Staying Motivated

June 27, 2023

Staying Motivated


When working from home, the search for motivation is sometimes difficult. There are days when being a self-starter is the last thing you want to do. Curling up in your favorite chair and reading a book, working out in the garden on a beautiful day, taking a drive in the country, watching a movie, or maybe going to the beach can all sound better than sitting your children around the table for school lessons. It takes a lot of self-motivation to homeschool, or for that matter, to help a struggling student with their homework when they don’t want to cooperate because the work is “too hard.”


So, what are some ways to conquer the motivation issue as the parent-teacher?


One of my favorite things to do to stay motivated anytime is to make a list the night before of the things I need to accomplish the next day. It’s amazing how much more I get done. I put everything on my list. The daily routine stuff as well as all the other things that need attention, including the errands, which I try to clump together.

 

Making a list of schoolwork that needs to be completed on a given day would be helpful to the student as well as to the parent. I would suggest listing the assignments for each subject on a whiteboard. Let the student erase each assignment as it is finished. Let your student choose the order in which the assignments are completed. If one of the lessons is an experiment or hands-on activity, guide your student to complete at least half of the other assignments before stopping to do the hands-on activity.

 

If you have errands on a particular day, and your children are young and need to go with you, I suggest going around lunchtime and adding a lunch stop somewhere your children enjoy as a bribe for continuing schoolwork in the afternoon.

 

As the parent-teacher, you can have your student’s assignments on your to do list also. Cross them out as they are completed. You may be able to get to some of your other things on the list while your student is doing schoolwork. Hopefully, by the end of the day, everything will be done. If not, add the leftovers to the next day and move on.

 

With homeschooling, it’s important to add in some field trips to interesting places nearby. If you have a zoo close by, it’s a great place to go. For years, when I was teaching full-time, I kept a zoo pass. I compiled questions that could be answered from the signs posted by each exhibit. When I taught biology in high school we went to the zoo. I gave my students a worksheet to fill out so I would know that they all walked around and learned something. (Just a note: That was the huge San Diego Zoo. The San Diego Zoo is a 100-acre wildlife park that is home to over 14,000 rare and endangered animals, representing more than 700 species and subspecies.) Without a worksheet, high schoolers looked at the field trip more as “party time” with their friends. With the worksheet, it became a time of competition between small groups to see which group could complete it first. For homeschoolers, taking photos of a certain number of animals and then looking them up and writing about them would be an appropriate assignment that even younger students could do.

 

           Other suggestions for field trips might include museums, botanical gardens (when studying plants) and any other place that is relevant to something they are studying. One of my all-time favorite places to go to was a Gold Mine that gave tours to students. Check what’s available in your area and go from there.

 

Another motivational idea is to give a small reward, or points that add up for a bigger reward, on days when all schoolwork is completed by the end of the day. It’s important to try to stay on track with assignments.


Before each school year started, I went through each subject and did a rough plan to know how many days it would take to complete each textbook. I always built into my plan several extra days for catch-up, field trips, or unexpected things. My view was that it was okay to finish a subject early, but NOT to not finish the textbook, because the next year builds on what was learned the previous year. (Just a note: This is why the school lockdowns were so devastating to our children, and why there was so much learning loss.)

 

Make sure to take short breaks during the day but try to stay on track with the lessons. At the end of the day your student will feel great about completing all the day’s assignments. As the parent-teacher, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment also. Then it’s time to make your list for the next day.

How to Help Your Child Read with Word Games While Fixing Dinner

February 4, 2025
Many parents know that finding an adequate amount of time to help their children succeed in school is difficult at best. Having been a classroom teacher for more years than I care to admit, I know that as hard as the teacher tries to meet all of the needs of the students in her class, the students that seem to do the best are the ones whose parents are actively involved with their child’s education. So the big question is, “How do I find the time?” When I started teaching, I was not married and had no children. Life was not too complicated. As time went on life changed. With a husband and a child in the picture, I found myself dealing with the role of a teacher and a parent. My child needed extra help just like most other children. I started figuring out ways to help my child while we did other things. One of my favorites was word games. One doesn’t need to be a super multitasker to do these with their child while fixing dinner. Hence: Small Bites. This doesn’t take the place of sitting with your child one-on-one if they are really struggling, but it is a very useful way to keep your child thinking and learning while you are cooking. Game #1 “Rhyming Words” The beauty of this simple game is that it helps a child with reading sounds. If they can read one word with the end sound, it actually opens up a whole chain of words that they will be able to read by just changing out the beginning sound. Maybe your child’s job is to feed the cat, so let’s start by coming up with as many words as you can that rhyme with cat. Remember, they all must have the at sound at the end of the word. (Examples: bat, brat, chat, fat, flat, gnat, hat, mat, pat, rat, sat, scat, slat, splat, that, vat) If your child feeds the dog, then you can rhyme words with dog. (Examples: bog, clog, fog, frog, grog, hog, jog, log, smog) Goats seem to have become popular again. See how many words you can come up with that rhyme with goat. Notice that all of the words do not end with the same letters: oat and ote . (Examples: bloat, boat, coat, dote, float, gloat, moat, note, oat, quote, smote, throat, tote, vote, wrote) Since I’m on a roll with animals, how about words that rhyme with pig. (Examples: big, brig, dig, fig, gig, jig, rig, sprig, twig, wig, zig) Game #2 “Sounds to Words” This game is intended for beginning readers who are working on putting sounds together to form words. Start by giving 3 or 4 sounds such as / d // o // g /. Have the child repeat back the 3 sounds and then put them together to make the word dog . Obviously, the words are endless, but I’m giving you a few so you can concentrate on fixing dinner. / f // u // n / fun / h // a // t / hat / r // a // t / rat / m // o // m / mom / d // i // g / dig / j // u // m // p / jump / s // w // i // m / swim / r // e // d / red This game can be played until you or the child are tired and want to stop. Sometimes when you are doing word games, it’s better to keep them short, especially at the beginning. The length of the game is totally up to you. Game #3 “Geography Chain” This game is better with children who are a little older, and was one of my family’s favorites. Acceptable answers include the names of: countries, states, provinces (Canada), cities, etc. Set the rules of what’s acceptable before you start. Start with the name of one of the above categories such as: Spain . Because Spain ends with the letter N , the next geographical place would need to start with the letter N , such as New Mexico . This ends with an O , so the next response might be Ontario . Another location that starts with O could be Oregon . We could use New York and so on. Take turns and when someone cannot think of a place to continue the chain, they can drop out if more than 2 are playing or you can start over. Another chain might look something like this: K entucky, Yemen, Nigeria, Alaska, Antarctica, Alpine (city), Escondido (city), Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. As you can see, many places end with an A or an O . It is helpful if you try to think of places that don’t end with one of these letters. Word to the Wise These untimed interactive games work well for learning math facts also. Through my many years of experience, memorizing addition facts, subtraction facts, multiplication facts, and division facts are a major key in being successful in math. Memorization of multiplication facts are the most important. Without actually memorizing these, all other math becomes tedious and frustrating in elementary school, and we want are kids to love math without the frustration that it can bring. When I have had kids in my classes who are totally frustrated with math, the main cause is not learning multiplication facts by the end of 3 rd grade. If your child is past 3 rd grade and they have not memorized these facts yet, do not despair, it’s never too late to work on this skill.
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