Many people who are new to home education seem to wonder how to teach their children, particularly in subjects they know little about themselves. How do we home educators get our kids to sit down and learn if we don’t make them complete formal lessons each day. How can we possibly keep track of learning without a plan or curriculum to follow? To be honest it’s surprisingly easy!
You may also like to read up on home education and homeschooling with this book list for parents. I’m sure these books will inspire you in many ways!
Table of Contents
No Formal Lessons?!
Many home educators don’t have formal lessons for their children, us included! We rarely print out worksheets and don’t have workbooks to follow. If the kids ask to sit down and do a worksheet or two that’s fine, of course they can. But not all kids want to!
What do we do if the kids aren’t sitting down working on a lesson I’ve carefully planned out? The simple answer is whatever they feel like! Some days they play board games and bake, others they choose to do some science experiments they’ve seen in a book or magazine, or that a friend has told them about. Often they listen to podcasts on the way to a park to play with friends and we go on plenty of walks too.
Museums and castles are always fun to visit, but the kids are just as happy to watch a documentary or Horrible Histories TV series! We read books together, they play apps such as Reading Eggs or Prodigy and they play imaginative games or set up complex games using Lego or wooden train tracks.
It’s amazing what kids can learn without doing formal lessons. Instead of lessons the kids can choose what and when they learn, whilst most of this being through play and by choice. The traditional school methods work for some children, but not all. Listen to your children and watch how they learn. Sometimes stepping back a bit will give them the chance to spread their wings and learn in their own independent ways.
Home Education Plan
So you have chosen to home educate your child and now you want to plan. If it makes you feel more comfortable having a plan, then go for it. Write down what you hope to achieve, just remember to include your child in the discussions too. After all it’s their learning that is being planned!
Just be aware that the plan may go out the window! The good thing about following a child’s learning is that it can lead anywhere and often unexpectedly. Perhaps they were enjoying learning about Napoleon and when they hear about the discovery of the Rosetta stone they take an interest in languages and then they want to learn about Egyptians. Which then leads to how Egyptians used water from the Nile to water crops using an Archimedes Screw. This leads on to making their own inventions of moving water and creation of new STEM projects… As you can see following their learning is not always a linear process. Which is just as it should be, us adults don’t learn thing in neat little boxes either!
Keeping Kids Interested in Learning
The best way to keep kids interested in learning is not to control it. If you find things that might be of interest to them try ‘strewing’ the items. This is simply leaving the items lying around the house in areas where the kids may notice them. For us it’s on the sofa or kitchen table. The kids sit down and pick up the new book or activity that I’ve placed there. If they are interested they will come to me to discuss it or ask me to help them with the activity or read a book. This gives them ownership over the idea and also the choice to not read or do the activity too.
However, you know your child best, think about what they enjoy. If you come across a documentary they might enjoy, mention it to them. If you see an activity they might want to do, ask them if they are interested. Chances are they will be excited to do these things, as they are things that you know they would like.
The only time that you might want to step back and not give too many ideas etc. is if they’ve just begun home ed after school. Deschooling is an important thing to get them out of the school mindset and relax. Most people seem to think it should be 1 month for every year they were at school. Trying to push learning (of any kind) on them before they are ready could make things more difficult. Let them guide you instead.
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