How to Create a Learning Space When Your House is Small
If you homeschool or have thought about homeschooling, you may be wondering how to set up a learning space for your children. If you live in a Yurt, you may be wondering if you have enough space to devote just to learning. This was my concern also!
We have three daughters 8, 6, and 3. My 3rd and 1st grader are enrolled in an online charter school, so I needed a space that accommodated two girls in different grades, and also offered some privacy. I wanted to be able to still do life with my toddler without it showing up, on the big girls' computer screens, during their classes. The space is fairly private, but homeschooling any way you do it has its own unique challenges. One of those being that non school aged children tend to be a bit of a distraction during class, and while doing homework. It's just the nature of things! A small space emphasizes this challenge a bit more, and I find myself having to be intentional about time with my toddler as well, so she doesn't feel the need to be a distraction!
If you're new here ... our "house" is a Yurt Home. We have two Yurts (20' and 30' in size) that are connected by a hallway. This is approximately 1,100 "square" feet. Our last home was around 4,500 sq. ft., so Yurt Life was a bit of an adjustment, but we're grateful for this unique space on our 20 acre property.
However, since a Yurt Home is definitely not a 4,500 sq. ft., brick, mansion, space IS an issue, and organizing can be a bit daunting! What you don't see in my picture is my dresser turned sideways to create room against the wall for the small table. You don't see how the white shelf is partially tucked underneath the spiral staircase, and how just beyond the drywall (that will hopefully soon be used as a faux wall) is the smaller of our two couches, in our living room space. If you can't tell, this space is SMALL! It's about 3 feet wide and 5 ft deep. We'll talk more about dressers in your entryway in another post, but my point here is that you do not need a large space, or even a whole room, dedicated to your learning space!
As mention previously, our girls homeschool by doing 3 of their 4 required classes through an online charter school, with teachers who teach classes via Zoom, and their 4th class is taught by me. The online charter school provides several different curriculum options that I was able to choose from. My girls wear headphones so that they are not distracted by each other's "classrooms". This is just one way that homeschool can look! Through the charter school, I have the option to teach all 4 of their classes, or I could have them do 2 online classes and 2 classes taught by me etc., but this year I'm doing it the way we have chosen, because we are transitioning back to homeschooling after having the girls in public school. I could also do completely traditional homeschooling where I provide and pay for all of the curriculum, but this was the option that we could afford and that works best for me. A bonus: Since we are homeschooling, and my husband's mom happens to be an Artist (and our girls are artistically inclined), my girls get to take Art class from their Grandma!
I want to make one thing clear about public school ... I am not against it! I grew up going to public school, while my husband was homeschooled until 4th grade and then went to public school. The public school in our local area is VERY good! Many of the teachers are my old classmates from high school, or people we know from church! However, we have one daughter that requires some extra help that the school was not willing to provide, and aside from all of that, we live 20 minutes from town. The bus ride is over an hour one way, and the cost of gas to take them to, and pick them up from school gets expensive. This was the most PRACTICAL and cost effective choice for us. Aside from all of the practicality, I simply just missed my girls, because they were gone for 7+ hours a day!
Although the space I created is semi-private, it's not perfect, and that's okay! The distractions my girls run into (a 3 year old sister pestering them during class, and a dog constantly licking them while they are trying their best to pay attention) are probably no more disrupting than what might happen at a public school, and like anything that isn't perfect, you make it work! And the next thing you know, your daughter is telling you to look out the "school window" to see what she has discovered outside! Because that's what homeschool provides ... the opportunity to explore and learn OUTSIDE of the classroom! Another benefit of Yurt Life is the way it connects you to nature - a child's best classroom!
Back to our learning space though! Before it became our school area, this space was wasted. The desk was in front of the window, and we sometimes used it, but the space otherwise collected half filled bins of toddler clothing our youngest was growing out of, or winter clothes that needed to be stored. My favorite ... the bin with all of our pictures that we didn't have a finished wall to hang them on! And now that the wall is finished (painted by me), I can't bring myself to cover it with pictures!
Now this space, albeit small, is fully functioning as a learning space that my girls use every single day! When it comes to round, unconventional space, it sometimes just takes a little bit of creativity, which is something that we are hoping to cultivate in our children! This can be done by educating them in a more unorthodox manner.
We enjoy our Yurt Home, and all the unconventional ways we do things because of it! If you have questions about Yurt Life, please feel free to reach out to me in the comments below!
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