Hey friends - welcome back to the Revolution!

Hopefully after yesterday's little break, you had a chance to catch up on some of the series' emails and feel a bit more confident about the learning culture around your home environment. Today I'm going to guide you through one of my all-time favorite activities when it comes to designing your home for the best learning experience. I developed this exercise nearly a decade ago, and if you've been around for awhile you may even remember it. But trust me when I say this: everyone needs to do this exercise. Even if you've done it before - things change. It'll take you one day of paying attention and you'll get a season of change!

Ok, let's get started. No fancy words or teachings today - just work! :)

Let's make your Home Heatmap:

You will need blank paper, pen or pencil, and a different marker color for each person in your home (you included).

Quick note - This exercise needs to be done on a pretty normal day of your family's life. If you have one day a week where you're out running a million errands and have multiple events to attend, don't pick that day. Pick a day that is most representative of your average, run-of-the-mill day.

Step 1: Get a blank piece of paper and draw a general blueprint of your home. I like to see things nice and big, so when I do this, I do a separate piece of paper for each floor of the home, but you can fit them all onto one if that's easier.

And no, don't try to cheat and say you'll take notes on your phone or "do it in your head" or draw something on an ipad.... put it on a piece of paper. Trust me.

Step 2: Make a Color Key for the marker colors you chose. Red is you, blue is brother, green is sister, etc. Make sure you know which color represents which person - that part is important.

Step 3: Set a 15 minute recurring alarm on your phone to go off during the day. Or, if you're really attune to time, just make a mental note to do this every 15ish minutes. I know, it's annoying. But the data you are about to gather in one day will blow your mind. I promise.

Step 4: Every time that timer goes off throughout the day, you're going to make a little marker dot on the map marking each person's current location in the home. If you're making dinner, dot yourself in the kitchen. Little brother building legos on the playroom floor? Dot there. Big sister hanging out in her bedroom? Dot there. Every 15 minutes, take a quick look, add your dots. Do this until everyone is in bed.

Depending on how detailed you want this data to be, you can do just a dot in the general room they're in or specifically where in the room they are (I recommend the detailed version - noticing your child spends way more time on the floor than at a table, for example, is GREAT data to have!!!).

In addition, if you want super nerd level data, you can make little pencil notes of the time as well (knowing, for example, that your child spends time alone during the morning, but then is always near another human in the afternoon speaks volumes!).

Step 5: My favorite part: Analysis! This heat map should give you incredible insight into where your children are choosing to spend their time. Are they always by themselves or prefer to be near where you are? Are there times of day where they tend to be in one spot over another? Do they spend more time in one room when another sibling is there? Do they hover in the kitchen near food during certain parts of the day?

This data is so incredibly valuable, but we'll get more into HOW to use that in tomorrow's lesson. Today, just prepare your data gathering tools and choose the day you're going to collect it.

Can't wait to dive deeper!

🫶🏽 Leah

PS - if you haven't yet enrolled your child in Bridge Academy for the upcoming 26-27 school year, there's still time! Click here to watch our Open House and learn more about this revolutionary community of learners and their families. Reply to this email if you have any questions.