Needless to say, our goal for this summer was to finally organize our basement and to make it functional. Thankfully, this presented a superb opportunity for homeschooling. As we planned how to layout the different areas for everything from amateur radio to art and workbenches to a washing machine, we began by measuring the basement. Our daughter assisted with the measurements and figuring out what size area rugs would work in the space. This worked well since she had recently been learning about measurements and had practiced measuring different parts of our dogs.

When it came time to determining the layout of the basement, we each came up with a plan. Each had their benefits and challenges. While it would have been much easier to simply make a decision leaving out our daughter, we listened patiently as she presented several different detailed plans over the weeks.

Again, this was a great homeschool opportunity. Not only did the layout include design skills, interpreting the family’s needs, and measurements but it required serious skills to communicate why that design was the best. After all, each of us felt our plan was the solution.

Well, we finished our basement this weekend (finally!) and the design we went with was our daughter’s final plan with one minor flip-flop of two items. Quite an impressive result and homeschool opportunity!