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The long and cold days of winter take a toll on all of us.
For some, they get to enjoy the weather by building snowmen, sledding and having snowball fights. For others, the weather is just too brutal and they are confined to just watching the arctic blast from inside their home.
There are often “cold days of winter” in our homeschool year.
There are times where excitement peaks, or the times when attention spans start to dwindle, more homework fights start and evidence of mom burnout is on display front and center for our families to see.
Once this starts to happen, the days can start to become really challenging.
Rather than get discouraged, I want to encourage you to not give up. There are things that you can start to do that will help make your homeschool days easier and more enjoyable again.
Sometimes a fresh perspective is what’s needed during challenging times to get those homeschool inspiration juices flowing.
It doesn’t have to be anything earth shattering. Even the smallest changes change make a huge difference.
What can you do to breathe new life into your homeschool days as the year winds down?
When the weather allows it, consider moving the classroom outside of the four walls of your home once in a while.
Make a picnic lunch and take it to the park. You can do some of your lessons outside.
The kids can go exploring on nature trails and find some cool things to share with your family.
This will likely prompt more questions and more learning!
If you are a mom that is homeschooling preschoolers, the different atmosphere will do wonders for the kids and your spirit too mama.
Trust me, I am speaking from experience on this one. The kids love being outside.
And you know, taking in the beauty of flowers, bird sounds and sunny days does wonders for me too.
My mood changes, my spirit is refreshed and I am able to embrace each homeschooling day with a new outlook.
Need some homeschool inspiration?
Check with other homeschooling friends to see what they are doing.
You don’t have to compare what you are doing to what they are. (Don’t fall into the comparison trap and start feeling like you don’t measure up.)
The point of this is to not make you feel inadequate about what you are doing. But you may find some other ideas that would work great for what you want to incorporate also.
One thing that we started doing recently was getting together with some friends in the neighborhood for a garden club. Embracing other homeschoolers in the community has been a fantastic way to get the kids together and let them do some hands on learning.
They enjoy getting dirty (of course) but the awesome thing is that it won’t be long before they start seeing the results of all of they hard work.
Even though all of the children may not eat tomatoes, I am sure there will be plenty of squeals once they see them starting to grow from what they planted.
How would you describe your homeschool? Are you a Charlotte Mason fan? Maybe you are a fan of unit studies or do some online learning.
Interest led learning has been a huge source of homeschool inspiration for me. My boys are young and are learning basic fundamentals. But interest led learning has breathed new life into our homeschool.
Both of my boys have a very strong interest in STEM-related activities.
Because of these, field trips and hands-on activities have been a way to incorporate lessons into our days without them fully knowing that they are actually “learning.”
I just love that!
When homeschooling gets challenging, some families choose to embrace a more relaxed style of learning.
An eclectic or unschooling type of homeschool may best serve your family and prove to be beneficial during these harder times of year.
The ability to incorporate different styles and strategies has been such a great source of homeschool inspiration for me.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Need Homeschool Inspiration? Embrace a new learning style, try a new activity or a change in classroom setting – it can breathe life into your days!” quote=””Embracing a new learning style can be a great source of homeschool inspiration for your family. New activities and a different classroom setting can breathe life into your days.” “]
We recently had to take a road trip to take my eldest son back to ministry school out of state.
His school is very close to the ocean so you can imagine the surprise when we all got out of the van and our youngest boys saw the ocean for the very first time. They were in absolute awe of just how large it is.
However, one of the best things for me was that they remembered some of the things they had already learned about different types of sea animals based on some video learning that we had incorporated before and our many trips to the aquarium.
My friend, take heart, and don’t stay in those “cold days of winter” in your homeschooling!
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Angel Penn is a deeply devoted follower of Jesus Christ, wife to James, mom to three princes & a ministry speaker. This counselor turned homeschool mama loves to provide daily adventures for my boys while encouraging them to learn about the big, busy world around them. With a cold latte in hand and my latest read under my arm, she is usually seen looking for monster trucks and chasing her little people. In her spare time, you will catch her spending time with family and friends, at live music festivals and on the hunt for a new favorite dessert. Angel blogs at Angel Penn.
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2 Responses
I enjoyed n loved ur post!! 👍👍