Recommended equipment for home educating in the UK

Starting out

When I first embarked on my research about Home Education, I found myself already stressing over the amount of extra stuff we would need, even just for our starter two-week trial. I had visions of new desks squeezed in between furniture in every room, huge printers and paper and pens EVERYWHERE…….. Well, the point of all this was to end up LESS stressed -so naturally I started looking at ways to make the prospect less daunting.

Which brings me nicely to my first purchase. Before I’d even fully decided to run the trial, if I’m completely honest.

Printer

THIS thermal printer by Phemomo changed my whole concept of what a printer could be. The hulking, noisy, always-goes-wrong-when-you-need-it BEASTS that I’ve attempted owning in the past, just for the once or twice a year that you need it. This ace little printer prints label AND A4 size, requires NO constant new ink cartridges, and the paper roll is even actually stored INSIDE IT!!!! So no piles of paper avalanching everywhere. Although it doesn’t have to be, as it’s also set up for using individual sheets if that’s your thing, and if you’re cocky enough and you position things juuuuust right- you can even print on scraps. It works through Bluetooth with the Phomemo app on iPhone (and others, I’m sure!) Which can be a mild pain when trying to print things from the computer, but thanks to Google Drive, it’s only a matter of picking your phone up and sending it through in 2 seconds. And it prints out SO FAST. You can even chuck it in your handbag and print on the go as it’s rechargeable. Serious game-changing kit. It’s made rehashing my timetable at least five times a breeeeeze.

Keyboard

Now, THIS piece of Home Education equipment was on my list anyway, as Big had been asking for one for months. Both of the girls have iPads (three cheers for Screen time!!) so adding keyboards was the easiest way to optimise what we had without spending out too much on laptops just yet. We’ll definitely need to upgrade at some point as the iPads are already in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, but for now- they’re perfect.

Pegs

THESE are possibly the cheapest thing on my list, but it took me sooooo long to pick out just the ones we wanted. I talked about my peg system idea in my first post, HERE. It just seems like the easiest and clearest way to document our progress through the week. Each colour-coded peg represents an activity/lesson, the number of which is based on the government recommendations for time spent learning in each subject per age group. Once a task has been completed, you get to move the relevant peg over to the other side. At the end of the day/week/period, if all of your coloured pegs have been transferred, you get to choose a swanky patterned peg. Four swanky pegs = reward. At the moment, our reward is to pick a Twinkl giant activity pack for a fiver ( see also: How to trick your kids into even more learning time).

Conference folder

Ok, I got a little bit excitable with this one. I mean, who doesn’t love new stationery?! I spent an inordinate amount of time searching for exactly the right combination of expandable filing space, pen and post-it storage and writing pad. THESE brilliant folios are where I landed, at the cost of the Ringbinder-ability (yeah, yeah, I know that isn’t a word…) that I had also wanted. This is my best piece of recommended equipment for home education. Enough filing pockets for me to colour code for the most important subjects so they can keep their workbooks, worksheets and general relevant materials together. That way, when they feel the urge (or the order) to do some work on the subject, it’s all to hand and easy to find. Instead of you know, spread all over the house. These folders are great because although I know the majority of people ascribe to the “you must sit at a proper desk” theory of paperwork, neither my house space nor my mental health would stand up to that particular task. This way, they have their own personal “desk” space wherever they happen to be sitting- even if it’s halfway up the stairs…..Big.