Episode 84: 10 Ways to Add Magic to Your Homeschool
We all want a homeschool life that is more than just getting through curriculum and following a routine of lessons, extracurriculars, and bed time. We want Magic! We want peace and fun and excitement and special moments with our children. Jackson Brown Jr. (author of Life’s Little Instruction Book) said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” In this episode we will list out 10 ways to add magic to your homeschool life.
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Scoop on the Coop
Jessica’s kids are growing and reaching new milestones - one in holding his crayon and the other in advancing in her various dance technique levels. Mandi’s daughter is finished with the editing process of her first authored chapter book and is ready to self-publish. It’s an exciting time of development for both of our families!
10 Ways to Add Magic to Your Homeschool
1) Plan Unique Learning Experiences - This adds spice and variety to your homeschool life, and breaks up the mundane of the math, grammar, regular routine, etc.
Unit Studies help propagate that because they are the launch pad for diving into a new idea, concept, or topic never studied before. (Check out Unit Study podcast episode.) Unit Studies lead you to try special activities like dissecting animal organs, building a mission, painting lily pads by a pond, or adventuring to new places.
Adventures - Go on adventures such as a “Living History” field trip (check out our Faves episode about this one), explore a collection of historical sites in your state, visit museums, and experience beauty together
In Memory Making Mom by Jessica Smartt, “If you want to make a real treasured adventure, think of what your default personality is, and do the opposite. It is guaranteed to be an experience your kids will remember.”
Trips - We have viewed the Body Exhibit in Las Vegas, traveled to the Channel Islands for California history, deliciously tasted a Donut road trip, drove to San Francisco to go to Museum of Ice Cream and Color Factory, and stopped overnight in Santa Fe, NM, to experience MeowWolf.
Theme Days - These days can be a huge magical memory-making moment. Check out our Theme Days episode to learn how to custom design one for your child!
Theme Day Ideas include: Star Wars Day (May 4), Lego Day, Nutcracker Day, Frozen Day, Video game day, literature focused - Harry Potter, and more!
Holiday Days - This type of theme day sets the mood for the holiday season, whether it’s a pie-baking fall day, Christmas Homeschool Day with friends on December 1st, or an Easter unit study.
It’s best that you don’t do any of the typical school work!
New skills - Try developing a new skill together! Plant a garden, build a fairy house, make a quilt, build a bike ramp, learn to mow, make a mosaic tile table, macrame, draw an invention to solve a problem, sign-up for Raddish Kids and learn to cook (See our Raddish Kids Faves podcast episode).
Subscription boxes - These little boxes of magic provide everything you need for a unique learning experience, typically one box per month. For us, the best one was Universal Yums. We took a year break from it, and my children continually request that we renew it. My tech-enthusiast daughter loved Bitsbox.com. She loved creating her own simple video games using their code.
2) Gather for Tea Time
Read-aloud poetry or a chapter book, play word rhyming games or story build games
Provide a fun special snack and flavored tea or special drink
Host it in either a special place or use fancy dishes
3) Play Games
Sprinkle in games throughout your homeschool week - board games, card games, tile games.
Play one-on-one, as a group, tournament style, or even involve your spouse after work
4) Invest in a Colorful Bookshelf
Provide different types of books - reference books, picture books, chapter books, poetry, comic books/magazines, academic textbooks, timelines books like this one, etc.
Accessibility - Keep beautiful books available throughout your home to read together, on their own, with a sibling or parent
Read aloud picture books no matter the age - Check out the Read Aloud Family for more about that.
Too many books that it’s overwhelming? We have so many I cycle them in and out of the house and then hopefully they revisit old books as though it’s a new experience
5) Learn with Others - A co-op experience or even just another friend invited over for a day of learning can be pretty magical. Certain activities like art projects, field trips, nature hikes and scavenger hunts are made magical with friends sometimes.
6) Consider Your Setting - Involve multiple senses during your intentional time together. Whether it be taste, smell, sound. Also, don’t get stuck to one place of learning in the home; branch out! Ideas include: hot chocolate and Starbucks for math and reading, the splash pad for breaks at the park, light a candle, play soft music, set up some twinkle lights…all of it adds a little bit of magic.
Clean Learning Spaces- It’s important to find that balance between living life in your home and keeping a clean home (which sometimes can be nearly impossible with a bunch of littles running around undoing everything!). “Disorganized and messy spaces can create feelings of stress and anxiety, which will have an obvious negative effect on your learning. It is therefore always worth giving your study space a quick tidy before you start studying.” This article talks about comfort, lighting, clutter, color, etc. showing how your homeschool setting can greatly affect your child’s learning.
7) Be present in the moment - You can find joy where you are. Be present. Enjoy your child.
8) Focus on your child’s Interests too - Be curious about your child and her interests. Ask her, investigate how she spends her free time, expose her to books and experiences to find out what she likes about her favorite ones. Then dive into that. Observe her and what she is attracted to.
9) Add Spontaneity - We suggest two ways to look at spontaneity from where it originates:
From You: you surprising your children with your super fun plans making them feel like a spontaneous and welcomed change in plans - like “now…close your books, we are going to play a game!” or “Let’s go do ‘school’ at the zoo today!” Another Memory Making Mom quote: Ask yourself - “What do your kids love to do that you never do with them?” And then do it. It will feel spontaneous to your kiddos when you jump in the story-making, game, pool, or video game with them.
From Your Child: Or, the kind of spontaneity that arises naturally - you being flexible enough to move along with your child when they want to try something new or explore a rabbit trail in the moment. You being able to go with the spontaneous desires of your child.
Example: The Word of the Day was indulgent - and the picture was a woman eating a bunch of donuts. One of my kids said, we should go get donuts. I said, “let’s go now!” That was a good moment of spontaneity. They still remember that moment two years later. Had we planned to go get donuts - it would have been fun, but I can’t recall a single specific memorable time that we’ve gotten donuts other than that time.
Example: On the first day of spring, our “Spring Beginnings Day,” Ruby said, “I wish we could make flower crowns.” I hesitated, but thankfully replied, “Let’s do that instead of what I planned!”
Why do this? Not only does spontaneity add magic, but it also helps wire the brain to be flexible. To handle change with ease and fun at a moment’s notice is a skill, a muscle that needs practice. As adults, we don’t want our children to be so fixed upon routine and schedule, that they could miss out on the little moments that can really build a joyful life.
There’s a certain amount of trust involved in spontaneity. There’s trust that it will work out. Your children trusting you that they will still get to do the things they would like to do or counted on doing that day. Trust that you are looking out for their best interests. You trusting yourself and growing that trust that you don’t have to research every detail in order to have it be a wonderful experience. A Psychology Today article on the “Wisdom of Spontaneity” says “The very capacity for spontaneity hinges mostly on how much individuals are able to trust themselves.” It goes on to say that indirectly spontaneity helps cultivate happiness. See the Psychology Today article about the “Wisdom of Spontaneity” here. Note that this article is a five-part article.
10) Provide Time for Free Time - To make magic happen using #6, 7, 8, and 9 on this list - you need to have plenty of free time available and accessible in your homeschool life. You or your child can’t be spontaneous if you’ve planned out most of their week or even their day. Ensuring you have huge blocks of time available almost daily to your child will allow for some magic to happen.
“Self-education through play and exploration requires enormous amounts of unscheduled time—time to do whatever one wants to do, without pressure, judgment, or intrusion from authority figures. That time is needed to make friends, play with ideas and materials, experience and overcome boredom, learn from one’s own mistakes, and develop passions.”
― Peter O. Gray, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life
Coop Q & A
Question: What is one way you add magic to your homeschool?
Answer: Mandi loves to buy annual passes to museums, a trampoline park, the local botanical gardens, or even amusement parks. Just having one pass per year (on rotation) makes it easier to wave her spontaneity magic wand, without additional costs (bring snacks!), without an obligation to go the entire day, and can be a great meet-up with a friend. Jessica’s magic is her bookshelf, since nothing melts a mommy’s heart more than seeing her little one climb up on daddy’s lap to cuddle with a good reference book. Free time to pursue passions and explore curiosities also keeps the magic alive.
Edith Schaefer, in her book, What is Family, wrote:
“Remember that you are often choosing a memory. Many times you are not choosing what to do with two or three hours for the immediate result, but you are choosing a memory (or choosing not to have that memory) for a lifetime…The bubble of excitement, the thrill that comes in being loved and considered important, the reality of discovering that our mother and father really like to be together with us…will make it a stronger, longer-lasting, and more vivid memory than even the planned days could ever be.”
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