Homeschooling and Daily Life

Ideas and Advice for Home-Schooling Education, Family Goals and Work

Aug 9, 2007

Fun for Homeschooling Kids, Photo by hortongrou, SXC.hu/

How to combine homeschooling with housework, grocery shopping & home business. Help & advice for easy, fun home school. How to make home education fit into daily life.

Homeschooling families who learn to balance education and life to achieve a happy and healthy home are more likely to enjoy a home education lifestyle. Here are some ways to live daily life while homeschooling or unschooling.

Easy Ways to Combine Homeschooling into Daily Life and Create an Atmosphere for independent Home Learning

Having good resources on hand gives children access to learning opportunities every day.

Develop a Good Family Library of Books and Music

Encourage children to be discerning in building their own libraries.
Choose the best books and music, avoiding junk books and "mind candy."
Find deals at used book shops and yard sales. Powell's Books carries new and used books in their Portland, Oregon store or online.

Collect Creative Home School Friendly Toys and Games

There are many fun and educational goodies from which to choose.
Building toys like Legos, K'nex, and good old-fashioned blocks bolster engineering and mathematical thinking.
Games such as Yahtzee, Monopoly, and Blurt develop logic, math, and language arts skills.
Computer games are always useful.

Design a Yard that Encourages Exercise and Educational Play

Plant flowers to pick (even if you only have room for one small pot).
Build a playhouse, a swingset and maybe even a Frisbee-golf course.
Animals are instant learning opportunities.
Let the kids in on making the decisions about what they could help do to make their area fun.

Incorporate Home Education into the Needs and Goals of the Family

Cooking, sewing, housework, and grocery shopping teach children life skills across the curriculum.
Saying "Hand me that pint of milk" teaches volume, for instance. Doubling recipes or measuring fabric help reach family goals for food and décor or clothing.
By refurbishing an old car, the family gets a classic vehicle and teens learn skills in 'auto shop.'
Homeschooling with Thematic Units helps a family learn together.

Get Children Involved in Real Work

Older children can help in your work if you have a business.
A child can help staple papers or carry a box to the post office. Kids can help sell items on online auctions. Homeschoolers can learn life skills, math, language arts, and more as they help with family income.
A child could run a lemonade stand, a yard sale, or a little business of their own.

Home Educated Kids Can Help Run the Home or Homestead

Gardening is important for providing food to some families.
Dealing with the inevitable bugs and watching growth teaches science.
Add a garden journal where plant growth is tracked and math, handwriting, and language arts are covered naturally, as well as creating a good reference for the next year.
Teens can make shopping lists, figure a family budget, do laundry, clean, etc.
All of these teach life skills along with covering math, home ec and language arts in a natural way.
Even little kids can fold laundry, care for a pet, or set the table.

Do Service Projects as a Family

There are endless charities, churches, and non-profit organizations which would love help from homeschoolers. Project Linus gives blankets to babies, children and teens who 'need a hug.'
Saving up money for a good cause is also valuable.
Volunteering as a family teaches the children compassion and other character traits, math, art, and life skills while fulfilling family goals to serve others in the community.

Educational Opportunities Abound in Daily Life for Homeschoolers

For more about homeschooling, click here. By bringing homeschooling into accord with family goals, we teach children that life and learning go hand in hand.

The copyright of the article Homeschooling and Daily Life in Homeschooling is owned by Janienne Jennrich. Permission to republish Homeschooling and Daily Life in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.