Teaching Tips: The Best Ideas to Homeschool Your Children

It's amazing how just one little thing can make a big difference for your kids. That's why we've put together some of our favorite teaching tips so you can add them to your educational tool box.

General Educational Tips

"Be sure to expose your young children to a variety of activities so their God-given passions can be awakened."—Dr. Kathy Koch, 8 Great Smarts: Discover and Nurture Your Child's Intelligences

One of the best things you can give your children is the chance to explore. Once those God-given passions are awakened, though, the journey has just begun. Now it's important to provide the resources and time for them to dig deeply. If we pack our kids schedule so full of required coursework, activities, and outside commitments they'll miss out.

"Make room in your schedule for reflecting, discussing, pondering, or maybe just being amazed by some new thought or understanding." —Debbie Strayer

Teaching Language Arts & Writing

We are big fans of teaching language arts naturally. Some of our favorite tips for teaching this way come from Dr. Ruth Beechick. She encourages the use of reading aloud, doing copywork and dictation, and giving kids meaningful learning activities such as this one:

"...rewriting fiction as non-fiction, rewriting in another tense, rewriting sentences in different forms, writing definitions and rules. These accomplish more for children's thinking and writing ability than appears on the surface." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully

Often Dr. Beechick ties writing to thinking skills because as David McCullough says,

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.

Kids need to have their brain "buckets" full in order to write. When we ask children to write about things they don't understand or have never really experienced, we are setting them up for failure. We shouldn't be surprised that they can't come up with anything to say!

"Put something in the brain first. After your child experiences something or reads something, then you can help him develop his thoughts by conversing with him. After that preparation, he should find it easier to write it down." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, Homeschool Answer Book

So fill the bucket up first, then talk. Ask questions and help your kids think through what they will write before they even begin writing.

Teaching Math

The more senses children can use when learning new concepts, the better! Try this idea from Carlita:

"To understand geometry, a child needs a good grasp of terms. Finger paint is a great alternative to worksheets and drill. As your children create shapes and patterns, discuss their work using geometric terms." —Carlita Boyes, author of Math on the Level

And if you've ever had a child ask, "Why do I have to learn this?" when it comes to math consider incorporating some real-life problems to teach it.

"In taking out insurance or buying a car on time and other family situations, a lot of arithmetic is involved in deciding the best course to take, and these situations make good problems." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully

We share more ideas for teaching math in an "out-of-the-textbook-box" way in our Spring 2021 Issue. Check out in the article Being Bold Enough to Teach Math Naturally.

Teaching History

"Kindergarten and primary children begin learning history as 'story'—stories of 'long ago' or 'once upon a time.' Through stories, children catch on to the idea that people lived in the world before they were born and that their times and doings were in some ways different from ours." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully

Of course reading biographies is a great way to see the story of history since they are individual's stories. Biographies are excellent for another reason too as Debbie explains.

"One of the ways to help children take learning from short term memory to long term memory is to connect it with meaning. Biographies are a great way to attach meaning to events you study." —Debbie Strayer, Trail Guide to Learning Series

Then students can connect these stories by using a timeline. But keep the timeline simple!

"What timelines can do for children is to provide a framework into which they can put pieces of knowledge as they learn them. For this framework purpose, timelines should be very simple—so simple that children can memorize them." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully

Teaching Science

When you begin to study a new topic in science (or any subject for that matter!), ask your kids what questions they have about it. Asking questions can help direct their learning, but that's not the only thing. You may find they have new questions.

"Raising good questions is one of the most important science thinking skills at the frontiers of science. People who discover new knowledge do so by pursuing new questions." —Dr. Ruth Beechick, You Can Teach Your Child Successfully

Once you have a list of questions, provide your kids with the opportunity to do experiments and hands-on activities. Experiments will let them pose questions, come up with ideas about the answers, and then test those ideas out. They can either design their own experiments or choose from a variety you'll find in books or online.

Now It's Your Turn!

What's your best teaching tip? We'd love to hear it in the comments!