I’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately about having a dedicated ‘learning’ space in a home-schooling household. So I thought I’d write about the reasons why we do NOT have one!

1. Learning can take place anywhere at anytime and I want the 3 Ps to realise this from a young age. Although we have a small desk set up in the corner of the dining room, it is mainly used to store books, pens, resources. If we are doing written learning we often sit around the dining room table, but spend just as much time sitting outside at the garden table or lying on cushions on the lounge floor leaning on big books or trays (which is the best place to be when it’s cold as we can cosy up by the fire!).

2. We do not do enough formal sit-down learning to justify it. As I wrote about in A ‘Typical Day… we generally just go with the flow, meaning a dedicated learning area would be a waste of the limited space we have!

3. We do not have the space. Well, this is not entirely true as we do have a small conservatory but I love that area being the Ps playroom – not that their play remains in there! In fact they don’t know how lucky they are – no where is off limit; a friend visited with her 2 year old this morning and commented on how much she loves coming over because it’s like a playgroup! The only thing I ask is that everyone helps with the tidy-up at the end of the day, although there are days when this is a task for me in the evening!

4. Much of our learning takes place elsewhere. We spend a lot of our time in the garden or out on walks, but also at groups, museums, the library or other days out.

I’m sure that as the 3 Ps get older and their needs change the way we use our space will change, but for now it works for us 🙂