Ever have one of those homeschool days when your brain feels completely empty?

We’ve been there too. In this episode, we share a long list of practical, creative hacks that can revive your homeschool when energy is low. From painter’s tape timelines and DIY history games to geocaching adventures, urban walking tours, and quick art projects, we explore simple ways to bring curiosity back into learning. We also talk about focus tools, seasonal nature activities, and building systems that make everyday homeschooling run smoothly.

If you need fresh inspiration or a reminder of the good ideas you already have, this conversation is for you. Tune in and start your own “good ideas” list today.

To help you put these ideas into action, here’s the full checklist of practical homeschool hacks we discussed:

1. Adhesive whiteboard that sticks to your wall. Lap-sized whiteboards for math & handwriting practice & general doodling.
2. Painter’s tape for timelines + write events on index cards and tape to wall.
3. Make-your-own Chronology game (this is an actual card game, but we made our own with index cards)
4. Combine geocaching with local geography & history.
5. Watch urban planning videos — you learn so much about how neighborhoods are constructed!
6. A spin on this — put your own area into the Youtube search bar with “buildings” or “urban planning” or other terms. We’ve been learning about specific Portland buildings & landmarks this way. Also: look up the origin of place names in your area. Great local history!
7. Cookie sheet with magnets for car trips with littles (and other uses)
8. Make a FOCUS-FIRE-FAST-FUN grid for triaging tasks
9. A little thing that makes a big difference: assign pencil sharpening to a weekly time slot. Get a good sharpener! Also — scissors and tape in every room.
10. Have the kids do wet-on-wet watercolors and then cut into bookmarks. Leave a stash on every bookcase
11. Take an afternoon to create playlists for yourselves: one for afternoon tidy-up chores, one for instrumental music while reading, one for songs you play to transition between daily activities, etc.
12. Check out Joshua MacNeill’s book: 101 Brain Breaks & Educational Activities
13. Have a day for choosing the best squishy stuff for playing with during readalouds - what does each kid like best? Beeswax, Sculpey, modeling clay, silly putty, playdough, wiki stix. Make the texture exploration an activity by itself.
14. With spring coming — plant some peas & sweet peas! An old custom in some regions was to plant your peas on St Patrick’s Day. They like cold soil. Cheap, easy activity for rapid payoff.
15. Decorate by cutting out frames from black card stock, stick to clear contact paper, make designs out of pieces of tissue paper. Easy holiday window decor.
16. Look up local foraging groups. Might be able to join a walk & learn about edible plants.
17. Learn about wildlife corridors. Can your yard become one? Some easy ways to assist. Pick one species you’d like to help. Look up its needs: for example, if a butterfly: what host plant is native to your area? What nectar plants attract it? What else might it need – a dish of water with stones for perching on? Or - mason bees. Various birds. Start with a single species and learn how to spot it. Notice who else shows up. A literary tie-in for older kids: Read The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
18. A nice tie in – a poetry anthology like The Wonder of Small Things (edited by James Crews) or Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year (Fiona Waters & Frann Preston-Gannon). Consider propping on a bookstand turned to each day’s page.
19. In that vein – any kind of seasonal nature book is great to prop open. Like a field guide turned to a bird your kids might encounter.
20. Make a list of short stories you’d like to discuss with your kids. Keep this on hand for times when you want a short-term literary activity — say, between longer books, or whenever life is filling up with appts/distractions/new baby/etc and you want something self-contained. A good short story immersion can span a single afternoon (but will likely stick with your kids forever).
21. Melissa’s daughter keeps a visual reading journal: she chooses a sticker to represent each book. When she finishes a book, she puts the sticker in her notebook with the date, gradually creating a page full of stickers. On the facing page, she writes details about the books.

You don’t always know how much you know! Make a GOOD IDEAS notebook or Apple Note!

Resources:

1. Learn more about geocaching at https://www.geocaching.com.
2. Find books mentioned in this episode in the Brave Writer Book Shop
3. Brave Writer class registration is open!
4. Visit Julie’s Substack to find her special podcast for kids (and a lot more!)
5. Purchase Julie’s new book, Help! My Kid Hates Writing
6. Find community at the Brave Learner Home
7. Learn more about the Brave Writer Literature & Mechanics programs
8. Start a free trial of CTCmath.com to try the math program that’s sure to grab and keep your child’s attention
9. Subscribe to Julie’s Substack newsletters, Brave Learning with Julie Bogart and Julie Off Topic, and Melissa’s Catalog of Enthusiasms
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