Homeschooling Tips and Tricks

Looking for homeschooling tips and tricks to engage your child in learning vs. pulling teeth to get a single lesson complete??

Homeschooling could be fun and rewarding for the whole family. It allows us the time to really get to know each other on new levels. We discover strengths/talents that we may have overlooked spending days apart, with work and school.

Homeschooling could ALSO be frustrating and stressful for the whole family. When a child doesn’t want to do schoolwork, our days could be filled with tantrums, tears, threats, bribes, enormous distractions, never ending hunger, insatiable thirst, weak bladders, and high blood pressure.

The moment it’s school time, it never fails that my kids want to constantly eat, drink, and pee! Do your kids do that too?

I understand every family, child, and learning style is VERY different. I’ll share some things that work for our family and would LOVE to hear what works for yours!

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Start with where your child is at

Which subjects and activities do they love? Which do they struggle with? Which do they feel is torture and make you the worst parent in the world for making them do?

Use all of these to your advantage when scheduling your day’s work. Try letting the kiddos pick which subject to work on next.

As long as it all gets done, it doesn’t matter the order, right? To us it doesn’t matter, but to our kids it could mean the difference between motivation and dreaded torture.

For my Ryan (3^rd grade) he prefers to do his LEAST favorite subject first. He gets it out of the way and said that he knows that, when it’s done, the rest of his schoolwork will be easy.

Tristin (7^th grade) always liked to do his favorite subjects first as it’s motivation to get started.

When Ryan was in school, he struggled with reading. He hated it and had no interest in books. He ended up having to go to summer school due to his poor Reading Test Scores in 1^st grade.

I asked our town’s librarian how I could help him WANT to read. She suggested the Dog Man Series(paid link).

Ok, I know Dog Man isn’t for everyone. It’s written by the same man who created Captain Underpants and the humor is much the same.

There is a lot of mischievous “boy” humor (farts, poop jokes, and such), and a little crass at times. I don’t think we have ever laughed so hard reading a book before though! 

So instead of the “required reading” of Charlotte’s Web which was met with dread and fights, we made a deal.

Ryan reluctantly agreed that we would take turns reading the 1^st  Dog Man book (paid link) to see how he liked it. Quickly after I started reading, he pulled the book away from me “Wait a minute!” as he giggled. I think he didn’t believe what I just read. He then took over my turn and continued reading.

He never looked back, and has enjoyed reading ever since, even calling it his favorite subject now!

We….actually HE read ALL 9 books in the series. The last one he requested as his b-day present, and he just asked me to pre-order the 10^th one coming out next month! (Literally, as I am typing I ordered it. THAT is how much we love these books!) 

For the past few months, as we await the next Dog Man book to be available, we started in on The Bad Guys series. (paid link) Similar comic type style and humor, as well as The Yeti Files.

Ryan will literally read over 130 pages in a sitting, giggling the whole way with these books!

The awesome part about this, is seeing his growth and love of reading explode! It has transferred over to his regular reading throughout his school day as well. Now that he is SOOOO much better at reading, it isn’t a struggle at all to get his reading assignments done for schoolwork.

Channel their interests

One of the greatest things about homeschooling is the flexibility in teaching kids in the ways THEY learn, using THEIR interests.   

When teaching Tristin Greater Than/Less Than, it was quickly obvious that he wasn’t grasping it at all. I tried the typical “Alligator” symbol, but he had no interest.

Most of Tristin’s life, he has had a love/obsession with all things Pacman. So I turned the symbol into Pacman, made Ghosts, Cherries, and Pellets on paper. I would ask which set he thought Pacman would rather eat. It was a hit! Immediately he was interested and understood the concept.

Race vs. Timing

There are days when our kids try to drag out the day as long as possible. I swear they band together trying to wear me down.

The delaying may tempt us to want to set a timer. I’ve found timers only add to the stress and back fires more than helping.

It causes pressure for the child that sometimes causes them to work even slower because they are in a panic looking at the clock and their paper over and over not able to focus.

Instead, I channel the mischief in them. Not every day, but some days to mix things up a bit, I challenge them to a race.

There are days when bragging rights are enough, other days I have to step up the motivation even more.

“I have to turn over the laundry, and you have a section to complete. Let’s see who could get done fastest!“ “ Winner gets to pick what we do next.”

Or “Loser does 5 jumping jacks!”

I’ll admit, sometimes I stall a bit and call out fighting words. “Oh my goodness! I’m almost done! I can’t wait to see you sweat!”  9 out of 10 times, I’m the “loser”, yet win in so many other ways by channeling their mischief!

We end with completed work, laughter, and mom getting exercise rather than tears and frustration. 

Let the Wiggles Free!

My oldest, Tristin, has special needs. (YES! Homeschooling children with special needs CAN be done!)

He needed to pace and spin quite a bit to help regulate himself during the day.

Forcing him to sit still to do school work was simply impossible. The public school used to literally strap him down in a wooden seat to keep him still (One of the reasons he no longer goes there!). 

So instead of fighting it, I allowed him to move as much as he needed as long as the school work got done.

I taped his school work pages at eye level throughout the downstairs.

It felt like a miracle! He no longer fought me. He went from worksheet to worksheet and completed them ALL! He spun, he wiggled, and he LEARNED!

My middle, Ryan, is “typical”. No special needs, but a load of wiggling, fidgeting energy. So sometimes I do the same for him for Math (his least favorite subject).

If you try hanging worksheets, I suggest having the kids use washable markers to avoid carving your walls up behind the paper. Another option would be to hang a clip board up first, to give a backing to a hard pressed pencil.

Think outside of the schoolbook

We love beginning our school day with a game. It’s a positive way to start, and the kids look forward to it. I think that THEY think the games are getting us out of doing schoolwork or a delay. HOWEVER, I feel they are learning invaluable lessons when playing a game.

Games teach turn taking, being a graceful winner, how not to be a sore loser, and playing honestly without cheating.

Games also reiterate skills that you are teaching through book work, but does it in such a nonchalant way!

Right now, our favorite games to play are:

Monopoly Jr. Dig’n Dinos- This is Ryan’s favorite because it’s a longer game that he likes to use as a delay. The dinosaurs are a plus. I love it because I could use it to teach multiple different skills.

 Math-He is always the banker, making change for purchases. When your paleontologist lands on a space where another player owns all of that color, you pay them twice the fee (multiplying).

Science-We are learning about dinosaurs throughout the game! 18 different ones to be exact! Each spot that you land on, to buy, is linked to a different dinosaur. The card associated with that dinosaur, has the proper pronunciation of its name, what the name means, and fun facts about them. This opens up learning and natural conversation about differences between omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores, etc…

Geography- On each card, it lists where in the world that particular dinosaur’s fossils were found. Every once in a while during the game, we’ll look up on google maps the distance and route between the locations.

The natural inquisitive learning from just playing this game is awesome!

State/Capital Bingo- Pretty straight forward, however I like this one because it’s a great way of learning each state, their abbreviation, shape, and capital.

The kids love being the ones to pull the little call cards and quiz me as we play.

Little do they realize that every time they pull a card, look at the shape, the names, abbreviations, and capitals…THEY are learning!

Life Skills Day!

I have friends who don’t use any workbooks at all for homeschooling. Personally I do and try to keep my kids as grade level as possible, in case God forbid something were to happen that I no longer could teach them at home. I would want as smooth of a transition as possible for them.

HOWEVER I believe in balance. Every once in a while (or even one day a week!), try to throw in a Life Skills Day as their “school day”. “Life Skills Wednesday” provides a workbook break in the middle of the week to look forward to.

This is when cooking, baking, cleaning, building, and gardening become priceless skills to teach. While you may already do this during the day, try something new out, and be sure to count it as their school lesson.

Get the kids reading the instructions and measuring.

If it’s a recipe, work towards doubling or tripling it and you will be naturally throwing in multiplication as well as measurements.

We regularly make 2 Ingredient Bagels by quadrupling the recipe. Which then, also requires the kids to divide and brings in fractions as well! BOOM!

If you are making eggs, have your kids grind up the shells for compost or to save for when you plant your garden.

Go even further, talking about the importance and role of Calcium in our bodies as well as for plants (particularly tomatoes!). If you don’t know more details, have them google it and read it out loud. Reading + Science= Double BOOM!

I hope this gave you some new Homeschooling Tips and Tricks to try out at your house.

Comment below with your own favorite homeschooling tips to share!