What do you do to keep school fun?

[*Jessica*]

One of our main reasons for homeschooling is to give our children what we feel is the best possible education. For us, that means that in later years they will have a rigorous classical-style education. However, I feel it is important to give little children lots of time to play and learn from life experience.

 

I'm a box-checker and list-maker by nature, and I'm having a difficult time balancing my need to check those boxes with my desire to give the boys a truly FUN elementary education.

 

Nik, almost-7 and in first grade, (and the only one doing any formal schooling at this point) likes everything we're doing, except for WWE. I think I'll drop it for now, details to come in another post.

 

These are the things we already use that Nik either enjoys or truly loves to do: SOTW + Activity Book, R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, Song School Latin, Math Mammoth/Noble Knights of Knowledge/Afterwards: Folk and Fairy Tales with Mathematical Ever-Afters, First Language Lessons (he doesn't love this, but doesn't mind it and it takes less than 5 minutes to do), All About Spelling, Hooked on Phonics Advanced Reader, Discovering Great Artists, Classics for Kids, and lots of literature and audio books, movies and games.

 

Sometimes what we're doing feels a bit too school-at-home, though. Should I drop most of what we do and start unschooling (with lots of strewing to make myself happy.) We also limit screen time and I wonder if we should try letting him watch more educational movies and play more educational games.

 

What activities do you do to keep learning really fun? (Unschoolers especially encouraged to respond!)

[specialmama]

Well, I'm not an unschooler, but I have unschool tendancies which I dare to tame for a few hours a day LOL. I wouldn't drop what you're doing, I'd just relax in the sense that a year's worth of curric may last a year and a half, which will allow time to sprinkle the fun stuff in very easily. I try not to lose sight of why I'm doing this, and I try to do fun things throughout the day, even blowing off the odd day to do a field trip of some sort. I think most of the fun in learning comes from our attitudes and sense of adventure. If we're having fun learning, then our kids will too. I like to take books on the deck in nice weather, or sprawl on the floor while eating a snack. No matter what we're reading I'll often throw something totally outlandish in it, just to make my dd giggle. It works great when it's really boring stuff about the Industrial Revolution and King Kong enters the dialogue. I really just try to live like every day is our last day on this earth, and grab magical moments here and there. I don't ever want to live with regrets. :D

Edited September 3, 2010 by specialmama

[NanceXToo]

Well, my way of keeping school fun was, first of all, choosing a curriculum that I considered hands-on, creative, and more laid-back/slow-paced in the early years, rather than dry, textbookish, and pushing academics in the earliest grades. I love Oak Meadow for these reasons- nice and slow paced and creative early on, and still manages to incorporate a lot of hands on stuff in the later elementary years, too.

 

We also do lots of outings and field trips and get togethers with our homeschool groups and outside activities, and I refuse to say "oh, we can't, we have to do school...." we can get back to school. We like to do school around the rest of our lives, not live our lives around schoolwork.

 

We do play educational board games, read books for fun, watch interesting educational shows and movies, play educational video games, and so on.

 

I keep our school days short enough that the kids have plenty of time to "be kids" and play and explore their own interests and so on. So, for example, last year my daughter did schoolwork for an average of 3 hours a day in fourth grade.

 

I'm not an unschooler, but I do consider myself a "relaxed homeschooler" who can appreciate the concepts behind unschooling :D

[Barb_]

For my 5yo? I'm done with seatwork in less than an hour. Explode the Code and Singapore Math is it. The rest is coloring, listening to stories, puzzles, music, art, etc. Too much seatwork (read, writing) is the biggest mistake you can make in the early years, IMO

 

Barb

[Guest janainaz]

Sometimes the school work is just not all that fun. I can't do much to make math, spelling, latin, writing, english, and history fun. Science can be fun (at least to my ds). As much as I try, it's just not. It's school. But I'm fun and so my way of adding fun to our days is to joke around with my kids and surprise them with the unexpected sometimes. I'm not one for projects and I'm not the most creative - although I do have my moments.

[NanceXToo]

Sometimes the school work is just not all that fun. I can't do much to make math, spelling, latin, writing, english, and history fun. Science can be fun (at least to my ds). As much as I try, it's just not. It's school. But I'm fun and so my way of adding fun to our days is to joke around with my kids and surprise them with the unexpected sometimes. I'm not one for projects and I'm not the most creative - although I do have my moments.

 

Here were some ways I (thanks to Oak Meadow lol) made some of those subjects more "fun" for my daughter (for fourth grade last year).

 

Spelling... instead of the standard spelling review kinds of things like "write that 5 times, come up with sentences, put them in alphabetical order" all the time, we'd do things like: Draw a small town map and name the streets and buildings after your spelling words. Make a "windsock" with a paper plate and crepe paper streamers, and write your spelling words on the streamers. Pass a ball back and forth to each other while chanting the spelling words. Write the words with a big bubble letter for the first letter of each word, and then decorate those bubble letters.

 

Math, like when we were working on money, and estimating and rounding and so on, we'd go to the store and I'd give her a short list and $10.00 and tell her to get as many things on that list as she could without going over the $10.00. Measurements, she'd measure things in our house. She'd estimate weights and weigh things in our house. She'd cut pictures of items from magazines, paste them into a book, assign them prices, and then "go shopping" in her 'catalog' figuring out what she could get with X number of dollars and so on. (Granted we could not make math "fun" ALL the time haha. But we tried)!

 

Writing, we'd do fun creative writing projects. And instead of assigning typical book reports, we'd do things like "write a letter to one of the characters telling him what you think of his behavior." "Make up a new ending to the story." "Add in a new adventure." "Make your own comic strip."

 

You can definitely make standard subjects more interesting/fun/creative/hands on or whatever, especially in the elementary school years.

 

And I definitely agree with Barb that young kids should not have too much seatwork!

 

I'm starting K with my son next week and I don't picture it taking more than 1 to 1 1/2 hours a day (and that's mostly hands on kind of stuff anyway).

[Guest]

If your son truly loves the materials you mentioned, I wouldn't switch gears to unschooling. It sounds as though you've found ways to engage and interest him already. Are there things you'd like to see him doing that you feel you don't have time for with your program? How many hours a day is he spending doing formal schoolwork? Or do you feel the need just to do things outside that formal schoolish box? If this is the case:

 

You can mix up or alternate other kinds of learning and materials instead of having a steady stream of a particular program/textbook/worksheets. The following are not "add-ons" -- they're perfectly valid ways of learning the skills your son would be practicing in more schoolish form.

 

For math: there are so many terrific picture books out there! My daughter was enamored of the Sir Cumference books and Loreen Leedy's wonderful Measuring Penny and It's Probably Penny. Melisande would probably be a book your son would like if he likes fairy tales and math together. Half Magic might be a fun read-aloud; you can have a lot of fun with the doubling and halving of wishes. But there are stacks more. A good place to see them in once place is at Marilyn Burns' web site http://www.mathsolutions.com She also has a series of "math replacement lessons" -- not workbooks or textbooks, but a group of activity-based lessons -- that use picture books, both fiction and non-fiction. I think they're called Math Through Literature, and they're grouped by grade levels.

 

There are some brilliant and fun spatial/logic games that develop higher math skills (reasoning, patterns, predicting spatial designs after moves): RushHour, River Crossing, FrogHop, mazes with interchangeable tiles, checkers and chess. Marilyn Burns' series of Algebraic Thinking uses pattern blocks, cubes, and paper cut-outs to do similar things with patterns and predictions.

 

For writing, try using MadLibs, do spelling with a game like Wheel of Fortune (it's not conventional spelling practice, but it works on spelling skills) or use Scrabble tiles instead of writing words down. There are books that make writing into games using invisible ink, codes, group story-making, etc. First and foremost among them is Peggy Kaye's Games For Writing (she also has Games For Math and Games For Reading, and usually these are in libraries). Another book we used was called If You're Going to Teach Kids to Write, You've Got to Have This Book.

 

I used no textbooks for any subject area all the way through 6th grade; in 7th grade I finally used a textbook, but it was a non-traditional one (Crossing the River With Dogs). It wasn't unschooling, because I would continually set up games or invite my daughter to join me in activities I'd set up, or I'd say, "What if we ..." But after a few months of this at age five, she began having so many ideas of what she wanted to do that I learned to run with them and work basic skills into them.

[AppleGreen]

My 1st grader is doing Math Mammoth, FLL, WWE1, OPGTR and history/science with big brother. We will not add spelling until after winter break I think. Her actual time on the first four subjects is maybe an hour. I have a 4th grader, so I don't spend as much fun time with her as I'd like. :( Some things we do to keep it fun and light are playing games, reading stories together and cooking. We add a Waldorf influence to some of our math by drawing pages for her number book-she loves art. She listens to tapes and likes to play with baby brother. Lots of free time outside. The texture table is loved, as well as finger knitting, knitting and just time to be.

 

I think I would keep school a minimal part of the day and spend lots of time outdoors, doing nature walks, exploring the world. Just lots of what you've likely been doing w/ a sprinkling of school. I am definitely on the lighter side for young kids.

[Guest janainaz]

Here were some ways I (thanks to Oak Meadow lol) made some of those subjects more "fun" for my daughter (for fourth grade last year).

 

Spelling... instead of the standard spelling review kinds of things like "write that 5 times, come up with sentences, put them in alphabetical order" all the time, we'd do things like: Draw a small town map and name the streets and buildings after your spelling words. Make a "windsock" with a paper plate and crepe paper streamers, and write your spelling words on the streamers. Pass a ball back and forth to each other while chanting the spelling words. Write the words with a big bubble letter for the first letter of each word, and then decorate those bubble letters.

 

Math, like when we were working on money, and estimating and rounding and so on, we'd go to the store and I'd give her a short list and $10.00 and tell her to get as many things on that list as she could without going over the $10.00. Measurements, she'd measure things in our house. She'd estimate weights and weigh things in our house. She'd cut pictures of items from magazines, paste them into a book, assign them prices, and then "go shopping" in her 'catalog' figuring out what she could get with X number of dollars and so on. (Granted we could not make math "fun" ALL the time haha. But we tried)!

 

Writing, we'd do fun creative writing projects. And instead of assigning typical book reports, we'd do things like "write a letter to one of the characters telling him what you think of his behavior." "Make up a new ending to the story." "Add in a new adventure." "Make your own comic strip."

 

You can definitely make standard subjects more interesting/fun/creative/hands on or whatever, especially in the elementary school years.

 

And I definitely agree with Barb that young kids should not have too much seatwork!

 

I'm starting K with my son next week and I don't picture it taking more than 1 to 1 1/2 hours a day (and that's mostly hands on kind of stuff anyway).

 

Those are some great ideas - thank you for sharing!:001_smile:

 

My ds10 typically just wants to get his work done - it's just who he is. I used to do history projects with him, but he didn't really enjoy them (maybe I was choosing the wrong ones or he simply grew tired of me being frustrated with my failed attempts:001_huh:). He does come up with creative things to do on his own, I guess that is why I don't come up with stuff for him. He creates detailed budgets for himself (and his friends) for when he moves out and goes to college (which include an $800 a month food bill since they like to eat a lot). He made a landscaping plan to scale for our backyard, he makes up and writes his own stories, he constantly involves himself in every aspect of our life and adds his own ideas and input. He does a lot of things on his own that forces him to use what he's learning.

 

But I also have a ds5 and I agree, at that age, I keep 'seat work' to a minimum. My ds5 actually loves to do 'papers', but he learns a lot through playing games with me. My older ds10 would play board games with me from the time he was 4 years old (Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee, Uno, checkers, you name it, we played it...) and he learned so many skills just through playing. I made him read the cards and add up dice, count money, etc. So we do a lot of fun things right now, but my younger ds would probably benefit more from doing all the hands-on activities as he gets older. My dh told me that he needs to experience what he's learning and not just read about it. But my older one just wants to get done so that he can do his own thing. I need all the help I can get for my younger son because he is so different from my older one. I really want for him to have a good experience being homeschooled, and how I'm doing school with my ds10 may not be enough for him as he gets older. I need the help of creative brains.

[Beach Mom]

For us, making it fun involves simple things like adding a ball the lesson. We bounce basketballs while spelling, practice math facts by earning steps up the stairs for correct answers, back down a step for incorrect, we school outside on beautiful days. We take lots of walks, they read in lounge chairs on the deck or curled up with the dog, or under a tree. We giggle, we have popcorn breaks, we use colored paper and colored pencils and pens for subjects that are less interesting. Something about using a green pen for grammar makes it more enjoyable.

 

I am at heart a list checker too. But I have found over time that there are many ways to add fun while still getting things checked off the list. For me it is an attitude of relaxation and joy that sets the tone for our best days. We also take lots of field trips (if you put them on your list it feels better!).

 

It does look like you have a long list of curriculum for 1st grade. At that age read, read, read. Add in some math, science and phonics and the rest is gravy. Too much seatwork at this age really can influence their love of learning later on. Boys need to wiggle and run and explore and have adventures.

[Melissa in Australia]

FUN???:svengo:Is it meant to involve fun? No fun happening here.:leaving:

[Joyofsixreboot]

I love everyone's ideas. I think 'fun' will be different for each child. For us I've chosen curriculum that they don't hate (for ds, that was a big step forward). 1st grade dd has maybe an hour of seat work w/reading, math and LA. Fourth grade ds takes closer to 3 hours. In the afternoon we play games, go outside (they really like me to be there, even if I'm just reading outside), go to the park or field trip,nature hikes, do lots of messy art or for ds whittle and build, legos, Wii, movies (that I find have some redeeming value). My kids are not ones to sit quietly and read a book for fun (unlike me) so lots of movement is required for 'fun' here.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

I've chosen to intersperse other activities into the day, so for example, once we finish Language Arts and Math, we go outside and play soccer or badminton before we come back in for French and Science. My older is an Aspie and needs structure, so I actually made magnets of all our activities, and they take turns putting them up in the order we are going to have for that day. That is fun for them at this point.

 

And I disagree that history can't be fun! After our lesson in SOTW about the barbarians invading the Roman Empire, my boys taped big sheets of paper together and drew huge battle scenes, which were supposed to be Roman warriors fighting the barbarian invaders, but one son turned the Romans into Nerf Gun Soldiers, and the other son turned the barbarians into an army of attacking Annoying Oranges. SO, that was pretty fun for them. We also have many field trips planned around history and science lessons. In addition, we watched a cool video from the library about Earth Science.

 

ETA- Spellingcity.com for spelling words. The kids love it. You enter their list of spelling words, and it creates games and activities using those words.

Edited September 3, 2010 by thescrappyhomeschooler
adding

[angela in ohio]

Not what you asked, but here I go anyway....

 

I don't think it's an either or (either do a lot of curriculum OR unschool.) I would just drop about half of what you are currently doing, focus only on math and language arts skills, and spend the rest of the time doing fun field trips, classes, and reading books. With the time left over, let him have plenty of unstructured play time.

 

I don't go out of my way to do "fun" things; instead I taught and modeled for my dc that learning anything is true enjoyment. I have seen several homeschool moms go all out for "fun" activities in the early years and then get stuck in that phase. So they end up with a seventh grader who needs a craft to be able to do their spelling lesson or a constrctuion paper school-y game to do math. :001_huh: I think it is more meaningful to model a joy in learning itself rather than try to invent fun.

 

We spent the years when my dc were all 10 and under traveling, going to every possible field trip and class available, and checking over a hundred books out fo the library each week. I don't regret one second of it. Instead of spending time coming up with games and crafts and "fun," I was with them, learning alongside them, in a natural way by exploring the world around us. We also did a solid, rigorous math, reading, spelling, writing component at home, which has allowed dc to really enjoy their older years now (solid skills build confidence which builds enjoyment.)

 

Anyway, that's what worked for us. My dc have a deep and true enjoyment and love of learning, and that is how we got there.

[NanceXToo]

Those are some great ideas - thank you for sharing!:001_smile:

 

My ds10 typically just wants to get his work done - it's just who he is. I used to do history projects with him, but he didn't really enjoy them (maybe I was choosing the wrong ones or he simply grew tired of me being frustrated with my failed attempts:001_huh:). He does come up with creative things to do on his own, I guess that is why I don't come up with stuff for him. He creates detailed budgets for himself (and his friends) for when he moves out and goes to college (which include an $800 a month food bill since they like to eat a lot). He made a landscaping plan to scale for our backyard, he makes up and writes his own stories, he constantly involves himself in every aspect of our life and adds his own ideas and input. He does a lot of things on his own that forces him to use what he's learning.

 

But I also have a ds5 and I agree, at that age, I keep 'seat work' to a minimum. My ds5 actually loves to do 'papers', but he learns a lot through playing games with me. My older ds10 would play board games with me from the time he was 4 years old (Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee, Uno, checkers, you name it, we played it...) and he learned so many skills just through playing. I made him read the cards and add up dice, count money, etc. So we do a lot of fun things right now, but my younger ds would probably benefit more from doing all the hands-on activities as he gets older. My dh told me that he needs to experience what he's learning and not just read about it. But my older one just wants to get done so that he can do his own thing. I need all the help I can get for my younger son because he is so different from my older one. I really want for him to have a good experience being homeschooled, and how I'm doing school with my ds10 may not be enough for him as he gets older. I need the help of creative brains.

 

Sounds like your older son knows what he wants lol! That's awesome that he is so creative and comes up with all those things on his own! Good for him!! I love the college budget and landscaping plan!

 

For your younger, I'd highly recommend looking into Oak Meadow for him if you want something that's more hands on, creative and fun for the younger ones. You have to be willing to go slow in the beginning though, it doesn't push academics in Kindergarten, it takes it slow in 1st, 2nd starts getting somewhat more comparable to 2nd grade in general, and by 3rd and 4th it's got them where others their ages would be- but still in much more interesting, hands on and creative ways.

 

The website is oakmeadow.com if you want to just go read their philosophy and look through some of their grade overviews and sample lessons and so on. It really is fun and more relevant, to a child, in a lot of ways, I think, than just textbooks and worksheets!

[*Jessica*]

Thank you to everyone who commented.

 

Here were some ways I (thanks to Oak Meadow lol) made some of those subjects more "fun" for my daughter (for fourth grade last year).

 

Spelling... instead of the standard spelling review kinds of things like "write that 5 times, come up with sentences, put them in alphabetical order" all the time, we'd do things like: Draw a small town map and name the streets and buildings after your spelling words. Make a "windsock" with a paper plate and crepe paper streamers, and write your spelling words on the streamers. Pass a ball back and forth to each other while chanting the spelling words. Write the words with a big bubble letter for the first letter of each word, and then decorate those bubble letters.

 

Math, like when we were working on money, and estimating and rounding and so on, we'd go to the store and I'd give her a short list and $10.00 and tell her to get as many things on that list as she could without going over the $10.00. Measurements, she'd measure things in our house. She'd estimate weights and weigh things in our house. She'd cut pictures of items from magazines, paste them into a book, assign them prices, and then "go shopping" in her 'catalog' figuring out what she could get with X number of dollars and so on. (Granted we could not make math "fun" ALL the time haha. But we tried)!

 

Writing, we'd do fun creative writing projects. And instead of assigning typical book reports, we'd do things like "write a letter to one of the characters telling him what you think of his behavior." "Make up a new ending to the story." "Add in a new adventure." "Make your own comic strip."

 

You can definitely make standard subjects more interesting/fun/creative/hands on or whatever, especially in the elementary school years.

 

And I definitely agree with Barb that young kids should not have too much seatwork!

 

I'm starting K with my son next week and I don't picture it taking more than 1 to 1 1/2 hours a day (and that's mostly hands on kind of stuff anyway).

These are exactly the kinds of ideas I need!

 

If your son truly loves the materials you mentioned, I wouldn't switch gears to unschooling. It sounds as though you've found ways to engage and interest him already. Are there things you'd like to see him doing that you feel you don't have time for with your program? How many hours a day is he spending doing formal schoolwork? Or do you feel the need just to do things outside that formal schoolish box? If this is the case:

 

You can mix up or alternate other kinds of learning and materials instead of having a steady stream of a particular program/textbook/worksheets. The following are not "add-ons" -- they're perfectly valid ways of learning the skills your son would be practicing in more schoolish form.

 

For math: there are so many terrific picture books out there! My daughter was enamored of the Sir Cumference books and Loreen Leedy's wonderful Measuring Penny and It's Probably Penny. Melisande would probably be a book your son would like if he likes fairy tales and math together. Half Magic might be a fun read-aloud; you can have a lot of fun with the doubling and halving of wishes. But there are stacks more. A good place to see them in once place is at Marilyn Burns' web site www.mathsolutions.com She also has a series of "math replacement lessons" -- not workbooks or textbooks, but a group of activity-based lessons -- that use picture books, both fiction and non-fiction. I think they're called Math Through Literature, and they're grouped by grade levels.

 

There are some brilliant and fun spatial/logic games that develop higher math skills (reasoning, patterns, predicting spatial designs after moves): RushHour, River Crossing, FrogHop, mazes with interchangeable tiles, checkers and chess. Marilyn Burns' series of Algebraic Thinking uses pattern blocks, cubes, and paper cut-outs to do similar things with patterns and predictions.

 

For writing, try using MadLibs, do spelling with a game like Wheel of Fortune (it's not conventional spelling practice, but it works on spelling skills) or use Scrabble tiles instead of writing words down. There are books that make writing into games using invisible ink, codes, group story-making, etc. First and foremost among them is Peggy Kaye's Games For Writing (she also has Games For Math and Games For Reading, and usually these are in libraries). Another book we used was called If You're Going to Teach Kids to Write, You've Got to Have This Book.

 

I used no textbooks for any subject area all the way through 6th grade; in 7th grade I finally used a textbook, but it was a non-traditional one (Crossing the River With Dogs). It wasn't unschooling, because I would continually set up games or invite my daughter to join me in activities I'd set up, or I'd say, "What if we ..." But after a few months of this at age five, she began having so many ideas of what she wanted to do that I learned to run with them and work basic skills into them.

Thank you! Nik likes most of what we do, but I know he would love it if we added more fun. And I want it to be more fun! I want to be outside the formal schoolish box, but I trip myself up with those boxes I feel compelled to check. Last year for the first 6 months of K I did everything on my own and used living math books, living science, etc. I felt like I spent HOURS every week searching for ideas, materials, activities. I wore myself out, and decided halfway through to go with SOTW, R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey, etc. Life got easier, but it certainly didn't seem as much fun to me. It also felt too much like my public school education, with textbook-type programs.

 

I guess I'm just in that new homeschooler phase, trying to find what works for us, and struggling and stressing excessively.

 

He wakes up around 7am and has time to play until 10am, when we start school. We work (with many interruptions from 5-year-old brother) until lunch at 12pm, so probably an hour-and-a-quarter to an hour-and-a-half of work. After lunch we do the history or art projects or science experiments, which he loves. I've been trying to adjust things this last week, though, and we did all of our science and art on the weekend with Dad. That was even more fun, and Dad and I agreed that we should do it that way most of the time.

 

For us, making it fun involves simple things like adding a ball the lesson. We bounce basketballs while spelling, practice math facts by earning steps up the stairs for correct answers, back down a step for incorrect, we school outside on beautiful days. We take lots of walks, they read in lounge chairs on the deck or curled up with the dog, or under a tree. We giggle, we have popcorn breaks, we use colored paper and colored pencils and pens for subjects that are less interesting. Something about using a green pen for grammar makes it more enjoyable.

 

I am at heart a list checker too. But I have found over time that there are many ways to add fun while still getting things checked off the list. For me it is an attitude of relaxation and joy that sets the tone for our best days. We also take lots of field trips (if you put them on your list it feels better!).

 

It does look like you have a long list of curriculum for 1st grade. At that age read, read, read. Add in some math, science and phonics and the rest is gravy. Too much seatwork at this age really can influence their love of learning later on. Boys need to wiggle and run and explore and have adventures.

This sounds wonderful. I'll be trying some of these ideas next week! I'm going to ask Nik which subjects he wants to keep doing exactly as we are now and drop or change up everything else.

 

Not what you asked, but here I go anyway....

 

I don't think it's an either or (either do a lot of curriculum OR unschool.) I would just drop about half of what you are currently doing, focus only on math and language arts skills, and spend the rest of the time doing fun field trips, classes, and reading books. With the time left over, let him have plenty of unstructured play time.

 

I don't go out of my way to do "fun" things; instead I taught and modeled for my dc that learning anything is true enjoyment. I have seen several homeschool moms go all out for "fun" activities in the early years and then get stuck in that phase. So they end up with a seventh grader who needs a craft to be able to do their spelling lesson or a constrctuion paper school-y game to do math. :001_huh: I think it is more meaningful to model a joy in learning itself rather than try to invent fun.

 

We spent the years when my dc were all 10 and under traveling, going to every possible field trip and class available, and checking over a hundred books out fo the library each week. I don't regret one second of it. Instead of spending time coming up with games and crafts and "fun," I was with them, learning alongside them, in a natural way by exploring the world around us. We also did a solid, rigorous math, reading, spelling, writing component at home, which has allowed dc to really enjoy their older years now (solid skills build confidence which builds enjoyment.)

 

Anyway, that's what worked for us. My dc have a deep and true enjoyment and love of learning, and that is how we got there.

The bolded and underlined speaks to me. THAT is what I want to do. Would you be willing to share what a typical week would look like for you?

[sadiegirl]

Well, this is something I was just thinking about yesterday as a matter of fact. You see, my kids are in 9th and 8th and I am really struggling with the "fun factor." Over the years, we have always had fun with school and this year, I am trying to really give them more independent reading on history, geography and science. We have always done thoses subjects as read-alouds for more discussion but I want them to be able to read and take notes independently to prepare them for the future(college).

So, we just don't seem to have as much time for the fun...the unplanned activities as in the past grades.

My advice is while they are young-be impulsive and enjoy adding the fun.

I always loved if we saw something on a current event on the news that we would stop and google it and maybe go off on a tangent...I love doing that and so do my kids! The board games for language like Scrabble, 10 Days in Europe, Africa or Asia for geography and grocery store(with our cash register/play money and our canned/boxed goods for our store with prices!) for math----we loved those things.

I feel the pressure now to make sure we are keeping a schedule and covering enough--I never thought that we would fall so victim to a shedule-not that I am an unschooler but what I have always loved about homeschooling is the flexibility, spontaneous ideas that create those teachable moments.