There may not be a great many students in your homeschool classroom but getting them to study together may not be the easiest task. First off you have homeschool students who are not in the same grade. Secondly sibling rivalry may rear it’s head when the children are all given a single task to perform.
Yet, it you as a homeschool teacher can get your bunch of kids to study together as a group, you would have managed to teach them a lesson in teamwork that they will use all their lives. Here are some tips to make this happen.
Give them all a project to complete
The actual project itself can be different things for different grade levels. For instance the elementary kid could do a show and tell. The middle school kid could do a written report. Scale down the size of the project based on grade levels so that each child has an age appropriate difficulty level for the project.
They all have one broad topic to study
Your homeschool students will be a lot more inclined to do research together when they realize that they are all essentially trying to find out more about the same topic. They will then be more likely to share what they know as well as pool in their resources to gain more knowledge about the topic.
Give them fixed time for research and deadlines
It’s not enough to tell them that they need to do a project. You have to give them a clear deadline as well as clearly assigned time to conduct their research. The homeschool students work much better when they know exactly what is expected of them. Ensure that they know the consequences of not doing the project on time as well as the reward of completing it properly.
It may just surprise you to see that your bunch of hooligans can actually come together to work on a project and learn more than the topic that they were supposed to be researching. Make sure that you applaud all the effort and hard work that they have put in to get the job done.
