How to make it fun?

Question

This year I am starting home-school.My children will been in k and 2nd grade. I wont them to like it Please give me some ideas!!

Answer 1

Tap into the local homeschooling community. They usually have play dates, co-ops and field trip opportunities. Take lots of field trips, they'll learn so much and it's just plain fun. Take trips to new places and have them make a scrapbook about it (My mom did this when we went to Ethiopia, my sister and I were exactly the ages of your kids. I still like looking at the pages and noticing what stood out to me at that age.)

Have them write and illustrate stories, it's so much fun to look back on them later. Do lots of related activities. Make sugar crystals in a jar for science (we did this when I was 7 and the jar broke... it made for a fabulous illustrated lab report) Make an astrolabe (toilet paper tubes with string and a weight work well for this) Study friction at the ice skating rink. Learn about history by making costumes and crafts of the time period. Discover math with goldfish crackers (they make a tasty treat afterward...or during to learn subtraction!)

Don't feel you have to do every subject every day. Do a day of history, a day of science, a day of math, etc. You're not doing them a disservice, they might prefer it. You'll know how to adapt according to your child's personality

Homeschooling is as fun as you make it. HAVE A BLAST!

Answer 2

One of the advantages to home schooling is to let them work at their own pace. Don't forget to have play time. Try to find a support group of other home school families. Home schooling is GREAT. If they come to a learning block one thing to do is call off school for a day and plan a trip out to a museum, a hike, the YMCA, etc. Plan field trips to go along with the lessons (ie. police station, fire dept, post office, grocery store, McDonald's). Keep the communication open with them about anything. Don't be afraid to say that you don't know but will look up the answer. Encourage them to ask questions. Also, when taking "advise" from those who have a closed mind to home schoolers remember the source it's coming from.

Answer 3

Don't overwhelm them - if your 2nd grader is coming out of the public school (as I did with mine), give him/her time to adjust to the idea of homeschooling. Don't try to make it like the public school with a strict schedule (one mistake I made). If school isn't working one day, close up the books and go to the park. Don't start everything at once, start with reading, maybe some writing, and add from there. Plan regular field trips (weekly or every other week). We try to do one big (day-long) field trip each month and alternate - one month in town, one month out of town.

For the K'er, I wouldn't do much of anything - letters/numbers, maybe some phonics, read-alouds, writing (if s/he's interested). Whatever you do, don't push. If s/he's not ready yet, drop it for a month and try again.

Find a group in your area where the kids can get interaction with other kids, both their age and older/younger - park days, interest groups, etc. Try getting involved in a homeschool co-op. Talk to veteran (more than one year) homeschoolers in your area and on-line. Look for a Yahoo! group - I've gotten some awesome ideas from the folks in my group just by asking.

Feel free to email me if you have more questions. Best wishes!

Answer 4

For the love of God, what are you thinking homeschooling your children? How the hell did you get the thought in your head that homeschooling was a good idea for your children? They need to be around other kids so the can grown socially, not just academically. I can understand homeschooling in some cases, but not very many.

You need to loosen that grasp you have on your kids, honey, let them go to school and do some normal growing up. If you don't like public school, do private school. But for God's sake, if you care about your children you will NOT homeschool them.

Answer 5

Find a home school association/group in your area and join it. Most associations offer discounts for dance/ gymnastics/ martial arts lessons etc. and co-op classes for art and other subjects, and possibly even organized sports teams.

Also, try to find curriculums made to be taught to more than one grade level at a time. This is easiest in science and history. In fact, let your little one participate in the science experiments that your 2nd grader will do. Work to find ways that they can work together, and that wil make your job easier, and they will have more fun and learn more.

Answer 6

Check into some more interactive forms of curriculum, such as lapbooking. That's where you turn a unit study into a sort of graphic organizer--it gives kids something to keep and refer back to after they're done, and it's fun and interesting for them. Check out http://www.liveandleanpress.com --on their freebies page they have a free download of the kind of thing I'm talking about that you can put together.

Apart from that, just keep it fun--as long as they're learning the skills they need to, let them guide you and help you choose what they want to learn about.

Answer 7

i think some kind of an incentive, such as a day at the park, a financial incentive , may be a three day wk. end. somthing that you can treat your children w/ that they can understand that they did an outstanding job. like , for example, if you are potty training , and they did their duty , give them a cookie. worked for me. lol. what ever works the best for you hun. good luck.

Answer 8

decorate ur home as a play room add some toys. use the playway method for teaching. just don't sweat and be a little strict not too much.

Answer 9

involve them in your home school

Answer 10

become a child yourself and they will love you and your company.be firm but not strict