Well, you’ll obviously need all the things you’re going to use to be creative and make learning fun!!
Following are things to consider (this is for when your child is still small, but can be adapted if they’re a little older):
- Clean and well-aired room
- A sturdy desk with decent lighting where the child can sit and do “busy work” (worksheets, coloring, crafts, etc. – the child does not need to sit still behind the desk for the whole of the duration of school hours! Read on the couch or outside, review times tables while preparing a snack…). I purchased a self-healing cutting mat (actually used for scrapbooking), which turned out to fit 100% on my son’s desk. This way I could safely “store” the cutting mat, while protecting the surface of the desk.
- Chair suitable for the child at his age – the child’s feet must be able to touch the ground (if not, you can place something like a small plastic step underneath their feet), kids concentrate better when their feet are not dangling about. There should be a 90° angle from the back to the upper legs, and again the knees should bend at a 90° angle
- Stationery: scissors, glue, HB pencils, pencil sharpener, eraser, coloring pencils, felt tip markers, crayons, ruler, different colored cardstock, watercolor & craft paints and brushes, oil pastels, and clipboards for nature study
- A file with page protectors to keep your yearly, weekly, and daily schedules and plans
- Nature study bag with nature study journal, magnifying glass, water bottle, pencil, eraser and sharpener, and some sort of container in which insects found in and around the house can be kept for observation (to be set free later again…)
- Dust bin to catch up all the little snippets
- Laminator, Binder and Paper guillotine, that is, to make organizing MUCH easier and allows you to ensure durability of flashcards, and other important charts, maps and pictures
- Math manipulatives – blocks, big glass beads, little pebbles, marbles…anything you can use to teach math with
- Magazines – gather old magazines, they come in handy in looking for pictures (or words) that “start with the letter …”, or you can cut out a picture and let your child tell a story around the picture; or you can let the child find pictures of a certain color (advertisement leaflets found in newspapers also come in handy)
- Black board & chalk – not a necessity, but I found my little boy loves drawing on the black board better than on a piece of paper. My dad made a double-sided blackboard for us that works beautifully for simultaneous use when a friend is over
- Peg board (notice board) – this is also not a necessity, but I used it as a notice board on which I pegged a calendar, the days of the week (for which I have a marker that moves every day to indicate the day of the week), our Bible memory verse for the week, and our weekly art project for everyone to see. (Much better than having to prestik it onto the walls!)
- Letter poster displaying the proper positioning of capital and lowercase letters
- Clock, if time is important to you
- Kitchen timer, if you’d like to limit the time you spend on a topic
- Exercise equipment: bean bags, skipping ropes, different sized and shaped balls
- Hand drums, rhythm sticks and any other musical instrument you might need to teach rhythm and music (this will depend on what your children already know, and what you would like to teach them)
- Computer and printer, (with internet connection!) to print out additional information gathered during research (anything that can complement your child’s learning experience – there are LOTS of free resources on the internet)
THEN, Consider your curriculum…
