Homeschooling Moms-do You Use...

No, because my daughter has asthma and the last thing I wanted was flying chalk dust. Chalk, for us, is outside on the sidewalk. We do use a marker board, though...and a lot, lot of paper! :)

Yes I did when I homeschooled. We were lucky to get a school sized chalkboard for free and we loved it. The kids worked on math problems on it, drew, did maps, practiced handwriting & just had fun with it. And when kids came to visit, they loved writing on it.

When we first started many, many years ago, I had a white board. I really did like it, but it ended up getting the wall dirty. A couple of moves, and we've ditched the white board. I now just write on a piece of paper right next to my child. Works just as well. I think one of the things I have worked through over the years is deprograming from the public school mindset. We are not public school at home. We are living and learning. We are not an "institution." We are a family. I try to take as much of the instituion feel out of our life as I can.

No, because I have asthma and the chalk would definitely give me an asthma attack. But we do have a small dry-erase board that I use; it is nice because it doesn't waste paper when I'm trying to explain something to them and need to write something out. We usually sit on the couch when we're talking about something, and having a small one is nice because I can hold it in my lap and the kids can see it while we're sitting together (it's about the same size as a regular piece of paper). And they also sometimes have fun drawing on it themselves with the dry-erase markers. It was only about four or five dollars at Target.

Although I don't actually homeschool, I've always tried to have that type of environment available for my son. In his room, we made a chalkboard by painting a long roll of metal and framing it on the wall. For us it was helpful for writing spelling examples he could see while doing his homework.

We use a magnetic white board. The kids love it.

just make sure you get low odor dry erase markers! We use several white boards every day and have since K. Everything from daily lesson plans to math problems, spelling words and brainstorming for book reports.

The only thing I wanted to add was that there are pros and cons to both. We use a chalkboard. There is dust but we have no allergies and we keep a little hand vaccuum close by to clean up the chalk dust on the floor. The kids love using the little vaccuum. With dry erase boards, I found that marker lids sometimes don't get put back on tight enough and they dry out and sometimes marks end up accidentally on things other than the board (like clothing) and they don't always come out, even if they are washable. We do have dry erase boards, but we don't use them as much as we do the chalkboard. We prefer the old fashioned chalk. It's much easier to clean up if there is a mess from it. ;)

Yes, I used a small one the size of notebook paper I found at the dollar store. My daughter enjoyed using chalk and it was pretty handy for Kindergarten.

Didn't read the other responses and not a homeschooling mom, but what about one of the kid's easel sets that are dry erase/magnetic on one side and chalkboard on the other?. You can use during homeschool and kids can use during playtime. DS's school uses dry ease boards. Good Luck!

I am with all on the dry erase board idea. Instead of the regular one you would buy, I would suggest using a large poster sized picture frame with only white paper behind the glass, but only if that is to be mounted securely where you would be using it. The glass doesn't get "cloudy" from long term daily use and cleaning. The dry erase markers still show up nicely. On another note, we used to take dry erase markers in the car on long trips and the kids would write, color and draw on the side windows. This kept them occupied without paper waste, and they couldn't fight over one using more paper than the other. They each had their own set of markers also.

How about a white-board with dry eraser markers---those seem to work well.

you can get chalkboard and whiteboard paint to turn any wall into a write-able/erasable surface. we actually just use dry erase markers on our sliding glass door in the dining room.

My kids love that type of stuff. Being able to write or draw on the dry erase board keeps them interested. My oldest with homeschooling would draw comics and write out his spelling test to practice.

I personally don't like the sound of chalk or the dust with my allergies, but my kids love drawing with the sidewalk chalk outside. They would try to draw what they saw on the driveway or sidewalk. That was like their art and inside was more like math and spelling on the dry erase.

Both could be used, depending on how you feel.

We have used a big dry-erase board . . .

I liked Debi B's answer--it shows how the kids used it, and she was lucky enough to get it free.

Consider, though--while fun, none of the items listed shows that a chalkboard was necessary to teach curriculum. It is, however, a great tool for creativity. When my daughter was two, she used her easel daily. Now she would rather manipulate paper and other supplies. Don't stress over this.

I have heard about people going to Home Depot and buying white board sheeting, and then getting it cut up to size there.

I have a huge white board. It is set up on the basement wall. We use it for Latin, math and Grammar sentences every day. Mine are 5th and 8th this year.

We have several dry erase boards of various sizes that get used all the time. From writing math problems down and placing it at the end of the hallway so kiddo can skateboard down and back to do them, to calendars, to battle strategies (like football strategies, but with ships and horses and infantry), to lessons, notes, quizzes, drawings, menus, itineraries... we just take pictures of any board we want to "keep" the info on.

One of the blogs I read posted about a homemade dry erase board - way cheaper than buying a big one!

http://ourbusyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2009/06/diy-dry-era...