How to make a difficult subject fun!

At a recent meeting the presentation was about how to make a difficult subject fun and interesting, for the mom and the child! Although the subject matter was general, we ended up talking about math mostly as for some of us math is challenging and we don't have nice memories of studying it in school. Here are some tips on what to do when you're frustrated with a subject in your homeschool:

Difficult to teach? Hard to Understand?

• Go back a grade level to review the steps to learning the skill until all the basics are there
• Recruit help from dad, grandparents, other family, older siblings
• Relax and enjoy teaching and put aside your own bad feelings about the subject
• Discuss the subject matter outside of class during the course of the day
• Don't push! There doesn't need to be any pressure for your child to finish all of the subject areas at a certain grade level all at once. Enjoy the freedom that homeschooling gives you!
• Use helpful vocabulary. Difficult>challenging Hard>takes more effort

BO-ring?

• Buy toys or games on the subject, or off the subject that can be made to play on subject.
• Computer games
• board games
• card games
• manipulative toys
• Get up and move (esp. boys), use song or rhyme. Look in the library for rhyming educational poems, we've gotten some fun ones from there, or modify popular tunes to set them to the vocabulary you are studying
• gamesforlearning yahoo group is a great resource for turning everything into a game, and they have templates in the groups files, from the author of the book "Games for Learning"
  
• involve food preparation, shopping, travelling, in the subject area

Child hates the subject

• Find what your child likes and relate the difficult subject through that theme
• Example: fashion girl
• Math: how many dresses do you like. Make a fraction showing the number of dresses to those that you would wear
• English: How does it make you feel when you have a new outfit on? What was your favorite outfit and why did you wear it for the first time?
• Science: Natural fibres vs chemical fibres and why those in top fashion would need both to create their fashions
• Social Studies/History: How clothing has changed for women over the years, and why
• Arabic studies: What are the terms for the clothing in Arabic, describe the ideal outfit in the Arabic language

And of course ask Allah to help in any situation and Allah will give you ease in your work. Remember always the goals of homeschooling that you have set out, and remember that your children must enjoy the school experience to get the most out of it, and you will burn yourself out pushing too hard on a subject that you are frustrated with as well.