Add a Little Adventure
to Your Home School
Life isn't just a matter of fun and games, but a spoonful
of sugar sure can help the medicine go down. We can help our children actually enjoy the
process of doing their work rather than just tolerating it. In the process,
they will learn their own lifetime techniques for making tasks
interesting.
Middle school kids are naturally inquisitive. This
creates big demands as Mom and Dad are barraged with “how” and “why” questions
at inopportune moments. Within reason, we should not squelch curiosity, but
catapult it into self-motivated learning situations. Here are some ways
to enliven academic pursuits:
Hobbies: Hobbies can
provide beautiful balance to a home education program. They offer
brain-enriching opportunities to plan projects, select materials, follow
patterns and instructions, develop skills, care for equipment and supplies,
make useful items, and nurture creativity. You could spend tons of money on
this (“I want a pony!”) but many activities are free or cheap.
Imagination: Encourage
your children to use their imaginations to ask “what if?” Let them dream
about what they would do with a million dollars or what new technology they
want to invent. Even middle school kids can enjoy a well-stocked dress up box
for making up their own skits and shooting videos.
Interests: Plan some of
their school lessons around their own interests. At the beginning of one
school year, I let each of my children choose one independent unit study topic
to do for three weeks. One daughter chose dogs because she was passionate about
them, even though we haven’t ever had one. She became a virtual “walking
encyclopedia” about various breeds. She knew how big they are and the countries
from which they originated. She constantly checked out library books about
dogs, including titles on how to draw them. Her walls were covered with
her sketches, original stories and collages of magazine pictures. For her birthday,
I found the Dogs and Puppies Complete Identifier guide book
featuring more than 170 breeds in full color photographs. As you can see, from
this one interest, she learned reference skills, geography, math, literature,
art, creative writing and alphabetization -- and she didn’t even know she was
doing school work! Later, she switched to other interests like
music and British literature.
Literature: Include
adventure stories in their literature selections, especially as they relate to
a unit study. When we studied Australia, we read the first three books of
Robert Elmer’s Adventures Down Under series, set in the 1800s.
It didn't even seem like school time.
Seasons and themes: Plan
art projects, literature, field trips, music, and cooking to enhance holidays,
seasons and unit studies. For example, at Christmastime you can plan an
Advent Adventure unit by singing carols, baking cookies, making presents, and
reading favorite Christmas poems and stories. For St. Patrick's Day, make green
foods to eat, and read about the real St. Patrick.
Bookmaking and displays: Let
your children make an illustrated book or display to creatively summarize what
they have learned about a topic. For tabletop projects, we might use three
panel folding display board.
Creativity box: Fill an
odds-and-ends box with spools, straws, craft sticks, cord, clothes pins, toilet
paper tubes and other items for kids to make things of their own. Collect old
small appliances for your young tinkerers to dismantle.
Nature study: Go on nature
walks and collect specimens to identify and observe. Are there any nature
trails in your county? One of my sons, by age 11, was a nature lover and a
talented photographer. He combined these two passions by taking pictures
of birds and plants, then editing them on the computer and uploading them to
his nature blog. He also recorded bird songs with our video camera. He
extended this to academic studies by doing research on birds and their
habitats, as well as making detailed pencil sketches. We equipped him by
providing several high quality bird guides, including ones that have an audio
component that plays bird calls for each page. The best thing we can do is give
him plenty of time for this hobby! This is a huge part of his
science studies.
Field trips: Visit local
sites such as a history museum, art museum, science center, wildlife refuge,
botanical garden, community theater,
beach, etc. If you will be visiting a location often enough, consider
getting an annual pass.
Clubs
and Classes: Check out art and music instruction, social clubs, hobby
clubs, drama groups, choruses, and other group opportunities.
Science experiments: Check
out books from your library to find activities which are educational,
entertaining, and fairly uncomplicated. Keep basic science exploration supplies
on hand, such as magnifying glasses, magnets, and test tubes.
Gardening: Let them
plant a garden. If you are a novice or have a black thumb, try buying mature
plants instead of growing from seed. This is also a time to build
relationships with neighbors; if you see someone working outside and they have
a great garden, ask for advice! People are usually thrilled to share
their expertise.
Pets: Get a class
pet. Think through this decision carefully. With most pets, your
commitment runs at least a few years. If your pet is unfriendly, your
child may resent caring for it. If you choose a nocturnal animal such as a
hamster, it might make noise at night and sleep through the day! You
can also choose temporary pets. Our kids keep a terrarium on the back porch
ready to house lizards, frogs and other small critters they catch in the yard. They
might keep them for a few hours or a few days and then let them go. I like this
kind of pet best of all! Our kids also loved keeping fish. They
started out with small aquariums, learning a lot about different kinds and the
care they need, and eventually worked up to a 50 gallon aquarium with convict
cichlid fish in it. Some of the cichlids had hundreds of babies, which was
especially fascinating to watch.
Games, puzzles and crafts: Try
strategy and word games such as chess, Pente, Rummikub, Boggle, Scrabble,
Twenty Questions, Concentration, etc. Let your child keep score to sharpen math
skills, especially in Scrabble, where there is doubling and tripling. Find
related games, puzzles, and crafts to supplement regular lessons. Teacher’s
manuals and web sites sometimes include ideas for these, but you and your
children can make up some of your own.
Group festivities: Participate
in your support group’s science fair, history day, international festival, fine
arts show, or other opportunities. If they don’t already offer these
activities, why not volunteer to do it this year?
