Never too Cool for School – Stress-Free Homeschooling Tips.
Set Up a Fun Learning Space
Living and learning under the same roof can be fun, exciting and at the same time leads to disorganised and chaos—which is not a good environment for fostering an effective learning habit and happy students (or parent-teachers!).
As the home is a place where we all usually get comforts and plenty more distractions, from longing for a snack break, the urge to check a phone, to TV to the pantry and to the family cat. It’s quite easy to get distracted while studying.
Hence, carving out a specific study space and personalising them with items that drop a positive impact is a great way to keep you or your child to stay focused on studies and build consistent study habits.
The area you dedicate for study should not only be as quiet as possible, in ideal temperature and gives comfort but also pretty as vibrant and interesting
For example, you can put inspiring posters of quotes as a driving force, place family and sceneries framed prints to make space more relaxing which will help to boost your inner creativity and reduces stress.
Create & Follow Schedules
One of the most important tips to be organised and to come up with a reliable and steady routine is to have a schedule and being adapted to it.
Having a daily routine will help to prevent you or your child from feeling as though you can simply start school whenever or wherever you want. Which will make your child view this period away from school as a summer vacation and a time to have fun-losing an interest to study.
Which is why you should have a generally consistent schedule that works both for you and your child. The best way to do so is by getting a fun photo calendar and design specific time slots for study, creative activities academic review, quiet time (i.e., reading and writing), chore time, and so on. This will make it easier for you to keep you and your child on schedule without any distractions and be organised.
Take Learning Beyond the Classroom
The best parts of homeschooling (and one of its greatest advantages) is the flexibility to learn outside a traditional classroom setting. So why not try and find a way to get a lesson going beyond the classroom at least once a day?
Look for learning opportunities beyond the textbooks and tailor your homeschool curriculum to your child’s specific interests, for example :
- Play Card Games
- Writing or journaling together
- Practice baking and cooking.
- Gardening.
- Arts and crafts
- Music and dance
Making time for these opportunities in your daily schedule will not only be a great way to hook up your child’s learning to real-life but also will be a unique learning experience, that they’ll likely be the most enthusiastic and actively engaging with something they’re truly passionate about.
Appraise and Re-Appraise
You’re not the only person being forced to adapt to a new schedule and a new routine, It’s a trying time for your child, too! So it’s important to be as understanding as you can.
A great way to do so is by noticing every new and good thing they’re doing and praise them for doing well in handling this new learning environment.
For example, did your 5-years-old stayed focused on learning something new? Go without throwing a single tantrum? And played a game really well? Tell them how proud you are of their dedicated behaviour, patience and maturity.
Dishing out some praises by emphasising and highlighting more sustainable and self-reliant aspects of your child, will stick in their heads and subtly shift the way they value themselves, as well as how and why they’re learning. So you need to be sure you’re giving them positive feedback when they do their best.
Pro Tip: As a motivation and encouragement to mark the performance of your child, to be at their best, you can also, create a habit of giving them personalised reward stickers for every good thing they’re doing.
Accept imperfections
Remember, no one is perfect, and it’s new territory for everyone with all of us are encouraged to stay at home and quickly acclimate to an entirely new routine.
At-home education or distance learning can seem overwhelming in the beginning, with so many moving parts to juggle and energetic kids (or apathetic teens) to staying organised and fostering an engaging learning environment.
So, It’s okay to feel unprepared or overwhelmed at times. After all, you’re entirely out of your comfort zone and you probably didn’t expect to be homeschooling your child any time soon!
To make sure, this journey is less stressful and easier to handle for both you and your child, keep a personal notebook with you to jot down a daily to-do-list and write your heart out. Writing down your thoughts and feelings will help you to understand the situation more clearly and give clarity of mind to handle them better.
Now that you’ve read our 5 simple tips on how to have a stress- free homeschooling, we hope you’ll be able to handle homeschooling or distance-learning journey in a fun and effective way. If you’re feeling inspired and wanted to get something stylish that’ll be helpful, please feel free to visit our Pixajoy website.