Something that may seem counter-intuitive is getting the kids involved in the curriculum decision of your homeschool – especially when they are younger. But you may find that involving the kids in deciding what to study and how can help keep them involved and give them some ownership in the process.
We feel that foreign language studies are important and give them an emphasis in our homeschool. We had determined that we would start with Latin, Spanish and Mandarin. All was going well but our oldest started finding excuses to not do her Spanish. She was completely unmotivated. After a few months of battling about Spanish lessons, my daughter came to me and asked if she could study French instead. We had never considered it. Neither my husband nor I studied French. But we discussed it and determined that whether it was Spanish or French was not as important as being motivated enough to do the lessons. We decided to try it for a while.
What we found was since she decided to study it she was much more motivated to do her lessons. She looked forward to them. We took this revelation (which, obviously should not have been a revelation but…it was) and used it in some other areas. Obviously, there are things that much be studied regardless of interest (math, reading….math, etc.) but when children are given some choices and feel they helped decide on what is being studied, they have a little more interest in pursuing the study of the subject.
Consider seeing if there is room for your kids to help make some curriculum decision in your school and see if it makes a difference. Taking their learning styles and preferences into consideration can help make your school run a little more smoothly.
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