Little Ways To Make Homeschooling Easier
Taking your kids through the school system from home became very popular over the course of the pandemic. It meant you could keep your kids safe at home while still ensuring they get a well rounded education, and it also gave you something to do while you couldn’t work! And for a long time, that might have worked out just fine for you.
But now you might be reaching a point where acting as a homeschool teacher is becoming very hard. Maybe the kids are getting bored, maybe even you’re getting bored, and maybe the syllabus is getting a bit too complicated for everyone involved – it can all happen after a while! And if you’re feeling like this, you’re currently at a great moment for reevaluating your homeschool tactics.
Maybe it’s time to change the way you teach or try something new? And we’re here to help you decide. So, whether you just got started in lockdown or you’ve been homeschooling for a very long time, here are some handy tips for making homeschooling much easier on both you and the kids.
Simplify Your Syllabus
The first thing you should try doing here is simplifying your syllabus. When kids are young they only need to learn a couple core subjects, such as reading and writing in early years comprehension classes and numbers and simple sums in maths.
As the kids get older things can get more complicated, sure, but you can also take this time to focus on separating the subjects they really excel at and the ones they struggle with. Cherry pick the syllabus here and there until your kids really see the subject clearly.
If your child has a hard time understanding science equations and/or formulas, this could be the right time to clear their timetable of other subjects and take a week to really solidify their knowledge in this area. Take them down to a science museum, put educational videos on, and work one on one with this topic. And if they’re not a big fan of stringing a poem together, you can do the same thing in this area!
Build Tests and Quizzes Online
Every now and then you’re going to need to test your kids on what they’ve learned. And when you’re having to come up with questions on your own as well as put an individual exam together, that’s hard! You can dread the end of the month when you have to set up a quiz, even though it’s one of the best ways to find out where the knowledge gaps are in your classroom, and it’s not just the kids pretending to be sick to get out of it!
But that’s where the online world can come in to help. You can easily conduct online exams once you find a template and know how to build them; there are plenty of websites out there that allow you to put together quizzes that can be modified whenever necessary and used time and time again. And the kids will find a digital interface much more intuitive to use – this generation is the first to grow up with technology, after all.
Move Your Learning Space
Where you currently take lessons might be getting a bit boring or impractical. For example, having to clear the kitchen or dinner table each morning is getting tiring, or pulling out the sofa to fit little desks in might be giving you a bad back by now. So why not think about moving your workspace entirely? Boredom from frustration is a real mind killer, so now’s the perfect time to experiment a little!
If you’ve got a closed off patio outside, for example, you could hold lessons there from now on. Or on bad days you could simply sit down on the sofa together and read through a textbook together. Let the classroom change from time to time to help keep things interesting and to make sure your home doesn’t become a non-functioning space in both areas of your life.
Incorporate Household Chores
Being able to look after yourself and your house is a huge part of learning life skills. Knowing how to wash the dishes and do your own laundry, as well as keep good body hygiene and properly brush your teeth, goes a long way to building a well adjusted adult. And that’s something you can teach in the here and now by incorporating chores into the school day. Two birds, one stone!
For example, show the kids the washing machine, teach them what the buttons do, and then quiz them by randomly pointing to each button to see who answers first. Then get them to arrange lights and darks correctly as a competition. Make it a bit of a game, remind them it’s important they know this for life, and let them earn a star for the wall chart when they get the chore done.
Finish Off the Week with Something Fun
How do you feel by the time Friday rolls around? Worn out? Sick of textbooks? Your kids feel the same! A week of school can be tiring and suck the fun out of everything, so make sure there’s something to look forward to at the end of the week. A movie you all enjoy, a fun game that has little prizes for coming first and second, or even just time to play with some favourite toys for the last 20 or so minutes of the school day. A bit of fun goes a long way to motivating kids to try their hardest!
You could also use the end of the week as the day for field trips and days out. If a child knows they’ve got a trip coming up where they head off with their siblings and/or friends to visit something interesting, it’ll help them to focus their attention on school. After all, the only reason they get to do this is because they’re having lessons – it’s a little way to show them the kind of opportunities that open up when you pay attention to your teacher!
Take the Kids Outside
We briefly mentioned the possibility earlier, but taking the kids out and about during homeschooling periods can do wonders for their overall knowledge base. You can use these opportunities to teach them about the real world around them, as well as supplement that knowledge with fun activities, cool landmarks, and interactive experiences in museums and galleries and even theme parks!
And not only that, but the more your kids get out and about, the more likely they are to develop good social skills. Indeed, studies show that homeschooled kids already tend to be more sociable and well rounded than their traditionally schooled peers, but this only occurs when the kids are allowed time out of the house.
Kids who are enrolled in externally run clubs and/or take classes with other homeschooled kids won’t find it hard to make friends or develop relationships when they’re older. And as a parent, that’s a very heartwarming sign that you’re doing something right!
Homeschooling is a challenge, absolutely. But it doesn’t have to turn into an impossible exercise that neither you or the kids can get on with. You can change things up here and there to make lessons more entertaining, and there’s more than one way to learn! So take the kids out, teach them some life skills along the way, and don’t be afraid to simplify what you teach.
