7 Homeschooling Ideas for Keeping Your Kids Entertained Indoors

Guest post provided by Carrie Spencer of TheSpencersAdventures.net

Whether you plan to homeschool your children indefinitely or you're just trying it out, homeschooling is all about creating structure, defining expectations, and, of course, learning. Consider these indoor educational and creativity-boosting ideas from The Teacher Treasury for when the weather isn't working in your favor.

1. Learn To Cook

​Whether it's baking bread, sautéing mushrooms, or just learning how to boil water, your kids enjoy cooking for two reasons: They're learning a new skill and they also get to spend time interacting with you. They'll also get to develop lifelong skills as well. Start with a simple recipe that's appropriate for your child's age and let them suggest new recipes if they're interested.

2. Start an Indoor Garden

​Depending on the time of year, Almanac.com notes that you may want to start seeds indoors if you plan on moving them to an outdoor garden during the early spring. If it's too late in the year to consider planting your seedlings in a few weeks, choose small plants, like herbs or cherry tomatoes, that can grow indoors year-round.

3. Write a Story

​It doesn't matter if you're an award-winning author or you have trouble writing a grammatically correct sentence: According to UC Berkeley, creative writing is good for your kids' learning, resilience, and growth. You and your kids will have a blast coming up with characters and sending them on adventures together. Your kids can additionally learn how to create strong narrative structures, empathize with other people, and solve problems together as you write.

4. Teach the Applications of Math

​One of the best ways to teach mathematical concepts is to demonstrate how they are used in everyday life. If you're teaching about exponents, fractions, and ratios, for example, let your children play with a mortgage calculator online to better understand how concepts such as exponential growth and debt ratios work. This is a useful way to relate potentially difficult ideas to the real world.

5. Do Chores

​Chores probably aren’t your family's favorite activity, but they do need to be done — and they're a great educational activity. Chores teach responsibility, time management, and the value of contributing to a shared living space, helping children develop essential life skills. Moreover, through the completion of chores, children learn to take pride in their work, fostering a sense of accomplishment and instilling a strong work ethic.

​Take 20 minutes every day to educate your kids about how to clean a toilet, dust a tabletop, vacuum the carpet, or clean up their playroom. You can even make a game of it. Your older kids can also learn how to sort and wash the laundry, while your younger ones may enjoy grabbing a baby wipe and dusting their own toys.

6. Create Busy Bags or Boxes for While You're Working

Not all homeschooling parents work from home, but it's common nowadays to see a parent juggling toddler care, perhaps working remotely part-time, and also homeschooling a first-grader. Create busy bags or activity boxes for your babies, toddlers, and younger elementary schoolers. These bags can include educational activities and other small, new toys that they've never seen before to get their brains working.

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7. Use Educational Screen Time to Your Advantage

If you are a working parent who homeschools, use educational screen time as part of your arsenal for when you absolutely can't be interrupted. Pull out the tablet for Montessori-inspired learning games while you're in a Zoom meeting, or turn on a half-hour documentary about birds in the Amazon rainforest while you're scheduling appointments by phone.

Being a homeschooling parent may often feel chaotic, but its advantages are that you can spend time with your children while seeing them learn and grow. Create activities that you can do with them, but don't forget to add in a few that they can do independently to give yourself a break from time to time.

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Carrie Spencer created The Spencers Adventures to share her family’s homesteading adventures. On the site, she shares tips on living self-sufficiently, fruit and vegetable gardening, parenting, conservation, and more. She and her wife have 3 kids, 2 dogs, 4 cats, 3 goats, 32 chickens, and a whole bunch of bees. Their goal is to live as self-sufficiently and environmentally-consciously as possible.

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