home ed and tidy home?

[p123]

we are planning on home educating our currently three year old but we have a small house which we like tidy is both possible?

[AbbeyA]

I don't see why not. You just have to get your DC used to putting one thing away before he/she starts another. If you make it a habit from the start it ought to be easy to keep up.

[onwardandupward]

Don't see any reason why not. With child that age, I think I'd probably go very Montessori about organisation if tidiness was a priority.

And I'd have a corner where child's current projects could be as messy as they need to be, with an elegant screen to hide them away behind when child was asleep in bed

[AMumInScotland]

If you've managed it so far with a 3-year old, I don't see why it would get any harder with home ed.

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

errrrrrr

I think its quite rare tbh, but I suppose if it was something you were very keen on, and stuck at one child and that one child didn't love to do huge messy art projects involving mud, lentils and glitter, yes it might be possible.

but listen there are lots of OTHER pluses to home educating...

[GoldstonAcademyForTheInsane]

If you have managed a tidy home so far, then there is no reason for you not to be able to continue that.

Whilst not counting myself in the list of worlds' tidiest homeschooling families, we have found that we have been able to keep most of the stuff in one place. However, I do have teenagers!!!

If you have a corner or a shelf or storage boxes for your home education projects and you put them away when you have finished for the day, it should not be a problem.

It sounds as if you have already established good habits of tidiness.

SIGH..... Wish we had started earlier with the whole tidiness thing. Bad habits are hard to break!
Hope this helps.
Amanda Goldston
www.GoldstonAcademyForTheInsane.com

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

do you know what though?

odds are you won't care that much that your house is a tip

the pay off is so worth it

I do feel that HEd kids can get more messy as they get older-little kids have short term mess, older ones have longer term mess. Now ds is nearly 5 we just seem to have a lot of things that can't be put away and that are clearly bona fide educational . It might depend on whether your child has their own room (mine share, part of the problem tbh) and if that is big enough for projects etc. I can also see that one might be easier-mine spark each other off to create more and bigger mess.

[jollydo]

Oh dear, we've hardly started and the house is always a TIP!! It the 'stuff' that just scatters itself around the house I can't keep track of.
On Friday ds1 wanted to play with colourful paperclips - knew this could be a bad idea with 12 month old ds2 about - so I spent the rest of the day trying to contain them to a small area while he had them going on little journeys around the house (Mummy chain, Daddy chain and various little baby chains..) and I ended up giving in and sitting with ds2 while he very cleverly put them into a very small money box slot again and again and again.... Then there were the Russian Dolls taken out, and put together, and taken out and put together... and I kept having to fish them out from down the settee.
I'm naturally VERY messy and will struggle with this I know!

[HumphreyCushioni]

[SummatAnNowt]

I've actually got a tidier house so far! I have all the resources sorted into their areas so they're easily available and easy to put back. But it's certainly fuller! I am also aiming for projects to be useful to the house, have the kitchen wall as an art gallery wall with work in homemade frames, or like the painted sticks that are now gracing the pots in our patio, things to be turned into placemats, sculptures to be used as ornaments. Eclectic, child-friendly house!

But ds is only 4!

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

oh GOD the sculptures

and oh GOD the dens

it also occurs to me thst it might depend on what sort of HEig philosophy you go for. We unschool (mainly). This means lots of (wonderful creative) mess. If I sorted stuff into boxes, my kids would quickly re-sort the boxes according to their needs .

I last week sorted our craft stuff into pens and so forth. they though this was a great game and spend the next few days happily sorting the stuff into rqually arbitary groups-colous, bigness, utility for different projects etc ).

And then the boxes were used as boats

[SummatAnNowt]

Reading this, I suppose it also depends on the child/ren too. ds wouldn't ever think of sorting/re-sorting anything but his cars... I leave his cars alone

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

i asked the dc what they wanted to do tommorrow

ds said "build a REALLY BIG" den

dd1 said "no build a den EVEN BIGGER than that"

[maverick]

Nice quote, source unknown

'A home needs to be clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy'

[needaholiday]

at the sculptures and dens. I guess they must be an integral partof HE then ? Our house isnt tidy but it is well loved

I guess it could be but why waste all that educational time cleaning up? It'll all just be pulled back out again.

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

oh dear have we scared you off?

come back OP. ignore the naysayers.

[Runnerbean]

Tidy house?

What's that?

[Lupins71]

Errrrmmmm, hmmmmmm, lets just say not in this house, when dd isnt being "creative" then ds (who is 15mths) is destroying something or other

I tried to set up the house so there were messy areas, we have a very large playroom, and a learning/ study/ making things room - these are constantly plastered with all sorts of clutter, dd isnt too bad but does mess up the living room and her bedroom, and ds manages to destroy the rest of the house - maybe if we had a gargen I could chuck him outside but we dont

It does get to me sometimes, but hey ho

Good luck

[KayHarker]

It's possible to have a tody house and Home-ed. I've seen it done.

[thebluefoxategreensocks]

I think there often are home ed families who have neat & tidy houses. But sometimes mums with several children just don't exactly prioritise having a perfectly tidy house, but at long as it's not actually dirty (ie unhealthy/dangerous/smells etc) and they are happy, then obviously that's their own choice. I know there are lots of non home ed families who's house is a total tip, so certainly they're not directly connected. Just depends on what you want and how you organise yourself. But certainly home ed doesn't take up all your day, so you'll still have loads of time for cleaning house...if you want to!

[Claudia40]

I have been HE my younger two in a pretty tiny flat and it hasn't been that bad. I think the secret is to have a bit of a cull on a weekly basis and to be out and about as much as possible. Have a look in your local area for after school art/ craft clubs so they can do the really messy stuff somewhere else (!) and remember to make use of the library, the park, the top of a double decker bus etc as a place to hang out and 'learn'. My children mainly like to watch Doctor Who DVDs endlessly at home, which is a really tidy activity and no doubt educational in its own way(!)(I am such a slack parent!)so the library is actually a great place to be from a distraction point of view (and you can of course hire more Doctor Whos DVDs).

[juuule]

I don't think our home is any messier now that we home-ed than it was before.
We do craft things but then the children used to do them during school holidays anyway. Plus all their 'creations' that they brought home from school. End of year workbooks, paintings, drawings and stuff that we had to find homes for (in a box in the loft).
Granted it is mostly quite messy but then I just thought that was a by-product of having 9 children.

[windygalestoday]

i home ed and there is an inevitable kitchen table pile but i have a 'school cupboard and shelves' our stuff is stord on that models stay out on display for a bit then either go on bookshelves or into bedrooms ... so it all kind of sorts itself out.

[needaholiday]

it's the same as anything in life, if you really want it to work then it will. Tidiness is a state of mind anyway. In our house disarray is labelled as organised chaos the minute anything is put away it disappears and vital minutes are wasted looking for it so it pretty much stays out.

[Mehetabel]

I don't think I have met a HEer with a tidy house in the 22 years I have been doing it - sorry!

But I like this poem

I Took His Hand and Followed
Mrs. Roy L. Peifer


My dishes went unwashed today,

I didn't make the bed,

I took his hand and followed

Where his eager footsteps led.

Oh yes, we went adventuring,

My little son and I...

Exploring all the great outdoors

Beneath the summer sky

We waded in a crystal stream,

We wandered through a wood...

My kitchen wasn't swept today

But life was gay and good.

We found a cool, sun-dappled glade

And now my small son knows

How Mother Bunny hides her nest,

Where jack-in-the-pulpit grows.

We watched a robin feed her young,

We climbed a sunlit hill...

Saw cloud-sheep scamper through the sky,

We plucked a daffodil.

That my house was neglected,

That I didn't brush the stairs,

In twenty years, no one on earth

Will know, or even care.

But that I've helped my little boy

To noble manhood grow,

In twenty years, the whole wide world

May look and see and know.