How can you prevent a homeschooled child from being bored with their work?

Answer 1

We often use themes. We will assign a theme for each week. As the kids get older, the themes change. It takes a little more planning, but the kids always look forward to them. Pay attention to current events, new movie releases, museum exhibits, festivals, fairs, circuses, zoo happenings, and other things. You can shape your themes around these. If funds are a little tight, and homeschooling they often are, search for movie rentals or discounted rates for events. We often pick up annual passes as a way to cut costs. An example of a theme we have used is as follows.

In one daughter's second grade year, we had a frog week. We did our regular school work. In addition we used froggy stamps and stickers on her graded work, we checked books out of the library about frogs of the Amazon rainforest, we listened to frog sounds online, rented "Kermit, the Swamp Years," went to the zoo and checked out the frog exhibit that was in town, printed free frog coloring pages off the internet, hopped around on the trampoline frog style. We also went down to the local lake and caught tadpoles. We grew them in a small tank. When we were done, we went back and released them from where we found them. We have also used themes of butterflies, fish, New York, Asian, Colonial American, robots, space, comics, and many others.

Another cool thing is to incorperate the kitchen into the classroom. If you are doing an Asian week, let the kids plan some Asian meals. Help them make a stir fry. Use some lemon grass and other items that may not usually be on your menu. Sit on cushions in the livingroom floor around the coffee table to eat it with chop sticks. Watch Mulan, or another age appropraite Asian theme movie.