Kids are naturally curious with vivid imaginations
and love to explore the world around them.
One size fits all might work as a garment, but it doesn’t work when
it comes to a child’s education. Just as no two snowflakes are
exactly alike, neither are children alike in the way or at the speed
in which they learn. What interests one ten year old in science
might bore another ten year old to tears.
The way to keep your child’s interest in whatever subject you’re
teaching them in homeschool is to appeal to their uniqueness. No one
knows your child the way you do and no one knows the way he or she
best learns.
Do you have a child who loves science but hates math? Re-word math
problems as science problems instead. Include the same figures, but
use words relating to science such as weathering or bacteria etc.
Talking about adding and subtracting insects perks a child’s
imagination far better than simply asking them to add or subtract
numbers.
One subject that can be difficult to learn due to all
the different rules is English. What’s an appositive? What’s an
independent clause? What are nominative case pronouns versus
objective case pronouns?
Frankly,
some of the material kids need to learn in grammar can be, well,
quite dry and even boring. However, it doesn’t have to be. To help
your child understand and even enjoy learning about English, one
idea is to create your own board game. You can buy a game with a
sturdy board at your local dollar store. Flip the board over to the
unmarked side. Draw your own squares (or if you plan to reuse the
board, just tape white paper squares to the board) and in each
square, write something related to English, something they’re
working on or maybe something they’re having trouble grasping.
As you play the game, if they answer correctly, they get to move
ahead a square or two or even three depending on the difficulty of
the question.
With younger kids, you can even use math problems rather than dice
or a spinner. For example, write or call out a problem such as 4-2,
once they solve the problem, they find out how many squares they can
advance forward.
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