J.R.R. Tolkien – Homeschool With Joy

In a way, your home environment is just as important as your homeschool curriculum. You’re not going to feel like doing your curriculum to the fullest if your homeschool environment lacks joy.

However, doing that takes a lot of work. It doesn’t just happen!

🖼️Not to sound materialistic at all but merely artistic, making sure to have objects around you that lift your spirits is something worthwhile.

If you spend tons at Hobby Lobby but none of it speaks to you personally, it is in vain… The stuff becomes like a clanging cymbal yelling at you to clean them as they sit and collect dust – if you don’t actually have love for them. (Extremely loose paraphrase of 1 Cor. 13:1)

🐿️I have lots of irons in the fire at any given moment and can also tend to be kind of… SQUIRREL! So, having practical helps to keep me on task are extremely useful.

⏲️The kids use Time Timers for their schoolwork and I have been known to steal one and use to it time myself for tasks around the house, too! Generally, takes longer to worry about washing all the dishes (also do avoid washing the dishes and make more dishes pile up while not actually washing them) than it does to march over and just do it.

🧼The Clean With Me podcast sounds like an extremely silly idea, but it is actually really useful, too. It is basically a Comforting Mom Voice telling you, “Ok, do the next thing! Good job! Now, on to folding those towels…” and my brain actually needs this or I’ll get distracted and go off and forget what I was doing because I’ve decided to paint a scratch I see on the wall or teach my dog to do a new trick or something that popped into my mind. Just bein’ real, here!

📖Beyond keeping chaos reasonably banished so it isn’t a distraction while doing schoolwork – or a hindrance to actually finding the schoolwork – try to incorporate things in your home that make your kids see the uniqueness of your family – maybe photos of things you’ve done together, books that you’ve read together, and things that even have an inside joke kind of nature.

In honor of my it’s-none-of-your-business-th birthday being yesterday, and my reflecting on our home a bit, here are some things that spark joy for me around our house!

Treehouses! And, art from music, movies, and books that we love. Epic tales add an epic vibe to your home.

Adding your passions to your home adds joy. Love Jane Austen books? Decide to make your home more romantic and add some Regency-era touches. Love books about Scotland? Add some plaid here and there, some tin whistles on the bookcase! You get the picture!

I love energizing quotes from people who give me inspiration. This is merely a World Market greeting card that jumped out at me, with a sneaky fortune cookie fortune peeking out from the bottom. It reads, “A house without books is like a room without windows.”

This is the same as above – a World Marketing greeting card… They fit perfectly in standard 5×7″ frames.

Flowers from my family for my birthday! I love the exotic vibes of this vase, too. I love to get flowers from our garden to add some life to our home.

Having a signature scent is also useful. The kids said it didn’t smell like home when we moved until I lit these Sherlock’s Study candles from my beloved Frostbeard Studio Candles!

The Forest Feast, Gatherings is an amazingly beautiful and artful cookbook that my parents gave me for my birthday! Erin Gleeson is a photography and cullinary genius.

You can never have too many candles… Well, maybe you can. But, I haven’t found that place, yet!

Books from family and from random used bookstores, plus an Aladdin’s Lamp from a friend who traveled overseas add a bit of whimsey. No one has come out of this lamp in a cloud of purple smoke as of yet.

As a wise person once said, “It’s not hoarding if it’s books!” Especially C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien ones.

Don’t be afraid of a little silliness or books that may not fit everyone’s standard of Books that Smart People Read. You can learn a lot in Star Wars and Star Trek books. Hey! Wait a second… Who put Pride and Prejudice in there?!