Keeping kids focused on learning can sometimes feel like climbing uphill or catching glitter in the wind. It feels impossible. Kids are curious, energetic, and easily distracted. But with a little imagination and the right mindset, learning doesn’t have to be a daily uphill climb with them.
In fact, if you’re looking at it together, it can feel like less of a fight and more of an adventure. Here are some totally new and creative ways to help your kids to stay engaged in their learning, whether they’re tackling school at home or just trying to get through homework hours with minimal bribery.
- Turn questions into quests. Instead of asking kids to solve a problem or read a chapter, frame their task as a quest. Make it more interactive. Pretend they’re on a mission to decode ancient math riddles or uncover the hidden meaning in a mysterious short story. Spelling words can be turned into word detective games, and stories can be built where each correct answer opens the next clue. This is a technique that taps into kids’ sense of adventure, especially great for younger learners and ideal for learning activities for 2nd graders. Once you make those questions quests, they’re going to be far happier to be on board with your teaching method.
- Create a learning challenge board together. Set up a whiteboard or a corkboard with quirky challenges such as solving 5 impossible math puzzles or reading a story and rewriting the ending. Each completed challenge earns a sticker, a star or a point towards a Friday Fun badge, and then the Fun badge can be picked from a bucket of other fun badges so they have something to look forward to.
- Let them be curious. If they’ve been assigned certain homework tasks but their minds don’t seem to be on it, start with a random fun fact and let your child follow it down the rabbit hole. For example, if they’re learning about animals, especially sea animals, ask them whether or not they know that an octopus has three hearts. Now you’re watching ocean documentaries, drawing sea creatures, and discovering what other animals are out there with things like that. Instead of just performing, you’re inviting them to explore and then invest more in what they’re learning at the same time.
- Try to change the medium rather than the message. Sometimes all it can take to reignite interest in learning is delivering the same content, but just in a new way. If they’re not happy with pen and paper learning, go with technology. Try recording them explaining a concept as if they’re doing a podcast or a newsreel. Get them to draw a comic strip that retails a chapter of a story. Make a short skit or a puppy show based on a science concept and see if they can absorb it another way.
- Incorporate surprises. Children love the unexpected, so use this to your advantage by surprising them with learning twists along the way. Maybe one morning they discover that maths is happening by counting out candies, or that spelling is today’s escape room theme. Leaving out clues, riddles, or props around to spark questions can be really surprising, and the more whimsical, the more they’ll remember it.
- Blend their learning with daily life. You can do this quite literally with recipes and cooking. There is so much maths and science within cooking that children can learn so much. For example, getting them to make their very own mayonnaise from scratch will teach them how oil and eggs can come together to create something amazing for their fries to be dipped in. When you blend learning in with daily life, they can see how they can apply what they’re learning so it doesn’t feel like it’s a useless skill to have.
- Put their ideas in the spotlight. Kids are bursting at the scene with ideas, so give them a platform for it. Creating a big idea binder or a weekly kid talk session where they get to present something they’re curious about is much like show and tell at school. Instead of presenting something that they’re proud of, they can present something that they want to learn more of. It could be a drawing or a science fact that they heard or a word that they love or even their own made-up superhero. When they feel heard and they feel seen, they’re more likely to show up enthusiastically for the learning moments that you can give them.