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minimalist homeschooling

Eco-Friendly Homeschooling – How To

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

The older I get, and the more we move, the more minimalist I find myself becoming, and with that more eco-friendly I want to be. One area I am working on is eco-friendly homeschooling. Cutting down on waste and thinking about and teaching my kids about being more eco-friendly. Our homeschool is just one part of it.

3 Ways Your Homeschool can be More Eco-Friendly

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

Ways Your Homeschool can be More Eco-Friendly

Eco–friendly literally means earth-friendly or not harmful to the environment. Commonly referring to products that contribute to green living or practices that help conserve resources like water and energy.

How can you be more eco-friendly in your homeschool when you are have school work that needs to be done? Well, the easiest way would be to stay clear of paperwork, and focus on digital learning.

Digital Learning

One way to reduce your paper waste in your home, for schoolwork, is to move to digital learning. I don’t believe that all schoolwork can be done digitally, but a lot of it can be and it makes a huge difference in paper waste/usage.

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Replace Paper

Another way to reduce your paper waste is to provide materials that you can use in replace of paper that aren’t going to cause waste either.

One way we have reduced waste was using marker boards for math instead of paper for working out math problems.

Borrow, Don’t Buy

If you have read anything here are Forgetful Momma before you know we love our libraries. This is one way we have always been eco-friendly. We do not buy a lot of books here, and only those that we either borrow repeatedly, or I know are going to be re-read and re-used a lot.

This goes for curriculum as well. Look for curriculum you can borrow, rent, or buy used.

Grow Your Food, Reduce Plastic Waste

I know this is suppose to be about being eco-friendly in your homeschool, but this fits, I promise. Teaching your kids to grow their own food, gardening, will reduce your plastic waste.

Not only does gardening and growing your own food reduce waste, it teaches your children valuable life skills, and provides snacks.

How much do your kids eat during the day? I know my kids love eating, second breakfast is a real homeschool thing, having a garden full of fresh vegetables and fruits is never going to go to waste.

Why Do Your Want to have An Eco-Friendly Homeschool?

Why not? We have a lot of waste in our everyday life, waste that you can’t do much about, so why not help the environment in a way that is easy and you can include your kids in. Kids catch on so quickly, and in no time at all they can be helping you to be more eco-friendly.

Talking about ways to reduce your waste in your homeschool could be a great conversation to start with your kids on Earth Day. Let them think of ways you can make your homeschool more eco-friendly.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Eco-Friendly Alternatives for Your Home

Minimalist Homeschooling – Homeschooling Without the Stuff

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: minimalist homeschooling

Minimalist Homeschooling – Homeschooling Without the Stuff

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Homeschooling can take over your home, and not in a good way. There can be so much stuff that can go along with homeschooling. Which is why taking a more minimalist homeschooling approach can be so beneficial. It is something we are working on more and I want to share how we’re doing it so that homeschool materials aren’t taking over your home anymore, if you don’t want them too that is.

Minimalist Homeschooling - Homeschooling Without the Stuff

Minimalist Homeschooling Homeschooling Without the Stuff

This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.

I wanted to make sure that I had it right so I looked it up. Honesty first right? I want to be more minimalist but it’s hard when you have a husband who doesn’t necessarily feel the same way. So what is minimalist living, it is:

Minimalist living is about living with less.

Ways to take a More Minimalist Approach:

Visit the library.

If you have read this blog for any amount of time you know that the library is our saving grace. Why should we buy every book we need for our homeschool lessons when we can borrow them from the library?

Books from the library can be borrowed, placed on your bookshelf, and then returned to the library not taking up your limited book space.

Don’t buy school supplies you don’t need.

Back to school time school supply sales doesn’t mean you need to stock up on supplies. I did that once and will never have to buy crayons again. True story, they have moved four times with us, once across the country. They are just taking up space.

Only buy the crayons, paper and pencils, etc. that you are going to be able to use right away or in the near future.

Leave the school behind

You don’t need to have a school room in your house to make homeschooling work. In fact, it might work a whole lot better when you are more relaxed in different areas of your home, like the living room or kitchen. Learning is possible and perhaps more likely to happen outside of the (work)books. And if you do have a homeschool room, try for a minimalist homeschool room. Limit all the stuff – posters, books, desks/tables, etc.

Minimalist Homeschooling - Homeschooling Without the Stuff

Let go of the old

I admit, this one can be hard, especially when you have younger children but hear me out.

Let go, pass on that old curriculum. The one you used with your older children and might use with your younger children. See what I did there? Might. You might use it, so you are going to hang on to it. If you have doubts about using it, you aren’t going to so pass it along to someone who will or sell it.

The books your kids have out grown? Say goodbye. While I love the idea of passing them along to another family, if you sell them you can then use that money to buy books that you actually need/want… or to pay off your library fines.

Go digital

This has been the best, and first, step in minimalist homeschooling for our family. Minimal homeschool curriculum hoarding. It started with Teaching Textbooks last year, this year we’re also using digital copies of Grammar Galaxy (and I’m not printing much).

E-books are a great way to have all your books but not all the bookshelf space. You can buy your own, or borrow e-books from the library which helps to eliminate the late fees as well.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Eco-Friendly Alternatives for Your Home

5 Tips for Teaching Kids to be Confident in the Kitchen

Benefits of Gardening with Kids

Filed Under: Homeschool, Homeschool Helps Tagged With: minimalist, minimalist homeschool, minimalist homeschooling, minimalist lifestyle

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A Little About Me

I'm Ashley, a Canadian secular homeschool mom of 3, living in Nova Scotia.

I share our adventures in homeschooling and parenting.

You can usually find us at the library surrounded by books.
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