Advice from a Homeschool Dad

While most mothers take over the majority of responsibilities to homeschool their children, there are a handful of homeschool dads out there, and I’m one of them. Education has always been a top priority for me. While I do have a full-time job, I make sure to take some time out of my day to learn alongside my kids. All parents have such a big impact on children, that I don’t want to miss out on any of it.

A father’s role in homeschooling can be easily defined if you and your spouse discuss the goals you would like to accomplish. As we have been homeschooling for quite some time now, me and my wife have set a schedule and list of activities that I am fully responsible for. If you are looking to be more involved in your kids education, here are some homeschooling tips for dads!

Bike rides – Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as soon as I get home from work, my kids are ready with their bikes and we head out to the trails that are close to our house. We live in California, so weather isn’t an issue most of the time. We often stray from the trails to explore our town some more each time. This is how I teach my kids to improve their mapping and navigational skills.
Dessert Making Together – For the most part, my wife is the one who does the cooking on weekdays. On the weekends, my kids and I take over the kitchen and let my wife relax. We typically bake some kind of dessert – brownies, flan, cookies, etc. You name it, we bake it. Aside from teaching them math and reading skills, life skills such as cooking are good for kids to learn at a young age.
Reading time – Ever since our kids were very young, we’ve tried to read to them almost every night. Since my wife oversees most of their learning from Tuesday to Friday, as a homeschooling dad who is fully committed to my kids education, I make sure to do some kind of reading activity with them, whether it be me reading to them, them reading to me, or reading to ourselves in the same room.
Fun Smart Games – We are a pretty competitive family, so we live for educational game night! Some of our favorites are Scrabble, BrainQuest, Rummikub, Othello or whatever we’re in the mood for. The reason why we like these types of games so much is because our kids learn important logic skills in a fun way.
A schedule that works – Part of the beauty of homeschooling is the flexibility of changing up the school schedule. In our home, we homeschool from Tuesday to Saturday. Since I work Monday through Friday, this allows me to take an even more active role in our homeschooling venture. So, to all the homeschooling fathers out there, feel free to experiment – the possibilities are endless.
Learning while doing chores – It is common practice in our household to listen to music while doing chores, but with a twist. We play music in a different language! Our children are bilingual (English and Spanish) and study other languages such as Italian and French using Time4Languages. Our kids love that they can understand the lyrics of the songs while we clean up the house!
Sports and hobbies – For us, Sundays are the perfect time to go to the park to play soccer, beach for some volleyball, or take a short day trip to a fun destination. This homeschool dad here loves soccer. I’ve taught both my kids to dribble the ball since they learned how to walk. Our kids have played at beach soccer tournaments, as well as, their regular games with the travel team. My dad on the other hand, loves hockey. Between the two of us, we’ve taught them the rules of each sport. Sharing hobbies and sports we like with the kids is one of the best ways for us dads to build a strong bond with our kids.
Field trips with dad – One of the reasons why we take Mondays off is because a lot of holidays fall on that day. So I’ll usually turn those day into “dad’s field trip day“. Not only do the kids have fun and learn with me, but mom gets an extra day off. We do all sorts of activities, from collecting rocks to learning about geology and earth, kayaking, hiking, and camping!
Vacations – For the most part, we are a structured family. We thrive in a structured setting. Since our kids are learning French and Italian, our upcoming destinations are Italy and France. We love to align our vacations with our lessons. This is the part of homeschooling that we love – being able to take the learning outside of our home.
Learning about dad’s work – Take your child to work day only happens once a year, but sharing what we do for a living with our children is such an enriching experience. After all, there is a lot to learn from fathers!