Posted in My Homeschool FAQs

I was talking to a new homeschool Mom last week and mentioned the concept of creating a learning rich environment.  She looked at me like I was a nutcase!  LOL  (Nothing new there, I get that a lot from new homeschoolers I meet!)  But, it did make me realize that although I think of a learning rich environment as normal maybe I should explain what I mean.  So what is a learning rich environment?

The idea is to surround your children with learning materials.  This way no matter what they choose to do they will be learning!  There are so many great educational items today, and I am always on the lookout for them!  We have letter, number and word magnets that go on the fridge, books everywhere, board games, play-doh, paper, stickers, etc.  We buy (and rent) educational videos.  Our car is loaded up with educational cd’s.  For the computer we have educational games.  We have puppets, puzzles, mad libs, etc.

I rarely ever use workbooks for “school” but my little ones love them.  They always think of it as a big treat to get a new workbook.  It is not unusual at all to find me working on my laptop at the dining room table with a little one on each side of me working on their workbooks. 

A rich learning environment is more than what happens at home.  We also choose to do educational day trips and vacations to enhance our kid’s education.  Learning truly is a way of life for our family.  One thing I love about this type of lifestyle is that anything my kids learn spontaneously is something I will not have to teach them!  LOL  So this is really a time saving concept for homeschool Mom!

A learning rich environment could also be called a kid friendly house!  This means that instead of the house looking like something out of House Beautiful it will look more like the pages of a teacher supply catalog!  LOL  But to me that is fine.  I love watching my kids learn and nothing is more beautiful to me than walking in a room and seeing my kids voluntarily learning.  There will be plenty of time for a clean “House Beautiful” type of home someday when they are all grown.  For now I will enjoy our educational lifestyle.

Here are a few posts that mention different educational items we have incorporated into our home: