Preparing for Online and At-home Learning
Are schools opening for in-person learning? Is it a hybrid model? Is it all distance learning? So many questions regarding the upcoming school year are keeping parents up at night wondering what the year will look like. Depending on your specific area and the age of your children, school could look a lot different than you expected when the ball dropped at the start of 2020. To get yourself prepared for the possibility of distance learning this school year, we have compiled some tips on setting up a designated at-home learning area in your home.
Evaluate the goals for your learners. What your at-home learning environment looks like is going to largely depend on the ages and learning styles of your children. If you have older children they may do just fine being tucked away in their rooms with little intervention from you. Younger learners may need spaces that are close by where you will be so that you can keep them on task.
Focus on three main areas. These include a focused learning space for academic work such as a dedicated desk or the kitchen table. A second space would be specifically for reading that has a comfortable space to curl up with a book. The third space is a craft or project space. This area should have access to the tools or items needed for any art or craft projects the kids may need.
Create dedicated containers for supplies. Since most of our homes were not designed to be schools, our spaces will most likely be doing double duty. Having a dedicated container to store school supplies in when the day is done will prevent the inevitable fight to clear the table for dinner or the panic to find a pencil when school starts the next day. These do not have to be fancy, just large enough to hold the child’s daily necessities.
Have fun with the space. While it may be difficult to put away some of your amazing table decor, giving your child some buy-in to their new space may gain more than you are losing. If your child is excited to go to their learning space, it gives you an advantage as you don’t need to push them to get started every day. Let your child pick a few things to make the space their own and watch them light up when they get to learn in their custom environment.
While we still do not know what the rest of 2020 will bring, being as prepared as we can be is going to benefit all of us in the long run. Taking some of the unknowns out of the equation will help you and your family should learning need to take place in your home again. If you are looking to expand your homeschooling footprint, give Cambria Mortgage a call for some advice on finding your dream home (and your child’s dream learning environment).