Making Homeschool a Joy, Not a Fight

With the new homeschool year coming fast, my family is picking out the curriculum for this year.

One of the things I love about how my family picks the subjects for us to learn is that we get to help pick some of the curriculum. Not only that, but each of us has at least one (I have 3 or 4) subjects we love to do. We like to use the subjects we love as breaks between the more difficult subjects.

I also love how Mom finds fun school supplies for us to use and we each get our own special supplies.

For me, having breaks from the hard subjects (such as science for me), or long subjects (such as math, which takes time to do) is absolutely necessary for me to finish. Why? Because if I don’t take breaks, I get too mentally tired to finish. Then my work doesn’t get done. You get the idea.

Depending on your child’s age and how long you expect them to work, you need to give them opportunities for breaks. For instance, maybe after a harder subject you get out the pencils, pens, and paper (or coloring pages depending on the age) and let them color for 30 minutes, or less if they get bored.

If your child loves studying animals and learning about their many abilities, use that as break time between more intense subjects. For example, my sister studied flying animals and birds last year and loved every minute of it. Another example–I love art and most things related to it, so I use it as a break from math or biology.

Another way to get kids excited to do their work is to let them help look for curriculum. The easiest way to make homeschool a joy is to get your child (or children) involved.

Take them with you when you go to stores for homeschool books or let them watch you while you look for books on the computer. Get their opinions, and even though they might not have a complete impact on your own, you can better understand what your child wants.

One of my favorite ways to get involved is to go shopping for cool school supplies. My mom always surprises us with some cool stuff on the first day of homeschool. For the last three years or so, she has let me help pick out and prepare the surprises for my siblings.

We get colorful notebooks, tons of different pencils, folders if the person needs them (and sometimes even if they don’t), and anything we see that happens to catch our eye while shopping. For example, last year we found some colorful tape. We got a color for each child and they loved it. We all marked our pencils with our special tape color too! I still have mine somewhere. 🙂

Letting them help pick out curriculum, pick a favorite “break” subject, and maybe even getting them some cool supplies to use for homeschool, might just do the trick. Sure, there will still be days when they don’t want to do their work, but getting your children involved will help over all to make your homeschool a joy, and not a fight.