Homeschooling is a phenomenal amount of work, from choosing the right planner to choosing the right curriculum, from planning your year to planning your days, from managing your time to managing your kids. Then, after you work out all the details, there is the teaching from math to reading to character. However, in all the hustle and bustle of making sure that you kids get the kind of education that you want them to have to equip them to make a life out in the world one day, don't forget that there are so many ways that homeschooling is fun. So today, in no particular order, we'll have a look at some of the fun bonuses and activities that homeschooling opens up for our children.
Picnic Lunches
Whether it's a picnic lunch in the backyard or traveling somewhere special, the kids love picnic lunches. Sometimes we make sandwiches or pack up a meal at home, and sometimes we pick up a meal to go from a local restaurant. Either way, a delicious meal, eaten out in nature, while taking our time is a win over public schools. I can remember having 30 minutes to get my food and eat it, and I inhale my food to this day, because for 13 years, if I didn't, then I didn't eat. And don't even get me started on the quality of the food we had.
Library Days
Whether it's a stop for a few hours or all day, my kids love time at the library. They have time to peruse the shelves as well as talk with their favorite librarians. Then they often play on the computer, ipads, or with the games at the library. Then of course there is also time to just sit in comfy chairs, lounge in bean bags, or lay in the floor and read. I can remember getting to go to the library once a week in grade school, but it always felt rushed. Then in high school the library was a short cut between two halls, no one had time to actually read anything for fun. The lazy time to find hidden gems is another homeschool win.
Park Trips
Whether we are going to the local children's park or exploring a nature park, the kids love the freedom to adventure. They can run and swing. Stretch and play. Their imagination is endless. I can remember free play Fridays when I was in school, and that was the one day a week that we got 30 or 45 minutes of unstructured PE time. It was the highlight of the week. We frequently tie these days to our picnics and take several hours to eat and play together. It gives them a good brain break, and recharges them for the work that is school.
Movement
While we are on the subject, movement is a plus in homeschooling. I can't tell you how often we were told to "Get quiet, and be still." In school, and I can sympathize with how distracting 30 kids all wiggling around and getting up and down is. But the truth is that kids are wired to move. Even aside from students with special needs like ADHD, kids retain more when they can couple movement with learning. My kids sit at the table, sit on the bed, hang off the couch. They move around frequently, getting up to get a drink, running to the bathroom, or changing positions. They have done jumping jacks while reciting math facts or build lego creations while listening to their read alouds. We have done school while working a homemade obstacle course or just working while subconsciously fidgeting, whatever it takes to make learning sink in.
Turning School into a Game
When my mom retired from teaching, she brought home countless games some that my grandfather had made for her classroom others she had bought, none of which she had been able to use in the last decade or so. Partly because there was no longer time in the day, partly because the ability to craft her own lessons was largely out of her hands. I can turn learning into a game any day, any time. We have played the floor is lava only allowing them to make the next move when they answer a science question correctly. We have played Among Us, where their tasks included different school assignments and household chores. We have played nerf wars only letting them shoot when they could yell out the answer to a math facts. In history, we've made board games over the course of the semester. We've played school games like Sight Word Pop, or Multiplication Bang. There are so many fun ways to turn school into a game.
Hands on Learning
The project I remember most from grade school was in fourth grade we got to make a house out of cardboard, and wire it up with electricity, when we were learning about that in science. It was amazing to not just read about electricity but to use it to build something. The kids too, especially love any time we can make learning an activity. Whether it's cooking historical meals or going to living history events, they have fallen in love with history. We've even had family Minecraft challenge to make a colonial plantation. They live for science experiments, the more impressive the chemical reactions the better. Creating art in different styles, rather than just reading about art movements, has resulted in more understanding of the movements and appreciation for the talent it takes to be an artist. Britt has developed a greater understanding of percentages since he started tracking his wins and losses in his video games than he ever had when we were learning it just for math. Though Kate loves math so long as she can use math blocks to build what she's learning.
Flexible Scheduling
Or as Ruth insists I share, sleeping in. The ability to do school at any time or any place is a plus, one that we can't wait to take advantage of on the road. Sometimes school is perfectly ordinary workbook pages but we sleep in and don't start till after lunch. Sometimes we take it all outside and lay in a hammock under a tree. We've schooled on Saturdays and taken a week day off to adventure. We've schooled at 8:20 at night. We aren't tied to a specific time or place so we have freedom to jump at other opportunities like visiting the family in Alabama for 2 weeks in the fall when it's cooler, or traveling to see a special exhibit at a local museum.
Field Trips
Who didn't love field trips in school? Even if you had to get up early, or got home outside of normal school hours, everyone loved a day out of the classroom, and we were even enjoying learning. With homeschooling we go on so many field trips. One or two a year were all we were able to go on when I was in school, but now if we don't go on at least one a month, something is highly unusual. Not to mention when I take the kids somewhere we spend alot of time learning about what we are seeing, not just glancing as we rush through. While, we frequently try to plan trips with friends, there are never so many of us that we lose out on the details, that we are there to learn.
Greater Educational Opportunities
Outside of a brick and mortar classroom, there are so many more opportunities. I can find any class on any subject with online classes. We can pursue unconventional opportunities such as letting Britt learn more about blacksmithing by working with a blacksmith. It also means that we can go into greater depth in any subject. If the kids are interested, we have been able to continue digging and exploring as long as they were curious. That meant Britt as a kindergartener had the level of understanding of astronomy that a 5th grader did. It means that for the past few years I've been teaching the kids history using my old college textbooks. We don't have to say, oh it's time to move on, we can explore and learn to our hearts content.
To Wrap It Up
Whether looking at fun activities like picnics, library days, field trips, and turning school into a game, or whether looking at fun bonuses like the ability to explore more subjects on a deeper level in a hands on way, getting movement breaks, and having flexibility in our days; there are so many fun pluses to the homeschool life. It's always a great practice to take a timeout in our busy days and be sure we are taking advantage of some of them. Just recounting some of the ways that homeschooling is fun is enough to get me revved up for another week in our homeschool.
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