Help me make school more fun!

[chai]

I have most of our curricula chosen for next year; I like it, but it's pretty dry. How can I stick with my choices, but make school more fun?

We haven't had a great year of school this year. Because of our move, I didn't spend as much time planning and it has really shown. When I asked my dd what she likes best about school--she chose the subjects where we "snuggle"--like Bible and read-aloud. And I'm a no fun mom, I don't particularly like projects and tend to farm them out. She likes doing work on the computer.

Here's what I'm planning for next year:

Classical Writing Homer and Beginning Poetry
Harvey's Grammar
Lightning Literature--Grade 7
Megawords? or possibly Calvert Spelling?
Latina Christiana II with Ludere Latine
Singapore Math 5a and 5b (maybe Wiggle Woods?)
Bible: something from the Kay Arthur Discover 4 Yourself series
History: I'm keeping it light--maybe Guerber's Story of the Middle Ages and Story of the Renaissance
Outside classes: Spanish, State history, art, drama
We do science in the summer with Real Science 4 Kids
Equestrian lessons, other miscellaneous sports activites

What do you do to make your days more fun?

[Sue G in PA]

I'm a no-fun mom, too. Don't like science experiments, love the "idea" of crafty things but the actual implementation makes me crazy, etc. Our curriculum has been dry, too. Just recently, b/c of my pregnancy and lack of motivation to do ANYTHING, I've been giving my dc more "free time" to just explore. I'm not talking TV or video games but time to explore nature, make crafts, sketch, play educational board games, imaginative play, etc. Our days have been so much more "fun". Try nature study...my dc love it. Today they were bird watching, yesterday they found the remains of a bird in our bushes (okay, so that was a bit yucky, but really interesting!). Are they learning? Sure! But, it's not the formal let's read a page in our science book and do a narration or notebook page, etc.

I'd say, try to do a few days of what dd wants to do (within reason...no TV or video games or silly stuff, KWIM?) each week.

[siloam]

History Pockets, Lapbooks, craftbooks (let her choose, just supply a box of resources), have an exercise break where you put on music and dance, ect...

Heather

[JennW in SoCal]

I think you sound more fun than you think! I like the idea of doing science in the summer time. Here's some ideas which I've used to one degree or another over the years.

What about trying a 4 day/week schedule and make the 5th day a "fun" but educational day? You could play games like Scrabble, maybe play Mad Libs and diagram the Mad Lib sentences, play geography, logic or math games. You could take a field trip or go on a nature walk, or make it your library day. You could just have craft stuff and kits on hand and let your dd do what ever she'd like. Do you have any good computer games like Zoombinis or chess or Scrabble? You could watch a documentary once in a while on a topic of interest.

One thing that I've always done that my kids and I would count as "fun" school is to avoid pre-packaged literature programs, and instead simply read aloud classic literature. Our discussions about the books often lead us off into all kinds of interesting tangents about history and culture. We usually watch the movie version at the end, and that leads to all kinds of other discussions about the choices made in bringing the story to film.

Wasn't it the Cat in the Hat who said, "Its fun to have fun but you have to know how"?

[chai]

I've been giving my dc more "free time" to just explore. I'm not talking TV or video games but time to explore nature, make crafts, sketch, play educational board games, imaginative play, etc. Our days have been so much more "fun". Try nature study...my dc love it. Today they were bird watching, yesterday they found the remains of a bird in our bushes (okay, so that was a bit yucky, but really interesting!). Are they learning? Sure! But, it's not the formal let's read a page in our science book and do a narration or notebook page, etc.

I'd say, try to do a few days of what dd wants to do (within reason...no TV or video games or silly stuff, KWIM?) each week.


Okay, this sounds interesting, but how do you do it? This does not come naturally to me! I think if I tell dd she can choose what to study, she will look at me blankly and ask for ideas.

[chai]

History Pockets, Lapbooks, craftbooks (let her choose, just supply a box of resources), have an exercise break where you put on music and dance, ect...

Heather

We had been using History Pockets, but dd has gotten bored with them. I love the idea of lapbooks, but I've never gotten them started. Do you have any specific suggestions for other craft ideas? I am NOT good at crafts, so I need lots of hand-holding.

I think that dd would like the exercise break. I've been thinking about getting one of the dance games.

[chai]

What about trying a 4 day/week schedule and make the 5th day a "fun" but educational day? You could play games like Scrabble, maybe play Mad Libs and diagram the Mad Lib sentences, play geography, logic or math games. You could take a field trip or go on a nature walk, or make it your library day. You could just have craft stuff and kits on hand and let your dd do what ever she'd like. Do you have any good computer games like Zoombinis or chess or Scrabble? You could watch a documentary once in a while on a topic of interest.

One thing that I've always done that my kids and I would count as "fun" school is to avoid pre-packaged literature programs, and instead simply read aloud classic literature. Our discussions about the books often lead us off into all kinds of interesting tangents about history and culture. We usually watch the movie version at the end, and that leads to all kinds of other discussions about the choices made in bringing the story to film.

Wasn't it the Cat in the Hat who said, "Its fun to have fun but you have to know how"?

I LOVE that quote! :hat:

This is actually the first time that I will try a pre-packaged lit program. I am feeling the need to go deeper on this, especially since dd is strong in this area. I might do it this year and decide that I can do it on my own later.

What is Mad Libs?

We do lots of field trips--I probably spend to much time away from home, so I really need to engage dd in our home studies. Coming up with crafts and games just sounds like so much work! Is there a trick to it that I never learned?

[Susie in CA]

Wasn't it MFS that had a list of things that can make school special, not always fun, but special.

Here is my list:

Have a fun snack in the middle of the morning to break it up. For us that's steamed cinnemon apples with wipped cream. Sometimes it is just hot chocolate.

Read-Alouds. We don't do formal literature at all. We just read and talk about it.

Nature Study. This has been a huge hit! I don't tell the kids we are doing nature study, though. As far as they are concerned we are going on an outing with friends once a week. Most of the time this is a hike and we find lots of things too observe, research, and talk about.

Field Trips. Museums, Zoo etc.

We also do lots of PE type things. Sometimes this is following a kids excercise video at home or going for a walk or playing table tennis. Other times it is going to Soccer, Karate, Archery whatever. We are very busy in the PE dept. but that's what makes it fun for them.

We school only 4 days a week. The fifth day we do music, art, play games, and do our 'Nature Study.'

This seems to work well for us. It does keep us busy, though.

I know others like to do History Pockets, Lapbooks, other puzzle books etc. For my boys these things never worked. They seemed to schoolish and they just don't want to do more of that.

I hope you find something useful here.

Susie

[Rosie_0801]

Hey :)
You don't seem to have any art on your list. If you are not naturally inclined that way, perhaps a curriculum like artistic pursuits. I haven't seen it myself, but I've read lots of positive reviews and only one negative. The "Anti-colouring" books available on amazon also look like fun. Give her some good quality crayons, pastels, pencils, paints and leave her to it. Perhaps something like SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism- yeah, really dumb name) would help. Check out http://www.sca.org for more info. It's quite family friendly, in my experience, so you can all go along. Something different to consider, anyway.
:)
Rosie

[Mom2boys]

You might like the history kits from Hands and Hearts. They include everything you need, which makes it easier to actually do some hands-on fun activities. :001_smile:

http://www.handsandhearts.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=65

[Sue G in PA]

Ds9 expecially. Turning him loose in the backyard is science for him. His siblings join him. Also, my dd11 and ds8 are very "crafty" so they will always find something to build, draw, create, etc. Recently the interest has been bird watching and so today, they went outside for what seemed like hours and watched birds, looked them up in the field guide and ID'd the ones they saw. We built a bird feeder, painted it and will put it out tomorrow hoping to attract more birds. I suppose it is harder when there is only one child at home. My dc, as much as they quarrel, do sort of rub off on each other when it comes to "what to do" when they are bored.

[chai]

This has been very helpful. I just went through all of your ideas with dd. I was surprised with some of her responses. She LOVED the description of the Hearts and Hands kit. We're doing Middle Ages next year, so that would fit well. I've always hated to spend money on kits when I could do it cheaper, but doing it on my own isn't working. She also liked the idea of fun snacks and nature study.

Rosie, I'm hoping to farm-out art next year as a co-op class. If that falls through, I'll add Artistic Pursuits. I've used it in the past and am a big fan.

When I first asked how I could make school more fun, she suggested cutting out math! After hearing that was not an option, she asked for more on-line games and prizes.

Knowing myself, I will have to include all the games, activities and prizes in my plan, or it won't happen!