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To set up a successful homeschool environment, there is one key you need to know: homeschooling is not the same as school-at-home. School-at-home is enrolling your child into a program managed entirely by someone else, giving them a desk to sit at until their to-do list for the day is completed. I am not criticizing that, as it may be for some people.

Homeschooling, on the other hand, is the difficult but worthwhile task of building a family culture: it means you teach your kids how to live and pursue truth, beauty, and goodness alongside them. At the completion of a homeschooling journey, your children should know how to live, how to love, how to work, and how to enjoy meaningful leisure. 

To further illustrate this distinction, let’s look at homeschooling through the lens of interior design. 

A basic principle of interior design is that “form follows function” — that is, a successful space is designed and arranged *based on* your ideas about how you want to live and what your goals are.

My area of expertise is homeschool interior design, and here’s a secret that I can tell you from personal experience: A great homeschool interior follows from a great family culture, and I believe that the richest family cultures are developed by homeschooling.

There is nothing like homeschooling to cultivate a family culture, which is built over time. Do you have a great family culture? A family culture looks different from family to family, yet we all seem to share similar symptoms when we lack a family culture — symptoms like frequent “boredom,” using devices like the television to entertain by default, or that somewhat desperate thought that often comes to new homeschooling moms mid-afternoon, “What am I going to do with these children until bedtime?”

If those sound like you, I have great news for you: instead of getting discouraged, recognize these signs of lack of family culture as an invitation from God to grow as a family. God gave you these gorgeous unique people to nurture, and while it’s full of challenges, with determination aided by God’s grace you soon find that you have a family culture in place, that the children ask you if “we can do such-and-such” (an activity the family does together that they love). That’s when you find joy in homeschooling!

Here’s more great news: there are 5 simple ways you can jumpstart your family culture right now, before the school year starts. Remember, these tips relate to homeschool interior design, not how to choose a curriculum. 

1. Tea time. My children wake up to the sound of the tea kettle whistling, and they know mom will be waiting for them on the couch that flanks one side of the dining room table with breakfast tea. They so enjoy adding one cube of sugar to their tea cup, along with a generous portion of milk, and we do our morning prayers. What a lovely way to start the day together. It’s how we live our mornings. If you don’t have one yet, I recommend this delightful whistling tea kettle, this tea set (which comes with tea spoons), and these sugar cubes. (You could also skip the sugar cubes entirely and offer a teaspoon of honey instead!)

2. Create a designated read-aloud space. Where do you already like to go in your home? Put some read-aloud books there. It’s very important to automate your habits as much as possible. If possible, however, easily transform your living room sofa into your read-aloud space. Sofas work best for read-aloud because young children want to be in your lap or behind your back as you read, looking at any illustrations, or just loving to touch mom. Ensure you have lamp lighting on either side of your read-aloud space. And finally, most children like to keep their hands busy as they listen, so stash some crayons and related coloring printables on your read-aloud coffee table, too.

3. Declutter your kitchen and your laundry system. The kitchen and the laundry are the two front tires of your homeschooling vehicle, because if either of those don’t work, your entire homeschooling culture will be at a standstill. When those two things aren’t running smoothly in the background, they become noticeable. Want to tackle these areas, plus learn all the keys to creating a smooth-running decluttered homeschool environment? Join my homeschool decluttering challenge waitlist here for an experience designed to optimize your homeschool by decluttering high-impact items first, and avoiding that messy middle where things get worse before they get better. Join the waitlist — your homeschool family culture, and your time, are worth it!

4. Identify the primary sight-lines in your home and make good use of them. A sight-line is where your eye falls most of the day (of your children’s eyes, for that matter). Homeschooling has hard days, just like anything worth doing, and it’s important to make your “why” for homeschooling visible by placing your mission statement or a key image that captures your why right in your sight-lines. Get my sight-line design guide here.

5. Get ahead of the common “dining table take-over” problem! Most homeschooling moms find themselves in the frustrating situation of homeschool and art materials spread over their dining groom table, so they have to declutter the table right when they need to be putting a meal on the table. Get ahead of this common problem! The simplest solutions are the best. Use a rolling craft cart to transfer items to and from the table in one pass. Whatever your system is, make sure you teach the children responsibility from the earliest days, so that they remove their items from the table and put them into the place you have designated.

What are some of the simple systems you have used for your homeschooling space design? I’d love to hear from you, and I reply personally to every email.

Here’s to another great homeschooling adventure,

Mary Carmichael