Home educating your children is a glorious adventure and like all adventures, it comes with ups and downs. Some days – because a kid’s out of sorts, or a lesson plan doesn’t work out as you’d hoped, or siblings are squabbling too much to be peer learners in the classroom – some days, the best thing to do for the long-term success of your homeschool is simply press pause on the day.
The most successful classrooms are ones with positive learning environments. If the atmosphere’s not productive the lessons won’t be either – no matter how many textbook pages you cover. Sometimes it’s best just to reset the homeschool day.
Take a break!
No lesson is worth tears. If it’s not working, take a break.
That might mean taking a break as a parent-child group & doing something non-school together – baking a snack and creating an environment to chat, listening to a comedy podcast and forcing the laughter back in, or throwing a ball and letting the tensions out.
It might mean letting home-learners take a break by themselves – let them read a book, go for a run, even play a video game – whatever they need to reset their mood and regain enthusiasm for class.
Come back and try again when everyone’s re-found their equilibrium.
Get outside!
Fresh air is always a good idea! Connecting with your homeschooler outside on a parent-child basis helps diffuse tensions that can build up in the homeschool classroom when your roles are teacher-pupil.
Whether you go for a walk (great for teenagers who often open up more when not making direct eye contact), sit outside with a snack & read separately yet together, or do something more active like a bike ride, the combination of fresh air, exercise, and re-connection as parent-child can help everyone feel better about returning to the classroom later on.
Change the music
The easiest way to shift the mood of a space is with music. Calm it down or liven it up depending on the needs of the child. Whether being led from grumpiness to dance by the beat, or relaxed from a heightened state music can help set the tone needed to restart the day.
Pull out a learning game
Homeschooled kids are still kids and the majority of kids will choose a game over a lesson any day!
When a lesson starts going wrong because the pupils are not in the mood for learning, switch to a learning game. If you can link it back to the lesson theme, great! If not, a board/card game with educational value or a computer game that teaches or practices a skill keeps them in the learning zone while making them feel like they’ve been set free of the classroom confines.
NB: If a certain lesson/specific subject is repeatedly causing problems, maybe re-evaluate? It could be the resource (textbook/learning platform), it could be the teacher (yup even if that’s you..maths for us is always an outsourced subject) or it might be a glitch in the homeschool routine. If you can figure out what’s causing the problem, you can find a solution that works.