Homeschooling Knowledge at Your Fingertips

The temperature is warming up, the sun is shining, flowers are blooming — spring is finally here! And that most likely means you’re about to see your child get a case of spring fever. When the weather gets nice, it’s difficult to keep students’ minds focused on learning and school work. Yet, the work must get done because there are still days left in the school year. Happily, we’ve found some ways to help combat that spring fever and push your student over the finish line to end the year on a strong note.

Incorporate the season into your lessons

• Use the nice weather as a reason to take a field trip, go on a hike and incorporate a science lesson into it (like how rivers carve rocks), plant a garden and discuss cell biology, or do an outdoor science experiment.
• Take a page from the Chicago Tribune which suggests using a walk around your town as a way to teach history (who founded the town, what was its main industry when founded, what major events shaped the town) and city planning (why was the town built here, what advantages and disadvantages are there to the city being designed the way it is, what problems could have arisen in building the area, etc.).
• When spring cleaning, don’t forget to spring clean your homeschool space! Create a clutter-free learning space to help minimize stress. Use it to teach the importance of being organized.

Incentivize and reward

• Kids tend to respond to rewards, so set some goals and then reward them when they accomplish the goal. Complete all assignments for the week = have an ice cream party on Friday! Score a 100 on a test and pick the movie and snacks for movie night. When kids have a tangible goal to works towards, they tend to be a little more motivated to reach those goals.

Making learning relatable

• During lessons, demonstrate why and how the material is relevant to your student’s life. Why do they need to know this? How will they use it in their everyday life? By making the content relatable, you’re giving them a reason to remember it.
• Use multimedia to break up lessons. Take a break from pencil-and-paper activities and add a little variety to lessons by incorporating multimedia. Engaging videos, demonstrations, and even songs, can be used to reinforce topics.
• Let your learner pick a topic they’re interested in or passionate about and have them complete a project based upon that topic. By letting them pick, you can ensure it’s something they want to learn about. And since they’re already interested in it, they’ll be more likely to fully dive into the project and complete it.
• Find a fun fact-of-the-day and center lessons around it. For example, on April 24, 1916, the Easter Rebellion began in Dublin, Ireland, that ultimately led to the establishment of the Republic of Ireland. Focus your social studies lesson on events that led to the rebellion, have a civics lesson on how to establish government in a new country, introduce math and economics by talking about how you would fund a new country.

Spring fever can be hard to beat, but we are sure you can manage it and get to the end of the school year successfully! What other tips do you have for combating spring fever?