Conquer the Homework Hill: How to Turn Practice Into Play (Without Screens)

Parents mean well.

But sometimes the way we were taught to “do school” is exactly what makes our children resist it.

In this episode of the Falling for Learning Podcast, TD Flenaugh and guest Lauren Moseley unpack a simple but powerful shift:

- What if homework wasn’t called homework?
- What if practice felt like play?
- What if 10 minutes a day could prevent summer slide?

Instead of drill and kill, they explore how to accelerate learning through drill and thrill through practicing skills through games and competitions.

From turning tricky words into a Go Fish card game to creating a distraction-free “practice zone” at home, this episode gives you practical, screen-free strategies that build:

• Reading fluency
• Letter recognition
• Fine motor strength
• Confidence
• Ownership of learning

You’ll also learn why:

• Kids will fail at video games 100 times but quit after 5 flashcards
• Coloring and card games build writing stamina
• Partnering with parents changes outcomes
• Routine beats intensity every time

🔔 Listen & Subscribe

New episodes air Saturdays at 5 PM Pacific.

Do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage.

And if you try the Go Fish strategy — tell us how it went.

Transcript

0:03

parents often mean well, right? You know, and they're trying to do their best. But sometimes the patterns that we learned as kids that we are, doing without thinking why we're doing that and being reflective about it causes a lot of problems and even causes fissures, right? thank you for joining us. So tell us, Ms. Mosley, what has been going on with you? Well, I just did my first parent teacher workshop for the year. I had this idea that I really wanted to help the kids over the summer to prevent that summer slide. And I wanted to partner with the parents to come up with some strategies to conquer the homework hill. Now that's how we presented it. That's how we talked about it amongst ourselves with the adults. uh I didn't want to say that to the kids. didn't want to talk about, I didn't want to call it homework because that just doesn't sound fun. know, home, work, work you're going to do at home. But more, I wanted to present it as fun games and routines to get into to help you so that when the summertime comes, you'll have some great games and things that you can do to help keep your skills sharp for the following school year. So that's how I'm talking to the kids about it. And so, yeah, we've been meeting and playing games and doing all kind of fun activities to kind of uh model for the parents how easy is to learn. Yeah, and it's been great. when we're thinking about the homework, what are those fun activities that you're doing um that you don't want them to consider to be homework? So I came up with this uh idea. It wasn't really an original idea. I'd seen it somewhere else, but I've kind of tweaked it a little bit. Do you remember the game Go Fish? Remember that, right? Okay, so I asked my parents if they knew Go Fish and they are a lot younger than I am. And they were like, is that an app? Is that on my phone? No, it's actually a card game that we used to play back in the day. And so the idea... The idea of Go Fish is that you are trying to make a pair, right? So you have your cards and you ask your partner if they have a card that might make a match with what you have in your hand. And if they do, they give it to you. And if not, they tell you to go fish and then you pull out a card out of the pile. And if it matches, then you, get your points by matching your sets. So with the parents, we said, okay, let's think of the type of high frequency words or tricky words that the kids need practice with. So we're gonna make a set of tricky word cards where the kids are gonna now play go fish with their tricky words. And so we even had some first graders come in and model for them and then the parents played amongst themselves. And we talked about the different ways you can modify the game. You could read with your child and every time they miss a word, you're keeping track of. the words that they're struggles with, words that are unfamiliar. And then you're to use those words in your Go Fish game. So all you need is 20 cards and you find 10 words, you double the words, you mix them up. Every player gets six cards each and you play the game. So, you know, we talked about if you have younger kids, you might want to make alphabet cards where the kids are asking, you know, do you have a C? Yes, I have a C. great, do you have a D? No, go fish. And so it's just, it was a fun, easy way to practice skills that we want them to maintain throughout the summer. And so if kids aren't reading yet, is a way that that could be modified for them? So we did talk about kinder and just even knowing the names of letters. I don't know how it is in different districts, but in our district, have a program. It's a great program. I love Amplify Reading. uh But the program does not really focus a lot on letter names. Like I grew up having to know the names of a letter, whereas this program really focuses on the sounds because you don't really know, you don't need to know what the letters are in order to read, right? However, when you ask a kid, like I asked one student said, uh you know, Sophie, do you have an F? Are you Sophie with an F or Sophie with a pH? And she was like, I don't know. So I said, are you Sophie with the, with the, and she was like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's in my name. But she didn't know the letter F. Like, what was not the name of the letter was unfamiliar. So it just, it was just a way, you know, kind of dawned on me that that's something that we take for granted. But a lot of kids, they don't know the names of the letters. So making Go Fish an alphabet game was very, uh you know, a quick, easy way to. You know, make like make an assessment. See what words, what letters your kids don't know and use those letters as your your playing cards. So. I really like this, your ideas, because it's showing parents how to be responsive to their students' needs, right? Now they don't know the alphabet, so you are doing a go fish with the alphabet. And like you're saying, if they're kinder, it might just be 10 letters that we're starting with, so that we could just have 20 cards, right? because you're going to write the A twice, the C twice, the F twice, whatever it is that they are practicing with. And then for older readers or kids who reading that it's you're reading with them and you notice they don't know the word are they don't know the word then or the and so you could put it on the card and help be responsive to their needs and that's something that the teacher could see a difference with and they could see a difference with and again gamifying the learning turns it away from Obviously, to learn something, you need several practices, right? You need several exposures, several ways that you have interacted with a concept or uh an idea, right, to learn it. Some kids need a lot of different exposures. And of course, we know the old school way of drill and kill. This takes it out of drill and kill and we put in the thrill, right? So they have the fun of learning by gamifying, right? Gamifying their learning. it is, it, you know, it makes it totally different. And another thing I know about when kids are in a game is that they really stretch themselves because they're having fun. They will challenge themselves to do more than they've done before. us. You could play the game longer than you could just go there and let's do flashcards You're gonna write the word a 10 20 times you're going to you know, it's like how many times do I have to do this? Rather than let's play again. I think I could be to next time and So that's that's you know, really something tangible Mm-hmm. that we could see in our kids lives because we know that the biggest thing that they fail at, do you know something that they fail at over and over again and they still want to continue to do it? It was video games. Right. They will die, they will lose their points, they will have to start it again, but they get that dopamine hit of the win, of, you know, beating that certain level, and they want to do it again and again without us, you know, stopping them. They will play, you know, overnight, you know, it's just... Yes. do it instead of sleeping, you know? um But if we're not capturing that, then of course we're at disadvantage, right? What we're doing is boring. If we're not gamifying, at least sometimes, you know, they are, you know, fiending for that video game and tired of this thing that we got them going. you know what I love about, this is one of the many games that we're going to be doing over the next several weeks. um It does not involve screen time. They're on the screen a lot. We have gamified a lot of their... ah phonics practice and things like that. But it gives them a different way to exercise their brain. I even noticed, so we had index cards, right? You know, I have little kids, they got little hands. And for them to have to hold their cards, at first we let them put the cards on the desk, because it was hard for them to kind of like manipulate holding the papers, they're falling on the floor. But I just noticed even in their desire to not let their friends see their cars, that they were like, no, I want to pick my cars up now because you can see what I have. Yes. the care and the manipulation of the cards in their hands, I thought, this is really good exercise for their fingers. Because a lot of times we talk about how even holding a pencil is difficult for kids because their hands aren't strong. I don't know if it's just this group of kids that. or coming up in a world that they don't get a lot of outs outdoor play like we did, right? Throwing rocks, making mud pies. But there was something very interesting watching them decide that they wanted to hold the cards and the struggle of like fanning them out and being able to see them and all that. This is like, oh, I this is something else that they're developing that I never even would have considered while was thinking about the game, but still benefit for them. I think parents, um you know sometimes don't know because I didn't know I know when I was my daughter was in kindergarten and I was more of an upper grade teacher and You know, I was like, you know, you could just color in this part. You don't have to color in all of that. And the teacher, when I talked to the teacher said, well, no, their little fingers get tired. Their hands get tired cutting, coloring, writing. And an activity such as coloring builds those skills. And so that is something that they could do at home. And we're talking about screen free things, right? Which also is important, right? you know, just coloring sometimes with your child is something that will help develop their ability to write because, you know, when we ask them to make the letter N, if they don't have a lot of experience, Using their hands that in could come out like that that straight line is crooked and then you want them to curve it and it's like You know, it's very challenging because they weren't using their hands like that and those muscles are not really fine-tuned and So that's something else. That's fun, right? I like coloring and decorating or whatever rather than um you know, you know other homework that we might CS traditional homework for the young, the littles. Yeah. right. So yeah, it's going great. I'm very proud of my kids. this homework, this homework that's like non homework, it's the practice. Another thing I wanted to make sure the the parents understood was that we're building routines. And in building those routines, we're establishing a sense of um helping these kids develop that sense of learning is not just something you do in school. um We talked about, you cause we want this to carry on into the summer. Cause that's where we're seeing like this big, huge summer slide. They come back at the beginning of the school year you look at their scores from the end of uh kinder or first, and it's just a drastic difference, right? So. allowing kids to feel the sense of ownership of that. have a designated time. I have a designated place where I practice and it's fun and I can create my own games and I know the skills that I need to sharpen in order to stay on top of my learning for the summer. So we definitely talked a lot about practicals like, hey, let's have a homework zone or a practice zone where it's a distraction-free area in your home. You have all the supplies you need. You can set a timer. You know, we talked about it's 10 minutes, 10 minutes a day, 10 to 15 minutes a day. That's a very doable. time period and you set it at 10 minutes. Now if it goes longer because your child is enjoying what they're doing then don't stop them. Just giving them that hey you're going to have 10 minutes of sustained reading or writing or playing a game or whatever the thing that is that they're going to schedule out for them. But just make it consistent and get into a really good habit and let's revisit at the end or the beginning of the next school year and let's see, let's talk to those kids and ask them, know, how did your practice time go over the summer? You know, how did, you know, let's look at those test scores at the beginning of the year and see compared to those kids who maybe their parents didn't come to the workshop and didn't agree to the practice zone, you know, conquering the homework hill. And I'm really interested to see what things, um you know, how it turns out. I really like that you're talking about partnering with parents because um sometimes we miss that, you know, as educators and we're just like taking on everything ourselves. um And I've actually been told by some administrators, like we cannot rely on parents at home to do things. And of course it puts everyone at a disadvantage if that's my mindset. right. I may not approach you with problems or challenges. And if you're a parent that doesn't have an education background or strong education background or whatever, some people even have an adversarial relationship to learning or school because we know historically there have been some challenges with schooling with different populations of people. Poor people. Black people, know brown people all that there's different levels to it It's not just like one segment of population, but there's several reasons why you might have an an adversarial or a You know Just a very problematic past with school, right? um So it's really good to think about being a partner to the parents because that's also from the Mindset that you are bringing something of value right to your child or your family life Whatever it is and it may not look like school but it still has some value and it still can affect what goes on at home and talking together about what that might look like and Parents designing something that works best for their family and talking to them about it is really going to be a win-win for both schools and uh home life. Right, right. And the parents are the parents that came, you know, wasn't a lot of parents, but we are creating. I feel like we're creating something. So I said I told the parents, look, we're going to do this again. And if you enjoyed it, bring a friend, you know, bring, you know, that that that parent that you've already connected with and you guys are kind of friendly, you know, ask them to come with you next time. And we set it up so that the kids get to have lunch with their parent on Friday. They get their name into a raffle if their parents come to these meetings. So we're trying to really make it something that has some incentive for the parents. Yeah. was even thinking about going to our local communities and asking them to make some donations of gift cards. Let's do a raffle. Every time you come, you put your name into a raffle and we'll raffle something off. Little things, but just ways to say, we really value the parent. We really want you guys here. We're willing to bribe you. And then once you come, you're going to have a great time when you get here. And then you're going to just be like, oh, I'll just come even if there's nothing going on. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's another part of uh making school. know, blending school and home life because the community is part of home life too, right? So asking for uh some businesses to give and contribute will also help incentivize parents to work uh together with the school and for kids too, because it's like, I love going to this particular place and here is a gift card that we could go there and uh I could get rewarded with this gift card. if I do these particular things. And it just blends well, school, home, community, and everyone's working together because our kids... are our future leaders, they're gonna be shaping policy, they're going to be inventing new things, they are going to be the people who are providing services to us. so having our children have a well-rounded education is again, just enriching our society overall, so. exactly. Well said. Just like a published author. Hahaha! my goodness. um So one more thing that I could say about my book, right, since you brought it up, is that the book is like, is the origin story for why I started the Falling for Learning podcast. As you go, yeah, so yeah, if you look at the book, you'll see so many challenges that my parents had as they were raising me uh in its fictionalized account. it blends the real, protects the innocent, no. But. You know, parents often mean well, right? You know, and they're trying to do their best. But sometimes the patterns that we learned as kids that we are, uh you know, doing without thinking why we're doing that and being reflective about it causes a lot of problems and even causes fissures, right? Where the families are not communicating with each other. uh They are, just... in constant conflict, right? um So this podcast is here and we have multiple voices and experts that come on the show to give some insight and information. And we really are offering these ideas and strategies and resources. And please reach out to us, right? If you have. tried any of these things, they have questions about things and we have had people do that. And so, you know, tell us if you use this goldfish activity and how it works in your family and what are some adaptations that you made to support your child, right? Yeah, I want to know. I definitely would love to hear about different people's experiences. And I think next time we meet, we might have some fun things that we can even put a link in the show and, you know, people can download it or, you know, download the directions because I want to make it things that you could make with common things you have in your house. You don't necessarily have to buy anything. Make it very simple. yeah, absolutely. Okay, so those parents and educators, again, thank you for joining the Following for Learning podcast again and do something today that is going to give your child the competitive advantage. Thanks again, have a great week.