What is Fun-Schooling?
About 10 years ago, a wonderful woman named Sarah Janisse Brown designed a new style of homeschooling called Fun-Schooling. Fun-Schooling is fun for kids, effective at helping them learn, and EASY for moms! Fun-Schooling is using kids’ natural talents and passions to ignite a love for learning. Then, no more nagging and prodding is needed and homeschooling becomes fun! Many thousands of families have Flipped to Fun-Schooling and aren’t looking back.
My daughter just started 6th grade and is back in full-time in-person learning for the first time in a year and a half. The pandemic and remote learning has been really tough on her. She struggles with mild dyslexia and mild ADD. She thrives on routine and structure and learns best interactively and when something is really of interest to her.
Math and Language Arts were so tough that last quarter of 4th grade and then all of 5th grade, having to learn online, all with parents that were working from home full-time and navigating the mental and emotional strain of the pandemic themselves. The hardest part for her with those two subjects in particular is her slight dyslexia. It takes sooooo much more time for her to switch things around in her brain to the correct order and then work through whatever the assignment is.
I have never been the best at patience, and I can admit my faults readily in this regard. We have both ended up in tears more times than I can count over going through her homework. I try to remind myself that it’s not HER; it’s just the abnormal way that her brain processes certain data. She’s a sensitive soul, and I’m pretty straightforward, so my poor hubby has had to intervene in homework time more than once over the years.
She’s so smart, and I never want her to feel discouraged from the love of learning. Halfway through last school year, she basically gave up on Math and Language Arts. Social Studies and Science are fun in fifth grade and seem way more interesting without all those pesky numbers and parts of sentences to keep in a certain order. Then, she did the same thing getting into the second semester. Her online teachers were very understanding and very patient, but she had to do schoolwork until 10 and 11 o’clock at night sometimes. I felt terrible for her.
I was at a complete loss and feeling helpless as her mother.
At a complete loss and feeling helpless as her mother, I started reaching out to my friends, begging for their suggestions of how to help her. I wanted her to learn, I wanted her to be able to learn independently if possible, and I wanted her to have FUN learning! I was referred to The Thinking Tree, LLC and immediately contacted them.
When I spoke to Sarah, she shared that she grew up with learning disabilities and then realized her daughter had them as well. She created this whole program for her! The way it helped her daughter enjoy learning again in a self-directed way is what inspired Sarah to start sharing her Fun-Schooling with the world! I’m so grateful she did.
At the core of Fun-Schooling is the Fun-Schooling Core Journal. They have over 50 different Core Journals based on a myriad of interests. These journals organize the learning of all the core subjects revolving around their passions. Along with the Core Journals, they use books from the library or bookstores, card and board games, art supplies, and internet and video games, like Minecraft and Prodigy.
Love horses? They have a journal for that! Kids love baking, dinosaurs, pets, music, etc.? They have journals for just about everything! There are a ton of add-on books to supplement the core journal of your choice. My daughter has been all into baking and learning how to make more recipes in the kitchen with me, so she picked out the baking journal. She also is a huge fan of Minecraft and was really excited about that one.
There is curriculum to choose from for all grade levels from Pre-K to High School – and for the Parents! The Thinking Tree also has resources specifically for those kids with special needs. We didn’t want Adilyn to fall behind when she returned to in-person schooling for 6th grade, so we order the full set of 5th grade curriculum along with the other journal/add-ons. We told her she needed to do one section each day, starting with the last quarter of the previous school year and then through this Summer.
She took right to the program! She had no problems working through everything by herself, she started to enjoy learning again, she ended 5th grade with really good marks, and she kept up with her routine all Summer! I would definitely recommend this to anyone that is feeling frustrated like we were. Plus, there is even a Mom Support Group on Facebook to connect with thousands of other Fun-Schooling moms.
So, if you want to make homeschooling (or traditional schooling) fun for the kids while making sure they are learning, and you want it to be easy for moms, try Fun-Schooling!
To get started, head over to the bookstore and watch the video about “How to choose the right books” by clicking on their logo below.
