Last Updated on August 27, 2024 by Sophia Lebano
Like family life, homeschooling rarely goes as planned. Here are 100 sure-fire ways to reset a rough homeschooling day.
How I intend my homeschool day to go:
- The toddler spends the morning at his activity center
- The girls and I
- listen to Kenneth Branagh recite Hamlet
- build salt dough maps of Elizabethan England
- compare the properties of ancient microbial potions to those of modern day antibiotics
- After lunch, we take a midday walk to photograph geographic shapes in nature
- After our walk, we take thirty minutes to straighten the house before nap and free time
How my homeschool day really goes:
- The toddler dumps his rice and bean-filled sensory bin in the salt dough, rendering it unusable
- The girls and I
- discover play dough jammed in the only working CD player
- argue over wether or not I can make more salt dough (I can’t – I’m out of salt)
- spend thirty minutes convincing ourselves that we do not, in fact, have a live specimen of the black plague
- We take a midday walk. B drops and breaks the camera, G refuses to walk with us because B is dressed as Harry Potter, and the toddler wades into the creek while I’m patching up his sisters’ emotional breakdowns.
- After our walk, I take thirty minutes to repeatedly ask the girls to clean up (“I can’t touch the science experiment! I will die a horrible death like the millions of Europeans who succumbed to the plague!”) whilst wrangling a muddy, cranky toddler in and out of the bath (“NO TUB! NO TUB! NO TUB!”)
- I put the toddler to bed, the girls in front of Minecraft, and myself in the closet with a bag of year-old Christmas candy.
I am only slightly exaggerating.
Family life rarely goes as planned. And because we are schooling at home, our educational experiences are much the same. What do you do when the kids have run wild, the household chores are overwhelming, and you’re five seconds away from herding the cats into the car and dropping them off at the local elementary school?
You take a deep breath and start over.
Here are 100, sure-fire ways to reset a rough homeschooling day
Create
Finger paint
Pull out a coloring book
Make texture rubbings
Make stamps out of fruits and vegetables
Make snow globes
Experiment with embroidery floss
Explore
Visit a local historical site
Take flowers to a local cemetery
Visit a park you’ve never seen before
Check out a local museum
Find a local farm
Drive to the mountains
Drive to the shore
Go to the zoo
Read
Read to a dog
Read to each other
Experiment with reader’s theater
Explore books online
Read the Constitution
Read the Bible
Find new books at the library
Coordinate a book club
Hit a used book sale
Write
Write in the family notebook
Write about something important to you
Write to each other
Write about a favorite book
Write collaboratively
Write a remix of a favorite book
Write a remix of a favorite movie
Write an “After the End” story
Play
Cook
Make dinner for a friend
Make dinner for your pastor
Bake cookies for the local police/fire station
Make dog treats
Make playdough
Reconnect
Look at baby pictures
Do a funny photo shoot
Listen to favorite music
Snuggle on the couch
Watch a favorite movie
Tell stories about favorite family memories
Call a grandparent
Make a funny movie
Read favorite picture books from when the kids were little
Get Active
Build and go on a scavenger hunt
Try geocaching
Play tag
Play hopscotch
Go for a bike ride, run, or walk
Head to the playground
Find an indoor swimming pool
Check homeschool hours at bounce houses and trampoline parks
Find a local ropes course or climbing gym
Have a dance party
Recenter
Read the Psalms
Do a devotional
Pray the rosary
Listen to Christian music
Go to Adoration
Visit a Church
Visit your Pastor
Go to a shrine
Walk a prayer garden
Look at religious art
Escape
Go to a coffee shop
Go get ice cream
Visit a bakery
Window shop at the mall
Get a mani/pedi (or do one at home)
Volunteer
Volunteer at a soup kitchen
Visit the animal shelter
Visit a nursing home
Take games and toys to the Children’s Hospital
Reshelve books at the library
Did something on this list catch your eye?
Pass it on, and be sure to check out the rest of the iHomeschool Network’s 100 Things: a Cache of Homeschooling and Family Treasures
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Great ideas!
I should have my kids look at this when they think they are bored.
These are great ideas! I’m pinning this because homeschooling 10 kids means we have an awful lot of not so great days!
I wanted to snort tea up my nose – your day looked a lot like mine! (different scenarios, similar results.) Love the ideas – and the viewpoint of resetting your day. Too often I get stuck in a rut of “this day isn’t going as planned, how can I fix it?” Resetting it is a great way to acknowledge that life happens without feeling like I completely failed as a homeschooler. Thank you!
Many of these are going into my bullet journal: How to Save our Day. Great ideas.
Totally pinning this list! What great and diverse ideas . . . and I laughed out loud at your comparison of your homeschool day plans versus homeschool day realities! So very real!!
These are all wonderful ideas for resetting a homeschool day. I love the idea of reading to a dog. That’s such a wonderful way to get them reading and spending time with the dog too.
I love this list! Wish I had it when I was homeschooling my gifted 2e daughter. She is in college now. I love your contribution to our iHN 100 Things Blog Hop! I was so happy to join in as well, with my list of high school electives. Your list so rocks! We often used art as a way to reset our days, or sometimes, going into the kitchen, and making brownies, lol.
I never tire of reading how other people’s days REALLY go – which is: just like mine! Thanks for sharing! It really takes the pressure off to know we all do our best and deal with the unplannable every single day. 🙂
Great!
Helpful! Will keep the list close by for reference. Thank you.
These are all amazing activities. I think it’ll be great if I tried this too.