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3 Steps on How To Organize Your Homeschool Room- This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.

One of the questions I get asked the most is ‘where do you homeschool?’ I think people see the Instagram version of homeschooling where people have entire rooms dedicated to their learning space. But, in actuallity, you only need one shelf, one binder, and some basic supplies to have a really great homeschool experience.

Notice I didn’t talk about special desks or tables or where you’ll actually teach. That’s because it’s ever-changing. For science, we might be at the table or kitchen island. For reading, we’re often outside on the hammock or swingset. For writing, I like to have my daughter at her desk so her arm is in the correct position to learn letter work, but we pretty much do school on the floor of our reading room because it has the most sunlight.

You can homeschool anywhere and need only a few basic essentials to be successful in your journey. The three steps on how to organize your homeschool room are to have a shelf to hold your curriculum, a base stock of supplies, and a binder to keep your schedule organized. If you’re strapped for money, try finding these items on your local Buy Nothing Facebook group or NextDoor.

1. A Shelf to hold your curriculum

You could easily use whatever bookshelf you currently have to hold your curriculum for the year. With BookShark, all of the curricula could easily fit on one small bookshelf. We already had this 2×4 shelf in our basement that wasn’t being used well. Thankfully it fit here in our reading room and easily holds our Level B curriculum.

One thing that has helped keep things organized was to label each area with a subject. By doing this, my 7-year-old can easily grab the schedule, see what books we’re using, pull them out and mark the pages, and have everything set up for the day when we’re ready to start our lessons. This also helps in making sure all the books are put away in the right spot. Another benefit is that my husband, who typically doesn’t do lessons, is able to if I am sick. With the simple BookShark schedule he can pick up right where I left off and do school for that day.

This was a video I did of what a typical day might look like in our family. If you start at 6:50 you will see more detail of what our setup is and what materials we use.

2. A base stock of supplies

We specifically chose a boxed curriculum so that I wouldn’t need to buy a bunch of extra supplies. For us, all we needed was a smaller binder, a huge box of No2 pencils, large lined paper (for learning to write) and we use white copy paper a lot as well. We already had this but I suggest getting a small whiteboard, dry erase markers, and some kind of alphabet manipulative like Bananagrams for different ways to learn sight/spelling words.

We also supplement in art, PE and music so if you don’t already have supplies for those subjects you would need to add those. I’ve learned if you wait until a month after school starts, you can get all art supplies for at least half off.

3. A Binder to keep your schedule organized

The final step in having an organized homeschool room is making a schedule. Our BookShark curriculum came with a giant binder that was divided into 36 weeks of the school year. Because it is so cumbersome they suggest putting 3 weeks at a time into a smaller binder. Doing this makes finding our week so easy to flip to for our lesson each day. As I said before, my 7-year-old gets out the school books so she’s easily able to access the schedule with this method.

In this post, I outlined how to easily set up a homeschool lesson. I also keep our attendance sheet in the front pocket so I see it and remember to do attendance each week. This may be a requirement for your state or county.

So before you think you don’t have the means or the space to homeschool, take these three steps and see that it can be.

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5 Things You Must Know Before You Start Homeschooling This post is sponsored by BookShark. I am a BookShark partner and a portion of our curriculum was provided by them. As always, I only work with companies that I have previously used as a product. We used and loved BookShark when we homeschooled for Pre-K and are very happy with their 1st-grade curriculum.

We’re at the halfway point of our homeschooling year for first grade. This time last year, I had no idea I would be homeschooling again. We really enjoyed homeschooling for Pre-K because of the situation we were in (new baby) but my daughter really thrived in her public school last year and she wanted to go back. We weren’t comfortable having her go in-person to school this year because of COVID. When I asked her this past week what she thought about going back to school next year or homeschooling she said she wanted to homeschool again! I am assuming I’m doing something right if she’s even considering it!

There are so many people struggling with having their children go back to the confusing schedules of remote learning or the complexities of in-person learning, and are leaning towards having their children homeschool for the second semester of the 2020 school year. I wanted to share what 5 things you need to know before you start homeschooling that really helped us when we were making this decision.

Find out how to withdraw from your child’s current school

When we withdrew our daughter from her public school I sent an email to the principal and office administrator letting them know our situation and asked them how we needed to proceed. They had said the email was fine and the office administrator had later called to get a verbal agreement that we were withdrawing. That is all that was necessary at our school but your state or county may have different rules.

While you’re talking to the county, you should ask what requirements they have (including the state) for homeschooling. They may have a certain number of days you are required to teach or they may have certain tests your child needs to take. It’s different for each county and state so make sure you know both the state and county’s rules on homeschooling.

Determine what you want to teach your child

This may seem like common knowledge to a teacher but you are likely not a teacher. You need to determine what you want to teach your child. Where did they leave off and what do they have an interest in? I knew that my daughter loves science experiments and animals so I wanted to be sure there was a solid science lesson in whatever curriculum we used.

You might also want to teach them things that their school wasn’t teaching yet and you thought they should know. Over the summer we started working on learning coins and how to tell time. This year we’re learning American Sign Language. You don’t need to strictly use a curriculum to teach your child. Go off of what their interests are!

Research what cirriculum you want to use

This tends to be the step that many parents give up. It is overwhelming the amount of information there is on the different curriculums. Between blogs, videos, and friends’ suggestions there is so much to consume. BUT if you narrow down your needs, you can find what curriculum works best for you fairly quickly.

Do you want a faith-based program or a secular one? Do you want some subjects to be secular but not others? Knowing this will narrow down your search by a lot. We knew that we wanted a completely secular literature-based program. Having a literature-based program gave us the chance to really strengthen our reading skills from my daughter needing to sit and listen and read on her own each day. We also wanted to make sure there were hands-on elements of our curriculum (as that is how I learn best).

With BookShark, both science and history have hands-on elements. When we get to do science experiments and build crafts for history we truly understand the lessons we’re learning.

Find out what the return policy is for the curriculum

Despite all of the research you’ve done to determine the right curriculum, you won’t truly know it’s the right fit until you look through it with your child. You might realize it’s way too much prep work. Your child might decide they’re completely uninterested in the lessons. The number one goal is to have your child interested and intrigued by what you’re teaching.

Thankfully, BookShark is zero prep (meaning I can open the binder that day and be ready to teach the lesson) and they have a 30-day return policy.

Talk to your kid(s) about homeschooling

This is the most important thing you need to know before you start homeschooling. You must be on the same page as your child on why/how/when/where you will be homeschooling. You’ll need to navigate what it is like to be both your child’s teacher and parent. They will need to learn how to be both your student and your child. There will definitely be a transition period as you figure out your rhythm.

Just know that mistakes will be made, on both parts. Patience, grace, and empathy are the three biggest lessons I’ve had to work on as a homeschooling parent. Working together as a team will always be more successful. And you must always remember that homeschooling can be done anywhere, at any time, so feel free to work outside of the ‘normal’ school times.

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