Homeschooling with Joy: Part 2

Last week I talked about homeschooling with joy, and I emphasized art, music, science and history.  This week, we are going to talk about the harder subjects to make joyful—math, reading, and writing. How do we make those fun? 

Math

There are several ways to make math more fun for your child. One way is to bring it alive and play with the concepts. A great example of this is playing store. Put cheap sticker prices on a variety of items, and let your child be the shopkeeper while you shop for items. A play cash register can make this even better! Let your child add up the cost of the items you are buying and pay for them with either real or play money. While this works on addition mainly, you can add some subtraction by making them make change!  Be sure to work with numbers your child understands. This game can be much easier or harder depending on the prices you set. 

Another favorite math activity is to demonstrate all your math facts with either small pieces of round cereal or candy.  Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing are far more fun when it involves a snack!

And if your child is beyond these fun activities, you can still take the stress out of math. One way is by doing it with wooden numbers, so your child doesn’t have to write.  Another is to use a whiteboard. Whiteboards make it super easy to erase mistakes, and you can write far larger than on a worksheet. Both of those make it less stressful and more fun. 

Reading

Reading is an amazing skill to have. However, learning to read can be stressful for some kids. Creating games that let them use their whole bodies can make it much more fun. 

For kids just learning their letters, turning your whole body into a letter is a great way to make letters more fun.  Motions like those for the song “YMCA” or those used by various cheerleaders can be a starting point. Can your child make themselves tall like an I?  How about round like an O?  Remember that the game is more important than their accuracy. 

For working on sight words, you can make this a whole body game by writing the words on papers that your child has to hop on when you say the word! This game also works for learning letters.  Just be sure to have a reasonable number that your child is comfortable with. It is better to trade out these words and only have 4 or 5 out to choose from than to overwhelm your child with all 20 words they are working on. 

Last, make scavenger hunt clues and send your child off to follow the clues you have left around the house. Easy riddles and clever puns make this a game they will absolutely love. As a bonus, you can have a treasure at the end of your hunt, like a new box of crayons or a cookie. 

Writing

Writing can be a ton of fun!  Just consider writing with things other than pencils. Write with chalk on the sidewalk. Write with markers on the windows (they make markers designed for that). We used washable markers to write on the dishwasher, refrigerator, and washing machine. We even used finger paints on the shower surround (super easy to clean up)!  

Keeping writing lessons short is essential for small hands. Most kids need time to develop the fine motor control needed to write well, so doing just a little each day is the best approach. Building the skills a little at a time lets those muscles build up over time. 

If your child is ready to really write their own words on paper, you can make this fun in many ways. My favorite is writing silly poems. Poems can be far shorter and easier to write than other forms of writing, but just as expressive. Have your child make a poem where each letter of their first name starts a line. Or teach them about limericks and their silliness or haiku, the Japanese poems. Both of those involve listening closely to the words and take learning far deeper than just writing a paragraph. 

Joy

Whatever you plan for your homeschool this year, work in some joy! Find ways to make learning fun. You get the amazing experience of spending each day with your child. Make it a good one.