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Learning at home doesn’t have to look a certain way and there are a few things you can keep in mind to make things flow smoothly. These are great tips to remember, whether you are homeschooling at the kindergarten level, or all the way through high school!
As a homeschool graduate, turned private school teacher and now homeschool mom, I’ve gotten to see education from many different sides. Here are a few mindset shifts that will help you create the best learning environment for your family!
Best Tips for Easy Learning at Home
Learning from home is SO much more than books and desks, or at least it should be. Don’t be discouraged because you don’t have room (or the desire for) a “school room” or can’t fathom making your kids sit at a desk to learn all day without losing your mind.
And while I still pack my son a lunchbox, even though he doesn’t leave the house, don’t think you need to make your kids learn the same way they do in a public school setting – we have some freedom and flexibility here at home and I think it’s important to remember that fact!
In addition to these ideas below, I want to encourage you to read When Children Love to Learn. It’s a beautiful look at learning and the mindsets in that book have shaped who I am as a teacher and homeschool mom!
1. Every child is different
Please don’t treat each child’s learning the same. Each kid is different and likely each one has a different learning style.
I learn best by READING information and my son learns best by WATCHING information. Learn how your child retains information best and use it to your advantage.
And again, remember that you are not trying to recreate public school! The same amount of learning can fit into a much shorter amount of time. This is one of the great advantages of homeschooling – you are working with your children only and can adjust the lessons based on how quickly they understand the concepts.
You can also adjust your school schedule to fit their personalities so that they thrive instead of suffer.
My son tends to struggle with daily schoolwork and gets overwhelmed. Instead, we do one lesson a day, 4 days a week, with his piano lessons (taught by me) being an addition on top of that once a week. That’s worked best for us.
You may need to try different concepts for a while to find which best fits your child(ren).
2. Create a schedule that works for your family
When I was growing up as a homeschooled child, every day was an unknown. I didn’t know if we were going to sit at the table for 6 hours doing worksheets, or if we weren’t going to have lessons at all for 3 months.
Don’t get me wrong, we ended up with a fine education, but the chaos of that non-schedule was hard for me.
So now, I try to make sure that my son understands the game plan. We have set time frames where we do school every week (days vary) and we also have long breaks that we take during the year as well.
For example, we take November through January off completely! But we work through the summer.
We all know what the expectations are and so no one is caught off guard or frustrated by school. School fits into our schedule, not the other way around!
When my son was little, we used this daily flow schedule that really helped us move through the day. Now, he’s much older and doesn’t need it, but it was so useful when he was younger!
3. Add some boredom
You may have heard of the term “unschooling” where you focus learning around a child’s natural curiosity, but don’t offer any formal schooling outside of those interests. This natural curiosity in unschooling typically arises from letting the child do whatever they want until they get bored and start asking about things they are interested in.
I’ve seen this work for many families, but I wanted a decent mix of formal and unschooling. So while we have math, language arts, history, science, and piano curriculum, we also allow our son an insane amount of time freedom.
One of the ways this presents is that we are really flexible when it comes to screen time. And we’ve seen firsthand that our son gets tired of video games after a few solid days (or even hours sometimes) and will willing find a book to read. In fact, it’s this mindset of letting him get bored of games and movies that has turned him into an avid reader!
This year alone he has read over 50 chapter books, while still logging plenty of game time, school time, and even piano practice! He also spends many hours each week drawing, writing short stories, painting, sculpting, and designing items to print on his 3D printer.
As a result of letting him get bored and not keeping him on a strict schedule, he’s always interested in what he’s reading, he pursues many crafting skills, he’s more engaged during school time (because he’s not thinking about video games), and he doesn’t feel like something fun is being kept from him. Win/win/win!
4. Learning happens all the time
It’s very likely that you are already doing this, but remember that learning can happen ALL the time, not just during formal schooling.
Teaching things like cooking, how to change your oil, gardening, cleaning, animal care, how to write a check and more, encourages learning outside a classroom setting.
You don’t have to “hit them over the head” with the learning, but talking about fractions is natural when you’re doubling a recipe. Learning about plant life cycles is easy when you’re working in the garden.
Don’t discount the learning that takes place every day!
The Bottom Line
Our ultimate goal is to create an environment where learning is LOVED. Cultivating a lifelong love of learning is so much more important than ensuring that a certain set of facts are covered.
Everyone has gaps in their education, no matter where they went to school. However, when you love learning, and you know how to take information and put it into practice, there is nothing you can’t do!
Want some more home learning resources?
- 9 Things You May Not Know About Gifted Kids
- Preschool Robot Activity Book
- 9 Ways to Get Your Kids to Read Every Day Without a Fight
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