Randomizing Supplemental Topics in Your Homeschool

Sometimes it’s important to go off script when educating your children at home.  All styles of homeschool can use a bit of randomization. This involves introducing your children to supplemental topics that are off the traditional roadmap of their book education. It can also involve introducing your children to topics that you are not even familiar with or have heard of.

For example, this past week, we learned about Benjamin Franklin from the Brain Pop featured video of the day. The kids were interested in all of his accomplishments. We talked about about how he was a scientist, inventor, writer/publisher, and politician. Later in the week, we learned about a strange instrument that he invented called the Glass Harmonica on “Would You Believe It?”, a show on Amazon Prime.  Watching how the glassmaker constructed the glass Harmonica reminded us of another randomization last week, when we went to see a glass blowing demonstration.

Our children should of course be taught the standard Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, however it’s important to also introduce their young minds to things that are not along the standard roadmap. It helps to spark possible interests.

For example, the random topic of the Jazz age may spark interest in jazz dancing like the Lindy Hop or the Susie Q, or instruments like the horns and the bass. A random topic on the structure of the earth can lead to talking about current events like recent earth quakes that have occurred in the world. A random topic on hurricanes can lead to a discussion of current event hurricanes or the catastophic Hurricane Katrina.

There are multiple ways to randomize your homeschool. We watch a Brain Pop video before we begin most school days. Brain Pop actually has a featured video, so if you don’t want to find a video everyday, they will automatically have one. We also watch Flocabulary videos, and my children learned about several people, and science/grammar concepts through music.

Another great way to randomize is to go to the library. Our local libraries put books out on all types of topics. They also have new books on display when you walk in.

There are shows on Amazon Prime and Netflix like “Popular Mechanics” that also help us to present ideas to our children that we wouldn’t otherwise think of.

When our children learn something that they want to investigate further, we make haste within the week to find books on the topic/person/time period/ event, etc. We also look things up online. For example, when we learned about JFK, my son wanted to hear JFK’s inauguration speech and hear him say “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”... We also added learning about the Black opera singer Mirian Anderson, and all the struggles she faced being accepted in her career, and watched her sing at his inauguration as well. When we learned about protest songs, my children wanted to actually hear Billie Holiday sing “Strange Fruit” and hear Bob Dylan’s 60s protest songs. When we studied the Jazz age, my children actually used YouTube that week to learn the Susie Q dance.

Hizki learning the Susie Q

All of these things help to enhance the depth of the world view of my children. These are things that they won’t necessarily find in book education. But it’s learning nonetheless.

-T.E.A. 2018