To make sure that your child is a lifelong learner, they need to get excited about learning. They should look forward to school, whether it is in a traditional classroom or at home when you homeschool. Teachers are trained to make sure they understand the best ways for kids to learn, but many homeschool parents don’t know how to go about doing this.
This ends up resulting in many homeschool parents going through the motions and just sticking with the curriculum that they created. This ends up making the lessons boring and kids end up tuning out. The key is to infuse some excitement into the lessons so that kids can’t wait to start. In this article, we will go over several ways that a homeschool teacher can make the lessons more fun.
Do Experiments
Learning about the scientific method is one of the most important lessons a child can have these days. Science is all around us and is required to understand to make more sense of how the world works. The best way to instill an appreciation for STEM subjects, doing experiments is the best way to make the lessons fun.
The key is to make sure that every experiment is age-appropriate. This means that they should be of interest to the right age. Some will be too simple for an older child and some too complicated for a young child. For instance, there are a lot of fun science experiments with magnets that young children will love to participate in and will help them understand physics. Those would be too basic for older kids so it’s important to find out which work for the right age.
This doesn’t just apply to science experiments. There are also a lot of fun experiments that can be done with math since that is one of the pillars of the STEM subjects. Since math can be boring and not of interest to every student, it’s important to find fun ways to experiment and show them how math is important in our daily lives and not just science.
Get Outside
Nature is the best classroom so it is a good idea to go outside for some of your lessons. You could simply use the backyard as a backdrop for an already planned lesson to simply give them a change of scenery. Or, you could use being outside as a perfect lesson in and of itself.
There are so many things to discover for kids of any age when you go looking for them outside. There is the cycle of nature that is important to learn by observing the life cycle of animals and plants, for example.
The fresh air, sights, and sounds of the outdoors are invigorating and get the learning juices flowing in all kids.
Take it slow
Burnout of yourself and your children is a very real thing that is common in a homeschool environment. Kids learn at their own pace and this is important to remember. It’s one of the reasons to homeschool in the first place since you wanted your kids to have a personalized learning experience and not be another cog in the wheel.
This means that you have to pace yourself to suit the needs of your children. Take your time and respond to their needs. If you push too hard or try to extend the school day to fit everything in then you risk burning them out as well as yourself. Being flexible is one of the keys to success when it comes to being a homeschool parent. Look for ways to break out of a rut like taking a field trip or taking frequent breaks during the day.
Supplement the lessons
When you feel like a lesson is starting to get a bit dry and your child’s eyes are glazing over, then it is time to spice it up a bit. Rather than doing a regular lesson, try to add in a documentary, for example. If you are doing a history lesson then showing them a documentary about the event or time period is a great way to have them entertained and truly understand the lesson at hand.
Youtube is also a very good resource and will help you add a bit of excitement to the lesson. Look for channels that deal with certain subjects and keep an eye out for when they are doing something related to your lesson plan.