Here we will discuss the many advantages of having a whiteboard painted wall when simultaneously working at home and homeschooling your children, as well as practical tips on various ways to use a whiteboard wall in this setting. Subjects covered include how a whiteboard wall can be employed in the telecommuting workspace, in homeschool teaching strategies, in the development of children’s homeschool learning abilities, in work-at-home and homeschooling time management, in conducting virtual meetings from home, and in entertaining the family at home.

Articles will be posted over the next 8 weeks. Below is a summary of some of the subtopics to be covered in each subject area.

The advantages of working and learning from home using a whiteboard painted wall

A. Provides virtually limitless space to brainstorm work-related ideas, plan projects, create homeschool curricula, etc.

B. Offers the space to post highly visible, large-sized daily schedules of homeschool lessons and work-at-home projects

C. Provides a large enough surface area to create easily noticeable calendars for both homeschool and telecommuting activities and events

D. Heightens your children’s creativity and engagement in learning while they work on a large surface such as a whiteboard painted wall

E. Enhances children’s psychomotor and learning skills as they write and draw on the large vertical surface of their whiteboard wall

F. Allows for easy visual assessment of both your children’s homeschool work and your telecommuting ideas because of the whiteboard wall’s size

G. Offers immense flexibility in assigning school lessons, impromptu projects, and other activities when you’re occupied with home office tasks

H. Facilitates the listing and selection of online homeschool training courses due to the huge surface area of your whiteboard painted wall.

Tips on using a whiteboard painted wall in your telecommuting work

A. Make sure your whiteboard wall is installed in a dedicated workspace so as to prioritize its use for work-at-home tasks.

B. Create a daily assignment list for efficient task management; a whiteboard wall’s large size allows your list to be readily visible from your work station. Having a private task list on a whiteboard wall makes it easier for you to switch your schedule around by simply erasing and writing in new information.

C. Use your whiteboard painted wall to create a message board where you can write brief notes and reminders to yourself or to family members.

Tips on learning from home through the use of a whiteboard painted wall

A. Make sure to have your children use low-odor dry erase markers to do homeschool work on your whiteboard wall to minimize releasing toxic chemicals into the atmosphere and potential allergic reactions and other issues related to the fumes.

B. Have the children generate their ideas for class projects, essays, and other assignments on the whiteboard wall, thus allowing them to quickly write or draw, erase, and rewrite/redraw what they’re thinking of, and giving them a vast surface to unleash their creativity and increase their learning capacity through the brainstorming process.

C. Let your kids create large whiteboard wall murals to commemorate special holidays such as Christmas or Presidents’ Day or special family days like their birthdays or the first day of homeschool classes.

D. The whiteboard wall in the homeschool setting can become your children’s personal environment rather than your environment. In this way you can empower your children and give each one their own individual voice by allowing them to have a place where they can create and express themselves without restrictions. Designating an area that’s specifically meant for the use of your children alone allows them to gain a sense of personal entitlement whereby they feel safe just being themselves and freely communicating their thoughts and feelings.

Tips on homeschooling your child while working from home

A. Develop a flexible routine instead of a fixed schedule – avoid slots on a chart or rigid blocks of time such as “math – 8:00-8:45, grammar – 8:45-9:30, etc.”; instead, start your first block of work sometime from 8 to 8:30 and then cover one subject after another until you’re finished with all subjects for the day. Use your whiteboard painted wall to keep track of which subjects you’ve covered during the day and how much you’ve spent on each and then spend more time the next day on ones that may have received too little attention.

B. If you have a large enough homeschool room, create room sections to minimize distractions, especially when you have children of various grade levels.

C At the beginning of the homeschool year, get into your teaching process gently by starting with just one subject during the first week. And then add another subject the next week and so on. This approach helps both you and your child or children get back into the teaching and learning process gradually and less stressfully.

D. Avoid the urge to teach every subject every day because doing so can lead to frustration. Public schools offer music once or twice weekly, and science, history, geography, social studies, foreign languages, and other subjects only two or three days a week. If you lack the time to cover all the subjects you normally teach in a given week, you can use your whiteboard wall to post extra assignments for non-core subjects to supplement your work in the core subjects, and have your children do them at their leisure.

Tips on using a whiteboard wall for time management if you’re new at working from home

A. Make a to-do list on your whiteboard wall to help motivate yourself to accomplish important tasks in a timely manner.

B. Create a dedicated workspace in the area where your whiteboard wall is located to allow yourself to remain focused on work-related tasks with minimal distractions.

C. Avoid multi-tasking to further keep yourself focused on one specific work-related project at a time.

D. Control your use of social media to avoid becoming distracted by unnecessary communications with friends and family during the work day.

E. Keep an activity log (aka an activity diary or a job activity log) on your whiteboard wall so that you have a written record providing you with an accurate idea of what you accomplish each day and how your time may be used more efficiently.

Tips on conducting virtual meetings using a whiteboard wall

A. Make sure that you have a fast and reliable internet connection to guarantee that you always have timely and uninterrupted business meetings.

B. Create a quiet and professional remote office in the area of your whiteboard wall so that you can maintain a work-oriented mindset during your virtual meetings.

C. Ensure that the equipment you use during your virtual meetings or video conferences has good sound and camera quality and that your whiteboard wall is perfectly clean and ready to use before each meeting.

D. Always dress professionally and appropriately to establish a business-like atmosphere during meetings and a positive, competent image for yourself.

E. Prepare all of the reports, documents and software you’ll need for your meetings in advance so that you can avoid wasting time searching for essential materials while conducting the meetings.

F. Write down all relevant ideas provided by team members on your whiteboard wall for everyone to see and comment on during the meeting, while erasing and adding new content when necessary.

Entertaining the family at home using a whiteboard wall

Introduction: A whiteboard wall has countless academic and business functions, but it’s also an ideal medium for fun and recreation, providing a vast canvas for your children’s drawings and doodles, games of hangman, jointly written poems, and an endless variety of other leisure-time pursuits. The following are some at-home games and other activities that can be enjoyed through the use of your whiteboard painted wall.

A. Tic-tac-toe or X’s and O’s – In this game the participants soon learn that the best response from both players results in a draw. For this reason, tic-tac-toe is usually played by young children, who have not yet learned the best strategy for winning but who can benefit from practicing good sportsmanship if they lose.

B. The hangman game

C. Simon says “Draw”

D. Drawing contest – In this activity children draw on the whiteboard wall in an attempt to produce the best drawing in the group. The winner receives a small prize as a reward for their efforts and a way to promote self-confidence.

E. Collaborative poetry writing – Stimulates creativity and teaches the importance of cooperation.