. Or cut up scraps of ribbon that she views as a masterpiece. It is filled with charts laminated with packing tape that I made up online in the wee hours of the night when all hope felt loss, and we were desperate to try something new that, cross our fingers, might get us close to a full nights sleep! Printed pictures sticky tacked to the wall because I must have been sleeping through anatomy of bee drawing class.

To me it is beautiful and exciting to see my child’s joy and growth displayed right there on my walls, but it is in no way aesthetic and it can often feel cluttered and chaotic. A beautiful cohesive space is amazing, and maybe one day I will have one. That said, I’m just here to say that if you’re homeschool space or even your house, doesn’t look like the pictures you see all over social media than you are not alone. I too have a house filled with trash that is someone else’s treasure!