Home Education: how to instil a love of learning that lasts a lifetime

How to find the spark that will ignite a love of learning

• Include play opportunities
• Follow your child’s interests and make learning more meaningful
• Create an atmosphere for learning
• Include opportunities for hands-on learning

“Tell me and I forget,
teach me and I may remember,
involve me and I learn.”

Benjamin Franklin

Getting your children to love learning can be tough. There are so many distractions, past experiences and negative associations that can all affect your child’s attitude towards learning. Children, and especially teens, can become apathetic, disengaged and bored.

Learning becomes a chore.

If they attend school it can be a battle to get them to do homework and if you homeschool there can be cries of “This is boring!” or “I don’t want to do that!”

But, I want to let you into a secret – it is actually quite easy to get your child to love learning. Follow these tried and tested ideas and ignite the spark to joyful learning.

1. Include more play opportunities

Left to their own devices children usually learn all sorts of things without any input from us.

Toddlers learn to walk and talk through observation and interaction, not through a carefully prescribed programme of worksheets and tests.

They learn naturally through play – something they do with a passion. And through that play they learn all sorts of things – from social norms and simple scientific rules to mathematical concepts and communication skills. They are learning without even realising it! So let’s do all we can to keep that love of learning alive. The easiest way to do that is to let them play!

Play doesn’t have to end once your child slips out of early childhood – it can be something that follows them throughout their childhood, into their teens and even into adulthood. Teens and adults still play – just in different ways – perhaps choosing to play football or other sport, play in a band, write, craft or play table top or video games. These are just as worthwhile as play activities chosen by young children – and help with social, physical, emotional, intellectual and creative development.

“It is through play that adolescents discover what interests them and where their competencies or natural abilities lie.”

https://www.heatherhayes.com/

2. Follow your child’s interests and make learning meaningful

When children (and adults) are immersed in an experience then learning will inevitably be richer and deeper. They are in the ‘flow’ and totally engaged with the thing they are doing and not distracted by outside influences.

If we can help facilitate these kind of experiences then learning will be richer. As parents and home educators we can provide endless amazing opportunities for learning, but if those experiences are not relevant to our child’s interests, then learning will be limited. It is our job to make the learning meaningful.

Let your children choose what they want to learn about. If they can’t decide then try strewing lots of different activities and prompts and see what appeals to them. Some self-chosen projects may last just an afternoon, whilst others may last a month or more. And some projects may start off as one thing and end up becoming something completely different, as children follow rabbit holes of new discoveries and interests. This kind of self-chosen, immersive learning is what will bring learning alive and help to create children that will grow up into curious, independent and happy learners: something that will stay with them throughout life.

Change your role from ‘teacher’ to ‘facilitator of learning’ and provide opportunities, resources and experiences that will spark a new, or extend an existing interest.

Strive to make learning meaningful to your child or teen and they will become more engaged.

3. Create an atmosphere for learning

You can also enrich learning by creating an ‘atmosphere for learning’ as described by Charlotte Mason:

“. . . we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere both as regards persons and things and should let him live freely . . .”

(A Philosophy of Education, p. 94).

Atmosphere is as much about our attitude or approach to life and learning, as it is about place.

This atmosphere can set the mood for learning. It could be classical music and candlelight to create a calming atmosphere to aid reflective writing or cosy craft activity. Or it could be an atmosphere of excitement and a carefully curated set of props, tools or special equipment to take on a woodland adventure.

Think about Christmas – children are often already hugely excited during the build up to Christmas Day. Imagine if you could capture that in your everyday learning? Why not plan to go somewhere unfamiliar, have an adventure day or do something unusual such as a topsy turvy day. Either add it as a surprise, or build up to it so the children are excited about it. Once you have hooked their interest then you could introduce some activities that link in and extend learning.

This atmosphere for learning could also be described as a ‘family culture’ and can have a profound effect on your child’s attitude to learning.

To cultivate your own family culture and atmosphere in your home you need to think about what values are important to you, and what you would like to instill in your children.

Your family culture will be unique to your family, and will help to establish core values and beliefs in your children. If yours is a family that values learning, then help reinforce this by being curious and asking questions, and by finding out things together. By sharing your own passion for learning, you will be setting your children up to enjoy learning too. Being flexible and not too mess-averse also helps!

4. Include opportunities for hands-on learning

If your child struggles with traditional learning methods and has become disengaged as a result, then try adding these practical, hands-on activities, where learning happens in a more natural way.

These are immersive experiences that will give your child the opportunity to experiment, ask questions, become passionate and independent learners and help develop a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

Field trips

These can be as simple as an afternoon walk to explore rock formations at a local beach or as elaborate as a week-long study of local historical sites.

Other field trip options include:

• museums
• art galleries
• nature reserves
• national parks
• historic houses and sites
• libraries
• cities

Many attractions offer discounts to homeschooling families and free resources which can be downloaded from their website to extend your study.

Bake offs

Children love cooking – both the process and the end product!

With young children, just start simple – there is no harm in using a cookie mix and a pot of sprinkles! With older children you could try having a bake off, or perhaps you could bake treats to share for a Poetry Teatime.

Cooking and baking is not only fun, but can also incorporate many subjects:

• reading the recipe (literacy/ reading skills)
• measuring and weighing (maths skills)
• experimenting and inventing new recipes (science and design and technology)
• working out why particular ingredients are used (Science)
• presenting the meal/ decorating the cakes or biscuits (Art)
• even geography, history and religious studies can be brought into it by researching and making recipes from other cultures or religions, or even the past.

Morning basket

If you want to encourage a love of books then you could try adding a Morning Basket to your day. Choose books your children will love – picture books for little ones, and non-fiction/chapter books which will engage older children. Books open up new worlds to children, and by sharing your love for story and knowledge with them, you are passing on a treasure trove of adventure and discovery.

Lapbooks

If you have a reluctant writer then lapbooks are perfect and children can easily create impressive projects by just adding a few labels or cutting and sticking information in the appropriate places. Often, a lapbook will spark a new passion and trigger a previously reluctant writer to become an eager and capable writer. And best of all, the success experienced in creating a lapbook can help contribute to a love of learning that will last a lifetime.

Life skills

Enable your children to develop valuable life skills by involving them in real life activities and decision making.

This could be helping with daily household chores, or for teens you could challenge them to physically manage the weekly budget: not just plannning the meals and writing the shopping list, but actually doing the shopping and coming in within budget. This is going to be far more appealing and meaningful than simply doing a similar exercise on a worksheet. If you then allow them to go on to prepare the meals, assisting where necessary, then they will gain even more from the experience. Your child will not only feel more engaged, but will feel more valued and have a huge sense of accomplishment at the end. And of course, they are learning a valuable life skill at the same time.

Adventure days

Learning doesn’t just have to be academic – children also need to learn how to manage risks and challenge themselves physically and mentally.

They love to learn new practical skills such as campfire cooking, navigation and bushcraft, as well as more adventurous ones like climbing and canoeing. Even going for a walk somewhere you haven’t been before can be an adventure. Whether you choose to have lots of mini-adventures or try a bigger one – you will be creating memories that will last a lifetime, as well as creating independent and intrepid people who are unafraid to try new things.

Hygge days

Children also benefit from quiet time and space to reflect.

Having a go-slow hygge kind of day is perfect for this.

Finding joy in learning can extend beyond traditional academic subjects. By providing space and time for crafts and hobbies such as knitting, crochet, sewing and journaling we may be founding a lifelong pursuit that our children refine as they grow older; but even if they don’t take to it, at the very least we will be helping our children to find a way to relax. Even just allowing children the time to snuggle up under a blanket and read a book can relieve someone of the pressures and expectations of more formal academic study.

Gameschooling

There are literally thousands of board/ table top games out there and they are a brilliant way to engage children, including teens, in learning.

There are some that are specifically designed with an educational goal in mind, but even those that do not are still fantastic at teaching so many skills such as:

• problem solving
• co-operation
• communication
• imagination
• memory and cognitive skills
• critical thinking, logic and reasoning

Playing board/table top games will get your children learning without even realising.

Play days

“Close observation of children at play suggests that they find out about the world in the same way as scientists find out about new phenonoma and test new ideas…during this exploration, all the senses are used to observe and draw conclusions about objects and events through simple, scientific investigations.”

Judith Roden

Try packing away the worksheets or formal work and instead just let your children or teens play for the entire day – or at least for a few hours. Get out the lego or playmobil, playdough or dressing up, or head to the beach or woods and simply let your children play.

Nature days /Outdoor learning days

The natural world provides so many opportunities for learning through play which is especially good for those children who learn by doing rather than in the traditional academic sense.

Time out in Nature is also an excellent way to slow down and connect with your children, which helps them to engage with your teaching much better than if they were in a classroom. And, to add to these benefits, being able to observe the natural world first hand adds an element of excitement to your lesson that is organic and unplanned, fuelling a love of learning and nature that will last your child their whole life.

If you are not confident in facilitating this kind of play, then you could let a Forest School leader do it for you.

“They’re not just playing in nature, they are:

Learning, creating, sensing, believing, relaxing, exploring, observing, wondering, connecting, discovering, appreciating, understanding, experimenting…”

Penny Whitehouse

Light that spark that will ignite a love of learning that will last a lifetime

Learning is so much more than learning the names of kings and queens, multiplication tables or spellings, or mindlessly filling in worksheets.

It is about being curious.

It is about making connections.

It is about finding things you are passionate about.

Learning should be joyful.

In the words of my daughter, it is about being “equipped for life and able to live it to its fullest.”

One of the most rewarding things about homeschooling is helping our children to find the spark that will ignite their love of learning. . . and to then watch them grow and blossom.