Being somewhat of a geek, I want to introduce Ian to learning as early as possible. I need to keep that little melon of his learning so that he can buy me a retirement home as a father’s day gift when he’s 22.

Since Jackie and I are looking for houses and Ian will get his own room soon, I’ve been thinking about some non-conventional decorations we could put in his room to immerse him in learning- visual things that can soak into his brain over time. I’d like to keep away from the simple bland cutesy decorations that you’d see in many kids rooms. I want to challenge him and make him think. Something else we’ve considered is some non-obtrusive features we could add. Take the following examples:

  • Magnetic Paint –
    Someone had the brilliant idea of mixing iron filings into primer. When the paint dries, put a durable kid’s paint over it and they can use magnets to hang things on the wall. The church were we got married in had this in their daycare room and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
  • Music Staff –
    This is one of those things that would be easy enough to implement and would work well with the magnetic paint. Basically put a musical Staff border around the room(or a single wall) at a height Ian could reach. With the magnetic paint underneath, Ian could stick notes to the wall and would be a great way to help teach him music.

  • Solar System on the light –
    Jackie found a setup where a model of the solar system ran across the ceiling, with the light in the middle of the ceiling as the sun. That in combination with a white ceiling and a small jar of glow-in-the dark paint would give him something to look at at night.

Along with the items listed above, we could also put up the following posters:

  • Periodic Table of Elements
  • Map of the US
  • Map of the World
  • Proportional Scale of the Planets
  • Common North America Animal footprints (rabbit, dog, bear, squirrel, etc)
  • Common North America Trees (Leaf pattern/tree height scale)
  • Dinosaurs
  • Fish
  • Planes
  • Dogs
  • Musical Instruments
  • super-busy-posters-with-lots-of-stuff-to-find

Do you have any suggestions?