Homeschooling is more than curriculum and schedules - it can be exquisitely magical with just a teaspoon of creativity and a drop of flexibility. So let’s wave our magic wands and jump right into the cauldron!

1) Plan Unique Learning Experiences

This adds spice and variety to your homeschool life, and breaks up the mundane of the math, grammar, regular routine, etc.

• Unit Studies are the launch pad for diving into a new idea, concept, or topic never studied before. (Check out our Unit Study podcast episode.) Unit Studies is the “spell book” that leads you to try special activities like dissecting animal organs, building a mission, painting lily pads by a pond, or adventuring to new places.

• Adventures - Go on adventures such as a “Living History” field trip (check out our Faves episode about this one), explore a collection of historical sites in your state, visit museums, and experience beauty together

• Trips - We have viewed the Body Exhibit in Las Vegas, traveled to the Channel Islands for California history, deliciously tasted a Donut road trip, drove to San Francisco for the Museum of Ice Cream and Color Factory, and stopped overnight in Santa Fe, NM, to experience MeowWolf.

• Theme Days - These days can be a huge magical memory-making moment (M to the fourth power!). Check out our Theme Days episode to learn how to custom design one for your child.

• Theme Day Ideas include: Star Wars Day (May 4), Lego Day, Nutcracker Day, Frozen Day, Video game day, literature focused - Harry Potter, and more!

• Holiday Days - This type of theme day sets the mood for the holiday season, whether it’s a pie-baking fall day, Christmas Homeschool Day with friends on December 1st, or an Easter unit study.

• Take a break that day from typical “school” work.

• New skills - Try developing a new skill together! Plant a garden, build a fairy house, make a quilt, build a bike ramp, learn to mow, make a mosaic tile table, macrame, draw an invention to solve a problem, sign-up for Raddish Kids and learn to cook (See our Raddish Kids Faves podcast episode).

• Subscription boxes - These little boxes of magic provide everything you need for a unique learning experience, typically one box per month. For us, the best one was Universal Yums. We took a year break from it, and my children continually request that we renew it. My tech-enthusiast daughter loved Bitsbox.com. She loved creating her own simple video games using their code.

2) Gather for Tea Time

• Read-aloud poetry or a chapter book, play word rhyming games or story build games.

• Provide a fun special snack and flavored tea or special drink.

• Host tea time in a special place or use fancy dishes.

3) Play Games

• Sprinkle in games throughout your homeschool week - board games, card games, tile games.

• Play one-on-one, as a group, tournament style, or even involve your spouse after work

4) Invest in a Colorful Bookshelf

• Provide different types of books - reference books, picture books, chapter books, poetry, comic books/magazines, academic textbooks, timelines books like this one, etc. 

• Accessibility - Keep beautiful books available throughout your home to read together, on their own, with a sibling or parent

• Read aloud picture books no matter the age - Check out the Read Aloud Family for more about that.

5) Learn with Others

A co-op experience or even just another friend invited over for a day of learning can be pretty magical. Certain activities like art projects, field trips, nature hikes and scavenger hunts have more magical powers with friends sometimes. 

6) Consider Your Setting

• Involve multiple senses in addition to what you see or read during your intentional time together. Whether it be taste, smell, sound, or touch, that extra sense is the pixie dust.

• Don’t get stuck to one place of learning in the home; branch out! Ideas include: hot chocolate and Starbucks for math and reading, the splash pad for breaks at the park, light a candle, play soft music, set up some twinkle lights…all of it adds a little bit of magic.

• Clean Learning Spaces- It’s important to find that balance between living life in your home and keeping a clean home (which sometimes can be nearly impossible with a bunch of littles running around undoing everything!). “Disorganized and messy spaces can create feelings of stress and anxiety, which will have an obvious negative effect on your learning. It is therefore always worth giving your study space a quick tidy before you start studying.” This article talks about comfort, lighting, clutter, color, etc. showing how your homeschool setting can greatly affect your child’s learning.

7) Be present in the moment

You can find joy where you are. Be present. Enjoy your child. If you are studying reptiles, go to the reptile store and make up funny sounds and voices pretending to be the chameleon. Be silly, be surprising, be something they don’t expect. Just be there.

8) Focus on your child’s Interests too

Be curious about your child and her interests. Ask her questions, investigate how she spends her free time, expose her to books and experiences to find out what she likes about her favorite ones. Then dive into those things. Observe her and what she is attracted to. Take notes.

9) Add Spontaneity

Based upon person experience and research, we suggest two ways to look at spontaneity from where it originates:

• From You: You surprising your children with your super fun plans making them feel like it was spontaneous - like “now…close your books, we are going to play a game!” or “Let’s go do ‘school’ at the zoo today!”

  • Memory Making Mom says: Ask yourself - “What do your kids love to do that you never do with them?” And then do it. It will feel spontaneous to your kiddos when you jump in the story-making, game, pool, or video game with them.

• From Your Child: This is the kind of spontaneity that arises naturally - you being flexible enough to move along with your child when they want to be spontaneous, try something new, or explore a rabbit trail in the moment.

  • Example: The Word of the Day was “indulgent” - and the picture was a woman eating a bunch of donuts. One of my kids said, “We should go get donuts.” I said, “Let’s go now!” And we hopped in the car and 20 minutes later were eating our Cookie Monster donuts. That was a special moment of spontaneity. They still remember that simple experience two years later.

  • Example: On the first day of spring, on our “Spring Beginnings Day,” Ruby said, “I wish we could make flower crowns.” I hesitated, but thankfully replied, “Let’s do that instead of the craft I planned!”

• Why do this? Not only does spontaneity add magic, but it also helps wire the brain to be flexible. To handle change with ease and fun at a moment’s notice is a skill, a muscle that needs practice. As adults, we don’t want our children to be so fixed upon routine and schedule that they could miss out on the little moments that can really build a joyful life.

• There’s a certain amount of trust involved in spontaneity. There’s trust from all parties that it will work out. You trusting yourself and growing that trust that you don’t have to research every detail in order to have it be a wonderful experience. A Psychology Today article on the “Wisdom of Spontaneity” says “The very capacity for spontaneity hinges mostly on how much individuals are able to trust themselves.” It goes on to say indirectly that spontaneity helps cultivate happiness. See the Psychology Today article about the “Wisdom of Spontaneity” here. Note that this article is a five-part article.

10) Provide Time for Free Time

To make magic happen using #6, 7, 8, or 9 on this list - you need to have plenty of free time available and accessible in your homeschool life. You or your child can’t be spontaneous if you’ve planned out most of their week or even their day. Ensuring you have huge blocks of time available almost daily to your child will allow the magic to manifest.

“Self-education through play and exploration requires enormous amounts of unscheduled time—time to do whatever one wants to do, without pressure, judgment, or intrusion from authority figures. That time is needed to make friends, play with ideas and materials, experience and overcome boredom, learn from one’s own mistakes, and develop passions.” 

― Peter O. Gray, Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

To hear more about this topic, check out our podcast Episode 84: 10 Ways to Add Magic to Your Homeschool.