4 Study Tips to Help Facts Stick

The following post is from Kris of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Review is an essential part of learning. Hardly anyone hears something once or twice and remembers it. Review doesn’t have to be boring, though. These four study tips will make help review to be painless and fun for you and your kids.

Games

We always enjoy games for reviewing. Bingo and concentration are a couple of really versatile games that can work for all ages. For younger kids, a homemade version of Go Fish works well or actual “fishing” with a dowel rod fishing pole with a magnet hook.

For Bingo, write the answers in the Bingo squares and call out the questions for clues. For concentration or Go Fish, you can just create two sets of cards with the answers on one set and clues on the other. Matches are the correct answer with its clue.

For a fun fishing game for younger kids, you can write the questions on cards and attach a paper clip to each. When the child “reels in” the question, he gets to keep the card if he can correctly answer it. Otherwise, he has to toss it back and try again.

Index Cards

Even with today’s technology, good, old-fashioned index cards can’t be beat when it come to studying. They are so versatile with dozens of uses. Students can make their own flashcards, study notes, or review cards. We often like to include an illustration on the blank side, especially for vocabulary words or science terms.

Technology

Today, there are lots of digital alternatives to traditional paper flash cards and sometimes the simple fact that it’s online makes a study aid more fun.

eQuiz Show is a site that allows users to review Jeopardy-style. Users can put in their own questions and answers or use those already loaded. (Beware: Some user-created quizzes may have incorrect answers…unless Ben Franklin really was a U.S. President.)

Flippity allows users to create virtual index cards from Google spreadsheet templates.

Quizlet also uses virtual index cards so users can quiz themselves on facts. You can search for study lists or create your own.

Models

Making models is a fun way to review. We recently made an edible cell model. It was a lot more fun talking about the jobs of the different organelles as we assigned candy pieces to represent each than it would have been reviewing with flash cards.

The same thing can be accomplished with:

• Clay models
• Dioramas
• Mobiles
• Paper mache models
• Salt dough maps
• Cookie dough maps

I’m a firm believer that kids retain more when their minds are engaged and their minds are engaged when they’re having fun.

What have you done to make studying more fun?

	Kris, who blogs at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, is a homeschooling mom to three amazing kids and wife to her unbelievably supportive husband. She enjoys photography, running, and drinking sweet tea. You can connect with Kris on her blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.