Ways To Make Homeschool More Fun for Kids

Contrary to popular belief, kids naturally love learning. Why else would kids spend hours watching videos about the history of their favorite game or ask “Why?” a hundred times a day? What kids don’t love is when someone crams a bunch of facts they don’t care about down their throats. 

As homeschool parents, this is never our goal. But when things get busy, it’s a trap we can easily fall into. But fear not, fellow homeschool mamas and papas. The easiest way to avoid this fate is to find ways to make homeschool more fun for kids.

Play to Different Learning Styles

If you’ve ever thumbed through a book about education, you’ve probably stumbled upon Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. The idea is that we all have different ways we learn, and when educators cater to our learning style, we learn better. 

Here are the eight “types of intelligence” that Gardner talks about:

• Visual learners who learn better through images
• Bodily-kinesthetic learners who learn better through movement 
• Musical learners who learn better with music
• Verbal linguistic learners who learn best with words
• Naturalistic learners who learn better through nature
• Logical-mathematic learners who learn better when logic is involved
• Interpersonal learners who learn better through relationships

Once you have an idea of what kind of learner your child is, try using it to your advantage. If your child learns better through movement, use hand movements to help with vocabulary. Or, if your child is a natural genius, have a lesson outside or use animals in your examples. And if one method isn’t working, you can try a different one. 

Apply What They’re Learning to Real Life

Whether or not your child falls under the “hands-on” learning style category, most kids get excited when they see the thing they learned about playing out in real life. So try to take practical, real-life scenarios and make them relevant to your child’s lessons.

Let’s say you’re doing some house painting. You can create a math lesson out of finding the area of the walls and a science lesson about solvent when you stir the paints. You can even teach them about the history of house paints as you give them a brush. Your kids will be getting in academic and practical skills.

Take Field Trips

Another way to make homeschool more fun and bring lessons to life is by taking your kids on field trips. Field trips are great because they can be used for almost every subject and are a sure way to make memories. 

Here are a few homeschool field trip ideas:

• Living history farms or reenactment sites
• Museums
• National parks or nature preserves
• Zoos or aquariums  
• Planetariums 

Not every location you go to has to be a touristy attraction. Even taking your kids to a local business to see how they run things can give your children valuable insights into the world around them that will keep them loving learning.