The Class At Home: 2 Essential Supplies
Posted on: 19 July 2016
Parents choose to home-school their children for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons might include the desire to spend more time with the kids or poor learning conditions in many schools. Establishing your home school can be quite expensive considering the large number of supplies that need to be bought. You can sacrifice less-important supplies that your child might not need immediately or those that could easily be bought once the school is up and running (e.g. electric pencil sharpeners), but here are two supplies you shouldn't think of sacrificing.
A Whiteboard
The introduction of whiteboards is partly responsible for the downfall of traditional blackboards. A home classroom can either have a dry erase whiteboard or a digital/interactive whiteboard. A dry erase whiteboard is simply that: a white board that is used as a surface on which writings are made using a dry marker and deleted using a whiteboard eraser.
These whiteboards are often cheaper than their digital counterparts.
Digital whiteboards are interactive displays made up of a dry erase whiteboard that's connected to a computer and a projector. The projector allows for content from the computer to be projected on the board. Digital whiteboards give you the convenience of changing the projected content by touching the board using your hand or a using a stylus pen, as opposed to using the computer keyboard or mouse.
Interactive whiteboards have been known to increase the engagement of young learners in classroom activities and to foster the achievement of learning objectives. Digital whiteboards can be especially helpful if you have a child with special needs.
Acrylic Paint
Paint will seldom be missing in a list of supplies for a home classroom because most children love to paint, even if they're not really good at it.
It's advisable for you to buy acrylic paint(s) as opposed to their oil-based alternatives for two reasons. First, there's the fact that acrylic paints dry faster than oil-based paints. This means that there's less time for wet paint to stick to your children's clothes as they go about their paintwork. Your classroom is likely to be less of mess if you choose acrylic paint(s). You'll need to make your children get used to washing their paint brushes immediately after use so that the paint doesn't dry on the bristles. Secondly, acrylic paints are known to be less toxic than oil paints. You wouldn't want to expose your children to toxic compounds during their school time.
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