
How to Keep Kids Motivated and Engaged in Homeschooling
It’s a question we get often, “How can I keep my child motivated and engaged in homeschooling?” The early stages of homeschooling are mostly exciting. From researching and gathering your books and curriculum to finding fresh supplies for the new year, hitting the ground running can be exhilarating! However, what happens mid-year when the books are half-read and the pencils are dull?Homeschooling can be a rewarding and challenging experience, especially when it comes to keeping kids motivated and engaged. As homeschooling parents, we have opportunities to help our children stay curious, focused, and intrinsically motivated about learning.
In this post, I’ll share some practical tips that have worked for our family. Additionally, I’ll provide some great resources to keep things interesting and inspiring.
How to Keep Kids Motivated and Engaged in Homeschooling: Create a Structured, Yet Flexible Schedule
Finding your ideal homeschool schedule is key. First, consider the ages and maturity levels of your children. Consider their attention span and how long is reasonable to do book or table work in one sitting. Upholding a routine daily rhythm is helpful for consistency. In turn, you want to leave room for flexibility and spontaneity for rabbit-trail learning.
For the elementary years, snacks and physical movement were more important than I knew. Satisfying hunger or antsy pants with a quick break can change moods for the better quickly. Building natural breaks into our rhythm, rather than following a rigid, time-enforced schedule, helped to smooth out the days.
Using a homeschool planner to jot down what you would like to accomplish has helped me stay on task personally as well. When I am organized and prepared, it is easier to transition smoothly into the next task. Reducing the wait time to look for supplies or search for a website has kept us focused on the task at hand. As my kids grew, I intentionally taught them how to maintain their own student planners in order to practice personal time management. Life skill unlocked!
How to Keep Kids Motivated and Engaged in Homeschooling: Make the Learning Fun and Relevant
Make the Learning Fun and Relevant (for all)
This may seem obvious, but how do you make the learning fun and relevant? Nobody but the Lord knows your child better than you do, so you have the tools to answer this question. For my family, it means learning needs to be fun and relevant to me, as well. Not only does learning need to be interesting to your children, but the more I lean into the concepts and chapters, the more my children will be naturally engaged. So if a book is slow-moving to me, imagine how it feels to your child.
Hit a Variety of Learning Styles
My oldest daughter loved anything by the book – reading books, workbooks, you name it. If it had instructions to follow, she was all about it! My middle son…not so much. I found he loved hands-on manipulatives for math, building things, and experimenting with ideas. This is how I stumbled upon Apologia science and, later, math. The curriculum does a wonderful job of incorporating important concepts with fun activities, audio and visual support, and hands-on games and lab experiments. Finding documentaries and relevant field trips are other ways to build up the learning and pique interest.
How to Keep Kids Motivated and Engaged in Homeschooling: Set and Celebrate Goals
One thing I incorporated early in my homeschool was teaching my kids how to use and maintain their own planners. This solved a couple of issues for me. One, they knew what was on their plate for the day. No longer did I hear the repetitive question, “What do I do now?” It was written in their planner. Secondly, it provided a tangible touchpoint of where they were in their days. As tasks were checked off, they knew they were closer to some independent reading or outdoor playtime.
Setting goals when they are younger is motivating when they are bite-sized and realistic. If you’re not ready to introduce a planner to your children, you can set daily goals visibly on a whiteboard. For example, the core subjects you would like to cover, the pages of your read-aloud, and the chores you would like completed would be great to keep in view.
Once the goals, or a number of them, are reached, you can celebrate with some strawberries or a round of Uno. Knowing the hopes and plans for the day has motivated my kids to stay on the right path.
How to Keep Kids Motivated and Engaged in Homeschooling: Older Kids
Foster Independent Learning
As your children move into their teenage years, the habits and rhythms you have practiced for years will pay off. I have seen the fruit of faithfulness and discipline in my own children! Even when things are hard, and we are thrown for a loop, that consistency has developed roots to return to. Fostering independent learning becomes easier as your tweens and teens naturally gravitate this way.
One of the things I really appreciate about Apologia’s middle school curriculum is how it intentionally guides children with ample instruction and an easy-to-understand layout towards independent learning. My two older kids used Exploring Creation with General Science, and the student notebook was excellent for walking them through how to take notes (a pertinent skill for high school and college), how to study for an exam, and how to write a formal lab report. My oldest child credits that science curriculum not only for instilling a love of science but also for equipping her for AP-level high school science courses.
Self-Paced and Live Classes
Another option for older kids is Apologia’s Self-Paced and Apologia Live Classes. We used the self-paced course for my son, and it was a great help in providing audio and video support by reading aloud the text and showing how the lab experiment could be completed. This kept his senses engaged versus merely reading from a textbook. I appreciate the self-paced course option for students who learn best through audio and visual learning methods.
As my kids entered high school, I found that I preferred live classes when possible. Live teaching and online class interaction and participation are something that I find valuable for my children. Apologia offers over 35 live classes each year in subjects like math, apologetics, foreign language, and, of course, the sciences.
Conclusion
Keeping kids motivated in homeschooling doesn’t have to be a struggle. As homeschool parents, we have an incredible opportunity to steward this time well. With a little creativity, planning, and support from the right resources, we can cultivate a lifelong love of learning.
In a related podcast episode of Let’s Talk Homeschool, Davis and Rachael Carman discuss how to instill a love of learning in your homeschool. This includes more best practices and wisdom to consider implementing in your homeschool.