8 Ways to Make Manic Mondays FUNdays!

We’ve been conditioned to EXPECT Monday’s to be manic, mayhems of massive mounds of disorder and chaos. I’m here to enlighten your homeschool journey by sharing with you the idea of consciously setting forth to make YOUR Monday’s be less...typical, as they may have been before. As homeschoolers, one of our most beautiful privileges is flexibility! This includes the brilliant opportunity to convert (or altogether remove) “typicalness” like heartless, manic Mondays into extra-ordinary, enlightening, or at least calmer, more mellow Mondays. Here’s how you, too, can chillax a little bit at the start of your work week.

It hit me like a ton of bricks one day when our homeschool principal, or Dad, asked us years ago one Monday afternoon why we seemed so “bothered” every Monday evening. I explained how Monday’s are the beginnings of each “work week,” and we start our first spelling groups on Mondays for testing on Fridays, and that we begin root word studies on Mondays in preparation of Friday’s tests, and we have to read all these history pages for reviewing Friday, so on and so forth. After listening to me complain about how Monday’s are just as typical as everyone else’s manic Mondays, he said, “well, why don’t you change things around to make them NOT be typical, especially since YOU CAN.”

Well, DUHHHHHHH!!!

That’s EXACTLY what we’ve done since then! Why, you ask? Well...because...we CAN!
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Here’s how we make Monday’s...mellow-er.

1.  FIELD TRIPS!
We (try to) schedule field trips on Mondays FIRST, before leaning toward our typical field trip day, Friday’s. Fridays are already instinctively exciting because it’s the END of a work week.

A few simple, fun, easy-to-impromptu-visit field trips include: 

• Welcome Centers! You will be surprised how amazing these facilities are! See video on “6 Reasons to Explore Your Welcome Center Today” here, and/or read the article here.
• The Airport! Another wonderfully exciting, educationally fun place, and we continue to enjoy our drop-in visits today! See video on “12 Exciting Ways to Explore Your Airport” here and/or read the article here.
• Your Public Library! There are so many exciting ways to explore information right at your fingertips! Enjoy the video on “10 Free Educational Treasures You’re Missing at Your Public Library” here and/or read the article here.
• The Zoo! Always a fun, rejuvenating, and educational excursion
• The Apple Store! Are you kidding me right now?! We just discovered this about a month ago, and Apple offers FREE WORKSHOPS YEAR ROUND! I’m talking all kinds of wonderful workshops for ALL ages, levels, apps, activities… FREE! Find an engaging workshop waiting for you here, or "Today At Apple."
• Additional locations: the art gallery, science and/or children’s museums, and more.

​2.  FUN QUIZZES
We engage in fun quizzes or warm-up tests in preparation for Friday’s official test instead of reading loads and loads of hard, boring, yawn-inciting material on Mondays. Read more about how to make your history more fun here, “History Make-Over, Please?”

3.  KITCHEN FUN
​We strategically schedule and plan cooking projects for Mondays, instead of the days the curriculum may suggest. Who doesn’t enjoy homemade pancakes, or a nice, warm, gooey batch of Rice Krispy Treats, ESPECIALLY on a beautiful Monday mornings (instead of reading first)?! Enjoy our video on “Crafty Cooking, Homeschool Style” here, and a blog on “Taste Testing Homeschool Fun” here.

4.  PLAY DATES
We schedule “play dates,” or as older students refer to them as “outings with friends” on Mondays. There are bound to be a few other homeschoolers that would adopt the Mellow Mondays concept if you invite them. Read our “3 Artistic Ways to Make New Friends” article here.

5. NATURE WALKS
​We schedule Nature Walks on some Mondays instead of typical end-of-week activities. Monday nature walks are...refreshing, invigorating, and anticipatory because when most of America is waking up to their typicalness, we’re inhaling fresh air and enjoying a beautiful, outdoor connection with God and nature. See our outdoor fun “Easy 5-Step Homeschool Nature Study” article here.

6.  BOARD GAME EDUCATION
Another disclaimer is that board games and flash cards are only for “fun.” Not quite fact! Playing a game of Bananagrams, Scrabble, UpWords, or phone app word games like “Wordscapes,” “Word Whizzle” or “Words with Friends” are educationally superb Monday morning phonics, grammar, and language arts activities! Read more about “4 Reasons to Enjoy Learning with Flash Cards” here. ​

7.  SUNDAY NIGHT SLUMBER PARTY
Sometimes, we slumber party on Sunday nights! Just imagine staying up as late as you can on a Sunday night, without having to set a MONDAY MORNING ALARM CLOCK!!! It is TOTALLY invigorating, and worth scheduling into your busy schedule at least ONCE during the school year! Read more about our fun slumber parties in the article “Homeschool Moms Back-to-School Checklist” here.

8.  YEAR ROUND SCHOOL
We homeschool year round which allows us to have relaxed Mondays throughout the entire calendar/homeschool year. Maybe you can consider giving year round schooling a try, too! Read more on how & why we homeschool here, “4 Reasons We Homeschool Year Round.”

We’ve shared 8 wonderful ways to make your homeschool Mondays Fun-days! It may require a bit of a paradigm shift just to wrap your mind around the concept of Monday’s being completely atypical. But, if you’re already homeschooling, then you’re already “abnormal,” right?! Try THIS Funday Monday, and allow this “test” to be your official initiation into the Home Schooling Club of America! Hahaha! No such thing (or is there...?), but you get the picture.

Give it a shot and PLEASE tell us in the comment section below how you convert your typical Monday’s into more exciting Fundays! Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram, and YouTube for additional, exciting, unusual, engaging home school activities, projects, field trips, and more. Enjoy! :)

“A family that prays together stays together.”
Anonymous