What do you use in your school that your chidlren consider "fun"?

[MommyInTraining]

I want my children to have fond memories of their school days. What kinds of things do you do on a regular basis that you believe your children will look back on with delight?

Thanks!

Terri in WA

[Lorna]

Our children have love Klutz books; they are a big feature of our home-learning both travelling and at home. We also visit museums and sites on a regular basis and they enjoy these trips enormously.
We visited a library in Copenhagen for the first time on Friday and Saturday. They were really excited about this because it has been a long time since we had access to a library. They may look back on that day with delight because for so long we have had to wait weeks for books we have ordered and I have had to think long and hard about which books to get. They were able to just check out a big pile of books they fancied (see signature for a blog entry on this day and other trips we have been on).
They also look forward to swimming days as much as 'cake day' and so that must be a hit too.
Both children love history. I use 'Our Island Story' with the youngest and the oldest is really enjoying 'So You Really Want To Learn History 1' . They are excited to do this but I am not sure they will remember for all time.
Science is always a hit because it is so varied and they have such enquiring minds. We are studying the David Attenborough books and I hope to take them on another visit to the Zoological Museum and then the zoo to conclude this study. After that we are beginning 'The Elements' by Ellen McHenry which is more like a science club at home. We are really looking forward to that. Ds has been helping me to prepare games for that and has been asking lots of questions already.
Actually I hope they enjoy all their subjects to an extent. I don't think that they learn well unless they are enjoying their studies.

[Laura Corin]

Roller blading for PE, Mad Libs, Artistic Pursuits, Draw Squad, Recorder From the Beginning, history (SOTW plus), RS4K Chemistry, Biology for IGCSE.

Laura

[Chris in VA]

Dd really likes our history, esp if it's hands-on from the AG. She also is enjoying Home Science Adventures Microscope kit (I'm always raving about how much *I* like it, but it's because of her reaction).
Believe it or not, she thinks our devotional is fun, too, and reminds me if we start school without it. And, of course, she loves our read alouds.

[Closeacademy]

Rhythmic drill for math facts (bascially rolling a ball back and forth but you could be skipping or jumping on a trampoline). Great for any sort of memory work.

The pictures I draw to make phonics and other things more visual.

Educational videos and TV. Cuddling up together to watch them and talk about them.

Watercolors, playdough and science projects that allow us to be creative or to discover things about the world around us.

Nature walks and stories about the animals that visit our home.

Taking a week off every so often to have fun school where we do lapbooks and play games.

Keeping things relaxed and not becoming driven by curriculum choices. Really listening to them and adapting and shaping our schoolwork to fit their needs.

Using silly poems to transition through the school day and have us up and moving so we don't get tired.

Good luck!:)

[one l michele]

read alouds
playing outside
nature walks
family trips to museums and zoos
hands on projects
following their special interests
taking lots of pictures

This is the first year I've tried a literature approach to learning and now I can't imagine doing it any other way, the boys really look forward to each book, their vocabulary has exploded, and they have a passion for reading.

[Rhondabee]

Seriously...I really think it is my attitude more than anything else that makes or breaks a curriculum.

Even Rod & Staff English can be "fun" if I make it fun. We make up silly songs to help us remember definitions of parts speech and lists of various sorts. I say the incorrect sentence in my hill-billiest voice (this isn't too much of stretch :p), and after they're through laughing, they say it correctly. There are ways to insert humor through-out the day, and that's good training for real life.

We also do a lot of Read-Alouds, and we all agree that is the best part about homeschooling. On really tough-to-get-going days, we have a "Read Aloud" day. We work on "school" work for about an hour, then read together for about 15 minutes, and alternate until school is done.

[Ferdie]

Read alouds
Hot coco on rainy days
Field trips

[hsm]

nature study, daily walks, kids cooking/planning dinner, tea parties,

[abbeyej]

Beginning the day with poetry and singing. We have a notebook of the poems they have (some days I feel the need to add an "allegedly" here) learned and ones we're working on, and we read them together. They take turns "performing" them (and occasionally they insist on props or simply over-the-top full-body re-enactment), and I read new ones aloud... And we have a song book or two that we flip through and select a couple of songs to sing together.

Truly, this has consistently be the most rewarding time of the school day for all of us, and the part they miss most if I ignore it for a period of time.

[ABQmom]

Read alouds
Discovering Great Artists projects
Draw Squad
Spelling Bingo: This is their favorite. I have laminated bingo cards that I made up with phonograms from SWR. We use M&M's, teddy grahams, or chocolate chips for markers. We play for a few minutes every Friday.

[cin]

I have a very warped daughter. She loves doing 3 pages in her math book every day. :rolleyes: She also loves spelling tests and is really disappointed that we are now doing wordly wise instead of me wracking my brain to find words that she canNOT spell. I may start giving her a vocab test every Friday. She'll love that. This is the same child who, after hearing DH tease me about giving my 4 yo a spelling test, (I was just working with her to listen to the sounds, so she could write down the words she could already read) insisted that I give her a spelling test every Friday. >sigh< Warped, but in a good way!

[chiguirre]

Five in a Row:)

[abbeyej]

I have a very warped daughter. ... She also loves spelling tests and is really disappointed that we are now doing wordly wise instead of me wracking my brain to find words that she canNOT spell. ... This is the same child who... insisted that I give her a spelling test every Friday. >sigh< Warped, but in a good way!

You guys might like Spelling Power. You test her into the correct level and then just give her spelling tests. When she misses a word, you can either follow the SP ten-step review process (which I'm guessing will be overkill for her), or you can just have her copy it out correctly a couple of times and mark that word in your book to check her on next time. It might give her what she wants (spelling tests! yay! lol) and allow you to do that without wracking *your* brain too hard. ;) (Can you tell my ds gets a kick out of it too?)

[Michelle T]

It really doesn't matter what I plan, DS just does not consider any school "fun". He doesn't like hands-on activities, he doesn't like educational games, he doesn't want to watch videos to learn, or use the computer for learning. He doesn't like music, or poetry, or art.

He just wants to be read to, do a bit of reading himself, fill out whatever worksheet is short, and be done with it.

Not exactly the attitude I was hoping for in our homeschool, but that's how he is.
Michelle T

[Rhondabee]

It really doesn't matter what I plan, DS just does not consider any school "fun". He doesn't like hands-on activities, he doesn't like educational games, he doesn't want to watch videos to learn, or use the computer for learning. He doesn't like music, or poetry, or art.

He just wants to be read to, do a bit of reading himself, fill out whatever worksheet is short, and be done with it.

Not exactly the attitude I was hoping for in our homeschool, but that's how he is.
Michelle T


Really, I do. My older son finally told me to stop trying to find "fun" school things. He would rather have boring curriculum (done with a fun-loving attitude as I posted above), and just get it done.

Actually, I think what he said was, "It really doesn't matter what we do, Mom, because I'm not going to think it's fun. I don't think school is fun. It's something we have to do, and I'll do it. But, I won't ever think it's fun."

Although it pains me to see all the really good books that go unread back to the library, I am thankful that his attitude frees me up from always having to be the latest, greatest, most fun homeschool mom ever!

[Vanna]

:D

First and Last Day of School Surveys (homemade - I pick my own questions of favorite things, goals, dreams and print them out for the kids to fill in, then I put a picture of each child on the bottom of the survey). We look and compare their growth/changes over the school year. I've saved these for years now and they are precious to me.

Museum and zoo trips (take lots of pictures)

Cooking/Baking projects

Story of the World activity guide projects (and I'm not crafty, but I'll occasionally "throw my kids a bone" and do one).

Birthdays as school holidays (yay!)

Top Secret Adventures by Highlights subscription

Highlights subscription

[Narrow Gate Academy]

The girls favorite part of school is making lapbooks, which is why we are currently working on 3 for history, science, and US geography. They also love many of the read alouds that we use for history and literature mostly from TruthQuest AHYS1. (I know it's a good book when I have to hide it to keep them from reading ahead.) They call math and spelling fun on days where there are riddles, crosswords, wordsearch, color by number, etc. My oldest loves Typing Instructor Deluxe. They love hands-on activities and experiments. We going to try to add in some more of these next year.

[Melmc]

Thanks for all these tips, everyone. They are great for this newbie!

[WABeth]

I asked my dds:

4th grader: SOTW! and Artpacs
Kinder: FIAR

[WTMindy]

"history, reading outloud, piano, science, memory work, spanish, being with you." That was a nice answer. :-) Notice math and grammar did not make the list! :-)

[Beth in SW WA]

How ironic... I just had this conversation w/ a friend last week about the lack of "fun factor" in my homeschooling. I told her what I'll tell you: School is school. Fun is fun. We do school so we can have fun -- later. We work hard, play hard. We do have many giggles and smiles during our homeschool days. But not always. Some days are tough --and no one would consider them fun (especially on the whiny "Do I HAVE to do my writing?" days). All-in-all my kids love the way we do school at home. We get down to business so we can party later. :) Which is vastly different from the long days at their private school w/ hours of homework at night. AND they are learning more and having more fun w/ our rigorous homeschool schedule. Go figure.

To answer your original question, though: My kids would say Latin is fun (how crazy is that?).

[Lisawa]

I want my children to have fond memories of their school days. What kinds of things do you do on a regular basis that you believe your children will look back on with delight?

Thanks!

Terri in WA

This year, crafts and cooking have been a big hit. RyLee says for school related items they would be math and Spanish. These 2 are the most favored and her science experiments and projects using Apologia Astronomy are also a hit.