One of the things we love about homeschool is the lack of rules. We do not have to be like public school; we can learn any old way we please. Even so, it is often easy to find ourselves falling back on the old standbys: textbooks and worksheets. What is a homeschool mama to do when her homeschool becomes boring? Here are a few ways to engage your littles and get your homeschool back to being fun.
Active Learning This can be as simple as reading a play aloud. When we were studying American History we would sit in a circle on the floor and choose a play about our lesson from Scholastic’s ebook “Read Aloud Plays: Pioneers.” The Littles loved doing this because they like acting. So we would divide the characters among us and read. Plays are a great tool because they teach the lesson without seeming to teach at all. In fact, they’re downright fun. Especially when you dress the part.
Native American costumes for Wild West study 2012
There are many other types of active learning, such as
Science Experiments You can teach science across the board without ever touching a textbook or putting pencil to paper. You can find simple chemistry experiments all over the internet, as well as weather and earth science experiments. Make a weather station. We set one up right outside our classroom window and took notes from it every day. The Littles couldn’t wait to get to class every morning that semester to see if their rain-measuring jar had caught any water, or their barometer had moved since the day before. The weather vane we made was a source of endless fascination. That was two years ago, and they can still tell me exactly what types of clouds are in the sky at a given time. Engaged learning. Long-lasting effects. We once made a skeleton by gluing different types of pasta onto card stock. Fun and engaging, and helps your littles understand anatomy a little better. You can set up a detective game to teach a bit about forensic science. I can’t even list the number of physics projects we’ve tried. Balloon rocket cars. What kid wouldn’t love that?! Too many static electricity experiments to count. Biology? Dissect frogs or owl pellets. Do an animal study. Your kids are learning and having fun and there’s nothing that says they can only study one kind of science a year.
Hot Air Balloon Constructed of Tissue Paper & Heated with Hair Dryer
Arts and crafts This does not have to be a separate class. In fact, I most often include it in one lesson or another. Kids love to make art, even if they’re never going to be another Van Gogh. Getting their hands active will help them remember the lesson. If you’re studying Greek history, make a Parthenon out of cardboard. If you’re studying Asian geography, make a salt-dough Japan. If you’re reading the Secret Garden, make tissue paper flowers. We once did a study of Spanish words related to rainforests and created trees, vines, leaves, and animals to decorate our classroom with. Every single day, add an art or craft project to one of your lessons. It gets rid of the necessity of planning an art class, and Gets Your Littles More Engaged with whatever else they’re studying.
Eggshell-crusted Mayan Temple 2011
Get Out of the House This can be as simple as stepping into your backyard for a nature study or taking a walk around the block to check out how the sun is casting shadows as time passes. It can be as complicated as driving for an hour to a great historical spot. One of Littlest’s favorite field trips involved a 20-minute drive to a Civil War site that had nothing to offer by way of entertainment. It contained a cannon, a plaque, and a log cabin. The cabin was locked up tight, you couldn’t even see into it. I printed out a brochure from their website that told the story of the battle and as we walked around the small site, I read it to them. They were fascinated. Littlest talks about it All the Time. Sometimes they’re engaged even when we’re not. Remember, we’re doing this for them, not ourselves.
Play Music You may think that sounds strange, but research shows that our brains absorb information better when music is playing in the background. I want my littles to grow up with a real appreciation for orchestral music, so I literally have a crate full of classical and contemporary orchestral music. They choose if they want to listen to Mozart or Vivaldi or Strauss or even Celtic music. And they love Gregorian chant, which we studied a couple years ago in a music theory class. They take turns picking the CD of the day, we put it in and let it play quietly the whole time we’re in class. I can always tell when we forget. They are more easily distracted. Interesting, huh?
Play Games Mad Libs are superb for grammar lessons. Clue is great for critical thinking. We are huge fans of trivia games like Trivial Pursuit and Scene It. Cranium and Kid’s Cranium cover trivia, art, and P.E. Scrabble helps with spelling And with foreign language. Getting the picture? Board games are not just a blast and a good way to bond–they teach your littles lots of good stuff. Any time it’s appropriate (and even when it isn’t), add a board game to your school day.
Plan Shorter Lessons If you plan shorter lessons, you allow more time for Rabbit Trails. Sometimes kids just really want to discuss what they’re learning, and if we’ve got an hour-long lesson planned, it can feel like they are taking up too much time. We end up not giving that little the one-on-one we planned when we decided to homeschool. But if the planned lesson is only 1/2 an hour long, we can let our kids’ minds wander all over the place. If they are talking about history or geography or math or science, even if you wander far off topic, they are actively engaged in the learning process. Allow it. It helps them soak it all in and may lead to a truly fascinating discussion.
Get Messy In any way possible. Littles adore getting messy. Fingerpaint. Make Oobleck. Build a volcano and use vinegar and baking soda to make it erupt. Go to a creek and hunt for crawfish (or crawdads as we call them here). Build a Great Wall out of mud bricks. Let them littles get filthy. They will love you for it and remember the lesson better because you will have made it into a great memory.
Read a Book You knew I was going to say it. See my 25 Days of Lit in Your Homeschool series for suggestions.
It really doesn’t take a lot of effort on your part to make every single day exciting for your little learners. Practice these tips and you will find that you almost never hear, “Do we Have To do school today?” I’ve only heard that a handful of times in 5 years, and it was usually during the summer. By making learning fun for them, you are teaching them to love learning. And isn’t that what we want to create? Lifelong learners?
Love wins,
KT
Here’s the deal. These mountains are part of the Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park in China. They are believed to have been formed by the folding of oceanic crust, perhaps buckled by the movement of tectonic plates. The color is caused by the erosion of red sandstone, which forms peaks and stratified outcroppings. Its present appearance is caused by its special geological structure combined with long-term desert conditions–freeze-thaw peeling and wind and water erosion. This weathering has exposed rock layers of different colors, sizes, textures, and patterns to reveal this wondrous rainbow-like view.
Form the base of your mountain with your chosen color.
Add layers until you’ve created an entire mountain of color.
I’ll take it. Every Day. Today the reason I love homeschooling is that we can laugh while we learn. What a fantabulous way to spend a morning.
