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.
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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.
