Homeschooling can be a great way to ensure that your kids are getting the best possible education but sometimes it can get a bit monotonous. The good news is that there are things you can do to help make your homeschool more interesting and upgrade from everyday school routines to facilitate a love of learning and simply make homeschooling more enjoyable for the whole family.
7 Ways To Upgrade Your Homeschool When Things Get Boring
These simple upgrades for your homeschool will help take things up a notch.
Go on a Field Trip
Field trips are a great way to breathe some life back into your homeschool. A field trip to learn hands-on can be a great upgrade activity to help make connections in the real world with lessons you are learning or to simply facilitate a love of learning for your child. Try looking for free and frugal field trips close to home to help make it easier to add more field trips to your homeschool.
Memberships
If you have the fund available for your homeschool you can look into memberships to local zoos, museums, and science centers. This is a great way to help ensure that you can make the most of these activities and save money overall. Try building unit studies or purchasing a homeschool curriculum that works with these memberships to really get your money’s worth when it comes to your child’s education. Remember that your homeschool doesn’t have to be at home.
Outdoor Workspace
As the weather turns warm it is the perfect time to head outside and make the most of your backyard to homeschool your kids. Set up an outdoor workspace for your family to relax and do school work outside. A picnic table or an outdoor dining set will work perfectly for this.
Adding a garden and a weather station are great ways to make use of your outdoor space for teaching your children. Use this as a way to learn about everything from how food is grown from seed to table, local wildlife, how an ecosystem works, and even learn how to track and predict weather patterns as the seasons go on. Nature journals are a great way to make the most of this outdoor workspace.
Let Real Life Teach your Child
If learning has started to lose its luster and your child starts to fight your homeschooling, take a step back and take a break from traditional homeschooling and allow real life to teach your child. Look for learning opportunities in everyday life like math in cooking or learning about animals through doing some volunteer work at a local animal shelter.
Every day is packed with amazing learning opportunities that we often overlook with our children until we start to seek them out. If your homeschool needs a break from the ordinary, sometimes the best way to upgrade your bringing homeschool is to put it all away for a while and let everyday life teach your child some valuable hands-on lessons that can reignite a spark that leads to a lifetime love of learning. Try adding these homemaking activities to your curriculum.
Extracurriculars
When parents start to homeschool the biggest concern many of them have is socialization. One great way to make the most of your homeschool time and solve this concern is to sign your child up for extracurricular activities. This can include things like sports, clubs, and community service programs. These activities are great for your child and can be a great tool for adding to college applications.
Join a Co-Op
If your homeschooling is starting to lose its luster and you need a way to mix things up and take some of the stress off of you, consider joining or creating a local homeschool co-op. This is a great way to have fun with activities and even share some of the load in teaching your children with other parents that may be better suited for a specific class than you are.
Try Having your Teen Pick a Major
When we think of majors we often think of college but a major can be a great way to make the most of middle and high school years as well. Take the time to explore your child’s interests and look for ways to make connections to these interests in every aspect of their education. This is a great way to let your teen explore a possible career and learn as much as possible before they are ready for college.
This can be a great way to make it easier for your child to decide what to do after high school because they have either found a passion they want to stick with or have had the opportunity to explore and learn what they do not want to do with their lives before you spend a lot of money investing into your child’s college education only for them to change their minds later.