The Benefits of Having An Extending Dining Table For Homeschooling

*Collaborative Post

I cannot stress enough, how much I LOVE my extending dining table! It’s been an absolute life-saver in the current circumstances whilst we’re homeschooling. I’ll be honest, I’m a very organised person anyway, but tackling the different subjects for my different aged children came to me as somewhat of a challenge, like every parent! However, I tackled it head-on and looked at what subjects Jake (6) had going on at school and decided to mostly homeschool the same subject but at different levels, so to cover both my children’s abilities (William is 2). I have to say, this wouldn’t have been possible without our trusty family dining table!

It made it so easy! We pulled out the table to its full extending size and covered it with our wipe clean table cloth which we reviewed a little while ago from Messy Me (you can get similar versions from most places, for example, Hobbycraft do a thin version) and then we set up the table with all the paints, paper, brushes etc needed for arts and crafts in the middle and I sat one child at one end and one at the other end. This enabled me to walk around all the table to help them with their artwork. It also gives us the space so that the kids can help with setting it all up and clearing it all away. This also worked really well for other subjects such as baking (our dining table is in the kitchen so this made it truly easy!)

Another thing we found helpful was to take our world map down from the wall and lay it fully out on the dining table to teach geography lessons. We were able to look at it all together and I gave the children the tasks of finding places and seeing which countries we had previously visited on our holidays. It was great to be able to look at the map closer and extend all our knowledge! We looked up what currency was used in which countries and what language they speak. During our reading and music time we were able to fold our dining table away to its standard size to give us more room to sing, dance and read.

Just one more benefit is that we are fortunate to be able to fold half of it away so we could have extra space to move around in our role-playing time. So far we’ve used our table as a grocery shop, as a post office and a cowboy saloon, and this week we’re going to do a bit of role-playing in a café to help with their maths and money (but mainly so mummy can have an excuse to eat cake and a cup of tea!). We only have two children but it could easily have fit four or even six children around the table if you have a bigger family.

One main tip I have if you find that you’re struggling with homeschooling, is to come up with a relaxed timetable and stick to it. It really helps to keep us all in some sort of routine and it also means that the children understand how the day is going to pan out. We’ve found that 3 activities in the morning with breaks in between, lunch, then 3 activities in the afternoon work perfectly for our setup here. Overall it’s been great actually having the extra time to spend with our family and I am very grateful that we have had our extending dining table.

Stay safe!

*This is a collaborative post. For further information please refer to my disclosure page.

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