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It’s Homework Time!: 9 Tips for Creating a Cozy Study Space for Kids

September 1, 2015 By Kelle

This post is sponsored by Kohl’s.

Now that we’re back in the game of school schedules and homework, I’ve been wanting to designate a kids’ work area. Up until now, we’ve used countertops, the kitchen table and a very small kids’ table for homework and projects, but all of these spaces are in the main area of our home, open to distractions. They also function as eating areas, so there’s really no room to store supplies. I’ve been dreaming up a simple multi-functional space where resources are easily accessible–a space that would work for homework, art projects, crafting, quiet reading and Nella’s tutoring (our poor tutor has been sitting on a tiny kids’ chair, hunched over a small table–“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she keeps saying.). We recently did some rearranging to create an office space, and with lots of room leftover, I figured it was the perfect place to add a work area for the kids. With this all up in my brain, imagine how thrilled I was when Kohl’s approached me: “Hey, would you be interested in working with us? We’d love you to create a back-to-school space in your home.” It was like they were IN MY HEAD.

So we did what we do best–work with what we already have (table and chair) yet add some fun and functional new pieces to create a cozy, colorful space for our kids to study and be creative. Kohl’s made it easy and affordable by offering a great selection of home goods that were inexpensive yet on trend. From desks to lamps to fun accessories that match each child’s personality, Kohl’s has an array of products to help create an exciting place to learn and grow outside of school. The result? Two new functional kid nooks in our office–a creative desk space and a quiet reading corner.

Without knocking down walls, calling a designer or spending a lot of money, you can easily make a creative work space for kids. The bonus? Work is more enjoyable. Kids are no different than adults–I’ve had a few different work spaces over the years, and I enjoy writing and creating far more when my desk area is clean, when there’s good light and when the surrounding area is fun and creatively motivating.

Dreaming up a homework nook in your home? A reading corner? A project table? Here are a few tips for creating that perfect space for your kids.

Creating a Cozy Study Space

1. Go to the Light
Kids need to be able to see well while they’re working, especially in the evening, so make sure work areas are well-lit–a desk lamp, good overhead lighting, a book light for reading nooks. Sunlight was a huge factor in deciding where to put my own desk–it’s energy, happiness and motivation all funneled into super power sunbeams, pouring into my work space.

2. Make it Comfy, Cozy
When I taught fifth grade, my students loved when I let them take a project to the rug or find a cozy space to read other than their desk. You can easily create a reading nook with some pillows, a blanket, a rug and a basket of books. We found a super comfortable backrest pillow and a sweater-knit throw pillow from Kohl’s that together, tucked in a corner, created a cozy floor nook. Keep clipboards on hand, and kids can use the same space to take homework to the floor. And a little insider tip? Call the nook the Secret Reading Nook, and your kids’ interest in spending time there will instantly double. Kids love secret things.

3. Lots of Accessible Books
Baskets, storage totes, old suitcases–any of these can be used to keep books out in the open, a welcoming invitation to read. Keep favorites in it, but switch them out for variety and interest. Make sure to include on-level books including picture books, board books for toddlers, chapter books for bigger kids (within their reading level) and non-fiction for fact-lovers. Florida has a Sunshine State Reader program where a suggested list of the best new reads is released each year, so I just refreshed our library with several new chapter books from the list.

4. Keep the Basics on Hand
There’s nothing worse than going to start your homework and having to search for paper or a pencil that’s not broken with a chewed-off eraser. Always keep your study area stocked with the basics: paper (stackable trays work great for storing both lined paper and plain paper for drawing), pencils, erasers, and a pencil sharpener.

5. Add Resource Tools
Other great things to keep in your study area: a student thesaurus, pocket dictionary, ruler, scissors, math manipulatives, flash cards. I like having these things on hand because if I tuck them away in a cabinet, I’m likely to forget they’re there and not use them. Since we’ve kept our flash cards out on our desk, we remember to spend a few minutes practicing every night. We also keep preschool workbooks in our study area for practice with Nella and Dash (you can often find them in dollar bins) as well as some occupational therapy tools–fat pencils, grips, etc.

6. Store Creative Utensils
The great thing about study spaces is that they can double as creative art spaces. We found an awesome wood utensil caddy at Kohl’s that holds everything in one place–crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue, scissors, etc. And it can be easily moved to other places without making a mess. When the kids aren’t using our new spaces to do school work, they can use them to draw, make art, form Play-Doh structures, color, etc.

7. Personal Touches–Express Yourself!
This part was our favorite–adding the fun stuff. Lainey loves the light-up heart marquee in her desk space, and we had fun personalizing the wall hanging by adding photos and color. I hung a strip of designer wrapping paper (adhered with wall putty, easily removable) above the desk and added some positive message prints we found at Kohl’s, great encouraging reminders for creative work time. Without overwhelming a space with distractions, you can neatly arrange a few prints, taped photos, positive messages and kid artwork to make a study space unique and personalized.

8. A Display Board
A bulletin board, magnetic wipe board or chalkboard works great for posting reminders and due dates. We transformed a great wall hanging we found at Kohl’s into an expressive display board simply by taping up some photos and slipping some S-hooks through the slats to hang things. Now we can hang weekly spelling lists, project requirement lists and important communication/dates from the teacher so that we don’t forget.

9. The Perfect Ambience
Your space is created, your kids are ready to work, everything’s in order. Just a few last touches to set the tone for a positive learning environment. A few optional additions to include in the room of a study space: house plants (research shows plants enhance productivity and reduce stress in the workplace), an essential oil diffuser (try citrus blends for “waking up”, lavender to calm or rosemary for focus) and an audio player and speaker for kids who might benefit from some background classical music or audio books. Also, I always burn a candle at my desk when I work, and Lainey has inherited my candle love, so when I’m working in the office with her, we’ll add some candlelight to our work session.

Creating a cozy study space is a fun challenge and one your kids will enjoy helping with. We all love our new study nooks and are grateful to Kohl’s for working with us and providing all the accessories we needed to make our space unique and colorful.

The following accessories are all from Kohl’s:

Desk Area
Large wood slat wall art (the open slats are great openings for S-hooks so you can hang things from it!)
“I love you to the moon and back” block print
“You are my Sunshine” framed print
Yellow picture frame
Heart marquee
Utensil caddy
Geometric rug

Reading Nook
Black backrest pillow
Chaps cable knit sweater pillow
Geometric rug
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie book and stuffed animal

BIG READS, little reads

August 14, 2015 By Kelle

For Friday Faves today, I’m bringing you my latest favorite reads both for big people and little people. I didn’t read as many books as I wanted to this summer and have a couple that I’m volleying between right now, but I had no problem choosing four that I loved and am excited to pass on. All four of these books had parts that made me uncomfortable–the good kind of uncomfortable that stretches you and pushes you and pulls the flames of your creative fire higher. If I ever feel that fire fizzling, I know books will always bring it back.

Big Reads

1. It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War. It took me a little while to finish this book, but I’m glad I read it. It gives incredible insight to the story behind the photographs we see in the news, and I will never look at war photographs the same.

2. What To Do When It’s Your Turn. I’ll probably talk more about this book later, but it made me cry and I know Seth Godin was thinking of me and me alone when he wrote it. He was up in my brain examining all of the messed up areas, and actually now that I think if it, I wasn’t mentioned as a case study in the acknowledgments and that disappoints me. Remember that game you played as a kid where you close your eyes and spin a globe and then stop it with your finger, and wherever your finger lands is where you’re going to go? This book is the globe. Flip open to a page, any page, and point. Read what it says. That was written for you. Now go there. An easy read with lots of captions and pictures and stories and quotes–about diving in, about not listening to the stories in our head, about being thirsty enough to cut the crap and do what we were meant to do.

3. The Chronology of Water. This was my introduction to Lidia Yuknavich, and now I am obsessed with her. Her new Small Backs of Children is on my list now. Sister. Can. Write. A story of redemption beautifully written with brilliant metaphor. Not for the faint of heart–she’s unfiltered and writes very openly on matters of sexuality. This is now in my small stack of books to reread and reread and reread–saved for the very best books.

4. Letters to a Young Poet. After being introduced to a few Rilke quotes I loved, I picked this up and finished it in a day–super short read. There are treasures on writing, faith, identity and art, and you might as well also buy a new highlighter if you’re going to buy this book. So many yellow pages.

A sample appetizer for you: “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke You’re Welcome.

And now for the littles–books that raise the flames of my creative fire just as much as the big ones do. Bonus: the kids love them too.

Little Reads

1. Good Night Yoga. We took this book to Michigan with us with big plans to wake up and do yoga by the lake every morning. We didn’t exactly hit that goal, but we did hold a tree pose or two on a chilly morning while we chanted some of the darling mediation poems. We’ve since pulled it out several times, now memorizing the words with poses. This is an excellent way to introduce basic yoga moves and accompanying child-friendly affirmations to the littlest of littles–and a fun exercise for parent and child to practice together.

2. Sonya’s Chickens. I don’t know what I love more about this brand new book by Phoebe Wahl–the story and thoughtful approach to explaining a chicken death to a child or the warm details in the gorgeous illustrations. My favorite page in the book (a fun game, by the way):

3. Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt. A beautiful explanation of what happens both above and below the ground of a garden over the course of a year, this book perfectly marries education, story, poetry and art. You can FEEL the words and pictures.

My favorite page:

How’s that for fall freak flag? I want soup and hay bales and chunky cable knit socks RIGHT NOW. And how about that Nana’s style?

Gimme that hat, Nana.

4. Knowledge Encyclopedia. Everything a kid ever wanted to know about anything. This book will entertain even the most reluctant of readers, and it’s so full of information, you could read a different subject every night and take months to finish. DK knows how to make a non-fiction book–the photos, the colors, the diagrams, the captions. From dinosaurs and the ocean floor to a baby’s life in the womb, this book presents child-friendly information, photos and illustrations and magically spins it into SO INTERESTING. We keep this on our coffee table for bored moments.

An Ode to Her Barbies

August 6, 2015 By Kelle

Like a police lineup, she positions them on the ground to account for all of them–synthetic hair, mostly blond, splayed out against the pavement and mismatched outfits–all of them awful–creating a nice visual pattern across the driveway. Except for the red gingham skinny pants–I’d wear those.

There’s Poop, the first real Barbie she named in the parking lot of Toys ‘R Us, and Grocery Store, the auburn-haired beauty. Then there’s Chocolate Lake, Beek and Joann. Paquel II, replacing Paquel I who fell into the Chattahoochee River (God rest her soul). Ken, the brave fashion warrior (powder blue corduroy coveralls–too short–with tiny pearl buttons? What other guy can pull that off?). And then Barbie, Barbie and Barbie–apparently not yet important enough to inherit a Nella-bestowed name.

They are members of our family now. They sleep in our beds, join us for meals and get buckled into car seats every time we leave the house. They’ve seen us naked multiple times–showing up in our showers and crowding our bathtub when we’re trying to relax, their bodies floating beneath the suds in such a way that all that can be seen is hair, fanned out in a perfect display even when wet, and boobs–twin peaks, rising above the bubbles. It’s the hair that enamors her. Every doll she picks up, she swings. Swings and watches as hair flies left, right, left. Her newest favorite doll, a dollar store Barbie knockoff yet to be named, has the longest hair of all, although it’s confined to three hair plugs on a head that’s fallen off seven times. Okay, Dash assisted for six of them. She came from a thrift store, crammed with a crumpled mess of tiny clothes in a toy net with eight other Barbies, and of course Nella spotted them right away. They looked like a fish catch all jammed in there, their faces pressing through the plastic netting, and I felt sorry for them, so I gladly spent the $6–a steal really, even considering the matted hair and one cheapo with the loose head.

I’m growing fond of them. Never a Barbie lover for various reasons, I always liked that my kids were more drawn to baby dolls–something homey, cozy, nurturing about them. But here we are, our house swelling with Mattel plastic–flawless figures and arched toeless feet and knees that click-click-click into bends. These perfect dolls in the hands of my perfect girl create some sort of magic–a place where imagination is wild and free, speech is fluent, friends are abundant and real life scenarios are played out with hilarious accuracy, right down to sassy Barbies who talk back and are scolded.

These Barbies have entertained us on road trips, eased apprehension at doctor appointments, kept us company at the grocery store, at the movies, at a friend’s house and comforted through knee scrapes and head bumps. They’ve shown us how to get our hair washed without crying, how to sit in a dentist chair, how to try new foods. If Barbie can do it, you can too.

Through Barbies, I’ve heard voices I didn’t know were in her, phrases I didn’t know she could say, and have observed her deep understanding of conversation and inflection and attitude: “No way!” “Mmmm-hmmmm.” “Really?” “You’re so funny.” “Oh my God.” “For real?” Fake laugh, fake cry, fake snore. And my favorite, a perfect eye-rolling teenager-ish “O-kaaaaaaaayyy.” She is an actress; she breathes life and character into her Barbies and consequently, they breathe life and character into our home.

I scoop a heap of them out of the tub to clean it, I reach to retrieve them when the sliding van door opens and they all fall out, I stretch the pool net out to skim the floating one–the only one she wants, of course. I sigh as I bend again and again to pick up a tiny shoe, a skirt, a plastic laptop the size of a postage stamp. But I know that I’ll miss them. When someday I pull the couch back to find Paquel forgotten, no longer played with–her hair entangled with lint, her discovery entangled with memories. I’ll smile, knowing the imagination she helped launch has only abounded and the friend that she was has been replaced by many.

Until then, there’s a sleepover happening in a shoe box right now. They’re getting wild–I must go attend.