How Can I, as a Teacher and a Parent, Make Learning Easier and Fun for My Children?

One of the most recurring questions homeschooling mums have is, “how can I, as a teacher and parent, make home schooling fun and easier for my children?”

Being a parent and a teacher is a challenging yet rewarding job. It is rewarding because you get to instil in your children all the values, skills, and information you approve of, and it’s challenging in the sense that you have to fill a teacher’s role while also being a parent. As a mother, this plays on my mind every time I engage my child in educational activities. I am always thinking about what I can do to instil the love of life long learning whilst making it fun for her. 

Read this post to get ideas on how you can make home-based learning easier and more fun for your kids.

Create an Interesting Learning Space

The first thing you need to do to make teaching interesting for your kids is to create a dedicated learning space. Things can get boring and tedious if you teach them using one method. Don’t worry; you don’t need to invest a lot of money to develop such a space.

You can take a corner of your living room and dedicate it for this purpose. If there is any unused room in the house, you can make some changes to transform it into a dedicated teaching space. While creating that learning space, don’t forget to use the elements that excite your children. 

These elements can be from comic books, Disney characters, or themes based on science, animals, marine life, space, etc. You can also add some elements that you want to bring to your kids’ attention. Children will look forward to their learning hours when they spend time in their favourite spot in the house. 

Incorporate More Game-Based Activities

No matter which curriculum you follow to school your kids, you need to include many game-based activities while teaching it. Learning through books is and should be the standard. Still, you also have to appreciate and leverage the stealth learning capabilities of games. They make learning more comfortable and more fun. Through educational games, children can have a good time improving their mathematical, problem-solving, and early language skills. Games also help in developing a cooperative and competitive mindset.  

There are many game-based activities that you can pick for your kids appropriate for their age without requiring a lot of effort. Here, you can find a good mix of different game-based learning activities for your kids. Educational games are also great because they don’t cost a lot. Many of them have a DIY assembly that you can easily take care of using the things already present in your home. Even if you have to buy something for those activities, it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Take Help from Music

Many people underestimate the power of music when it comes to learning. As a parent and a teacher, you should never ignore music when mapping your kids’ learning trajectory. For starters, having some music at the beginning of your learning sessions will ease kids into whatever you will teach them later. A considerable body of research indicates that music catalyses all aspects of a child’s school readiness development. 

Whether it is linguistic, emotional, or naturalistic intelligence, music works effortlessly to improve a child’s overall aptitude. Making music part of your teaching routine is not expensive either. Do some online research for relevant soundtracks and curate your playlists on YouTube, Spotify, etc., to add music to your homeschooling sessions.

Add Outdoor Activities

Taking kids on field trips can be great for positive reinforcement. They will be more than willing to complete their lessons after knowing they will have an outing on Friday evenings. Besides, field trips can also make some learning sessions more fun. A museum visit for the history class can be more meaningful than long, boring lessons. Similarly, a visit to a zoo, a manufacturing facility, a science museum, etc., can make different learning lessons more wholesome and fun.

Meet-Ups with Fellow Parents 

You can plan field trips with other families. Kids have more fun on field trips when they are with more people of their age. Even if there is no particular field trip on schedule, you can arrange brunches and evening park outings with other parents so that your kids can socialise and make friends with each other. You can also set up a couple of “combined classes” with other parents for some topics/subjects where you think it will make things easy and fun.

Bank on Visual Media

Teaching is all about trying new things to improve kids’ learning experience. If your children are not interested in a specific topic or subject, try to teach it through engaging visual media. For instance, if your kids struggle to understand the human cellular structure through the book, show them an interactive animation that breaks down the cell structure. You can easily find a lot of exciting animation videos on YouTube for free. You can also use films and documentaries to simplify abstract concepts and ideas when teaching your kids.

Celebrate Achievements and Milestones

You can’t make learning a fun activity for kids without rewarding them for their wins and successes. Therefore, set small, medium, and significant milestones for every subject and celebrate them when your children scale them. With all these celebrations of achievements and milestones, kids will perceive learning as a rewarding activity. Developing this sense will make learning easy for them.

If you want any guidance or teaching resources for your homeschooling activity, feel free to get in touch with the Home Education Shop. We provide digital information and resources for parents or guardians who are either home educators or are thinking of educating their children at home.