5 Homeschool Must Haves I Wish I Had on Day 1
Little changes to make big differences
1. Visual Timers
Whether it's transitioning from activity to activity or limiting those screen time meltdowns, visual timers can make a huge difference for our kiddos at home. The physical imagery of a visual time allows children to see how much time they have remaining for a task or on a device and can pre prepare themselves from the transition off or away from the activity. This helps manage young peoples expectations for how long they will spend on a task and help them understand that learning can have a beginning and ending. Added bonus I've found these help kids learn fractions and time. Love that real life learning!
2. Daily Routine Board
Now this is easily something you could make with Canva and a laminator but having a daily routine board will provide structure to your day and give kiddos an idea about what their day will look like. Not all kids will require this but for those who need to plan ahead or ask each night 'what are we going to do tomorrow?' this could be the tool for you.
3. Responsibility/Reward Chart
A challenge with homeschooling can be working out a way to separate the learning from everyday home life. Responsibilities within the home can compliment homeschooling programs beautifully for example, tending to pets could be incorporated into humanities, cooking a meal incorporates elements of numeracy and literacy. Personally I've found defining clear expectations beneficial to creating structure and collaboration in the home. Rewards charts are a great way for kids to visually see what they have accomplished and what they are still working toward throughout the day. This also encourages money literacy (if the rewards involve monetary compensation), budgeting and the value of money.
4. Craft, Craft and more Craft
The best piece of advice I give all of my new mum friends is embrace the chaos. Because kids are chaos. Beautiful chaos, but chaos none the less. When are kiddos are learning at home they will enquire, investigate and yes create. They will create by painting stuff, sticking stuff, cutting stuff, building stuff, colouring stuff and through all this 'stuff' is opportunities for beautiful learning. I encourage fellow homeschooling parents to lean in, let it be messy and see what the kids create. Craft supplies don't need to be expensive, Kmart have so many great resources but I have linked some personal faves below.
5. Sporting Equipment
One of the aspects of homeschooling that I love the most is taking a frisbee or a soccer ball to an almost empty park on a warm Summers day with no where to be and no pending pick ups, drop offs, organized sports and just being with my kids in the peace and letting them run and jump and explore. Life slows down that little bit more and kids are able to be just kids.
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