We’ve been using unit studies in our homeschool for years. Personally, I love them. They’re flexible and adaptable, which is perfect for keeping our kids interested in the lessons. We can write them ourselves, buy them from others, or make them up as we go.

If you’re unfamiliar with the unit study approach to homeschooling, check out our previous post about what unit studies are for more details. But, generally, they’re multi-subject lessons based around a central theme. You might have a medieval history unit or a harvest unit or a bear unit, and so on.

Since we’re homeschooling kids with ADHD, we make a few changes to help our kids stay interested and excited about what we’re learning. Here are a few tips that you can use to learn how to write a unit study for kids with ADHD!

How to Write a Unit Study for ADHD Kids

Follow their interests.

With unit studies, you have the flexibility to choose any topic you (or the kids) want. If one of your children is a huge fan of construction, like Roo is now, make that your topic. You won’t have to worry about them paying attention then. 🙂

When you’ve selected your topic, find ways to include all of the important subjects within it. For example, in a construction unit, I might include math worksheets featuring a construction theme, books about construction machines, and scientific concepts that are used in construction such as simple machines. It’s a great way to help kids develop an interest in subjects they may not have liked in the past.

Include movement at every opportunity.

Physical activity is excellent for helping kids with ADHD refocus their attention for learning. Use brain breaks or short bursts of physical movement every hour to give their brains a much-needed shot of adrenalin.

If you can find a way to make movement a part of the unit study, that’s even better! Using our construction example, kids can build a tower out of blocks, paper towel tubes, or sponges. You could even have them act out the functions of each construction machine they learn about. In fact, one of Roo’s favorite things to do right now is to use his arms like a front loader, complete with sound effects. It certainly makes our P.E. lessons interesting. 🙂

Don’t stress about time.

One of the goals of homeschooling is to help our kids love learning. If they’re doing that, don’t feel like you have to drop the topic to cover a different unit within a certain amount of time. If your children are enjoying the topic, it’s perfectly fine to stick with it for days, weeks, or even months on end.

Do you use unit studies with your kids who have ADHD? Tell us about how you adjust your units for them in the comments!

This post is part of the 31 Days of ADHD Homeschooling series! Thanks for following along with us this month! See all of the posts in the series by clicking the image below!

Since kids with ADHD tend to be more active than other kids, it’s easy to think that physical education isn’t that important for them. Wrong! Depending on the child, PE can be even more important for a child with ADHD.

Because the ADHD brain has trouble organizing thoughts and carrying out instructions, kids with ADHD may be clumsier, less coordinated, and more likely to get injured than other kids. We saw this with Tigger quite a lot, especially since she also deals with sensory processing disorder. She fell, tripped, and got hurt much more often than her peers.

Since she was always active, I had assumed that she didn’t really need P.E. But in P.E., you learn so many critical concepts that are essential to being active later in life! So we decided to institute an actual P.E. program., but we made it into an ADHD PE curriculum with a few adjustments.

How to Make an ADHD PE Curriculum for Homeschool

Emphasize the basic skills first.

I went to public school until I was in seventh grade, so I had P.E. everyday as a young child. Even though it wasn’t that long ago *ahem*, I still forgot that I learned most of my basic movement skills there, not on the playground. When we took the kids to the playground last year, I couldn’t understand why they were afraid to climb the play structures. Duh! I’d never taught them how to jump down!

We started focusing on mastering the basic PE skills – jumping, skipping, standing, balancing, and running. I just took the kids to the playground last week and I almost couldn’t get them off the ladders. Even Piglet was climbing and sliding down with the rest of them. 🙂

Keep the lessons short.

Because kids with ADHD often have short attention spans, you might have to keep the structured P.E. lessons short, especially when you’re first beginning. They can get so excited about trying something that they fail to pay attention to the instructions and then they’re far more likely to get injured.

So, keep the instructions short and let them get involved as soon as you can. Watch them for signs that they’re losing focus – shifting eyes, fidgeting, etc. –  and cut the lesson when you see that. They’ll also want to play and explore on their own. You may even want to let them do that first, so that they’ll be more likely to pay attention when you teach the skills.

Try teaching P.E. first.

Earlier in the series, we talked about having P.E. early in the school day to help them organize their thoughts for later lessons. Having P.E. class immediately after breakfast may actually help your kids pay closer attention to their other subjects.

One note of warning, though: If you decide to have P.E. first, don’t make it too strenuous. Otherwise, both you and the kids will be too pooped to finish the school day! (I’ve done this, by the way.)

How do you create an ADHD PE curriculum in your homeschool? Tell us about the way you teach physical education in the comments!

This post is part of the 31 Days of ADHD Homeschooling series! Stop by tomorrow for Day 31: Writing a Unit Study for Kids with ADHD!

ADHD and poor attention span go hand in hand. In fact, inattentiveness is one of the consistent symptoms of ADHD that is evident in all people who have it. So, our kids with ADHD naturally have trouble maintaining attention, especially if they don’t like the subject at hand.

The good news is that we can help them to extend their attention spans, but – it won’t happen overnight and it won’t happen without lots of input from us. Of course, if you are a parent with ADHD (as I am), you’ll have to fight your own attention battles, and you might want to try these activities yourself so you can be consistent with them. 🙂

If you’d like to help your children learn to focus for longer periods, try these suggestions about how to increase attention span in your kids with ADHD!

How to Increase Attention Span for Kids with ADHD

Encourage them to take notes.

One of the things we’ve done with our kids is to encourage them to take notes whenever they have to listen for an extended period of time. We attend meetings at an American Sign Language congregation, which is completely silent. As you can imagine, getting them to sit down and pay attention was a challenge. 🙂

Letting them take notes helped a ton. We don’t require that they write the entire time, either. Sometimes they draw pictures of what they see, which is actually a big help in understanding ASL.

Personally, I’m a visual learner, so when I take notes I use bullet points, multi-colored pens, and arrows to draw my attention to specific items. Mixing things up like that can also make it easier to pay attention.

Stimulate their senses.

We can also help our kids to pay attention longer by involving as many of their senses as possible. If you’re teaching a lesson in your homeschool, use bright pictures, upbeat music, and movement whenever you can. These additions can make your lessons more interesting, which will help your kids maintain focus.

If you have children with sensory integration issues, these kinds of activities are even more important. We’ll talk more about sensory issues in tomorrow’s post.

Use timed focus sessions.

You can also make paying attention into a mini-challenge. Establish special “focus periods” – short, intense periods when the kids will pay attention to a topic as closely as they can. Start with a few minutes, 2 to 5, and then gradually increase them based on age level.

You might even want to add an incentive for each milestone they reach. For example, if they can pay attention to a lesson for 10 minutes and show it by remembering three key points, they get an extra 10 minutes of screen time.

Have you been able to help your kids with ADHD increase attention span? Share your secrets in the comments!

This post is part of the 31 Days of ADHD Homeschooling series! Stop by tomorrow for Day 28: When ADHD and SPD Collide!

Raise your hand if your child loves using a tablet. *everyone’s hand in the world goes up*

Digital devices are everywhere these days. And it’s pretty common for kids to use screen devices, such as tablets, computers, and TVs, all the time – even for educational purposes.

For kids with ADHD, though, excessive screen time can pose some serious problems. While it’s unlikely that watching TV will cause ADHD, it can certainly worsen the symptoms. Many television programs and movies are designed to cater to short attention spans, which is something that people with ADHD do not need help developing. Not to mention that an excessive amount of screen time can actually contribute to behavioral problems in some kids, including aggression, irritability, and hyperactivity.

Personally, I don’t know if screen time is actually worsening my kids’ ADHD, but I do know that when they watch it for too long, they have an extremely difficult time settling down, listening, and paying attention afterward. So in our family, we use very clear screen time limits for kids and they seem to be working for us. Here are a few of the suggestions we’ve tried.

Setting Screen Time Limits for Kids with ADHD

Set a daily allotment of screen time.

On school days, we have a limit of no more than one hour of screen time per day. When we’re doing a relaxed day, I might let them watch more, depending on the content. If they want to watch a documentary, I don’t mind if it’s three hours long. If they want to watch Phineas and Ferb, I set the limit to no more than two episodes. They get so worked up after Phineas and Ferb that I can just forget about getting anything else productive done that day. 🙂

Time it right.

If I want my kids to take a nap in the afternoon, I’ve found that I simply cannot let them watch television or play a video game that morning. They won’t settle down enough to rest. So, if I intend for them to take a nap, I save screen time until after they get up from resting.

We also don’t watch television with them in the evenings. TV after dinner means an extremely lengthy wind-down period before bed. If we watch anything with them, we try to do so before 5 p.m. That way, we have about three hours before bedtime to help them begin calming down.

Tie screen time to schoolwork.

In our family, the kids have to earn screen time based on their schoolwork for that day. I make a list of assignments or topics we have to cover that day. If we get through them all and their work is up to par, they earn screen time at the end of the day.

We do complete some school assignments on the computer. But I try to use low-intensity programs and websites such as Khan Academy and Essential Skills Advantage. They don’t have the loud noises and frenetic action of some other educational sites, and I notice that my kids do a better job of focusing when we use them.

Have you struggled with setting screen time limits for kids with ADHD in your family? How do you avoid excessive screen time with your kids? Let us know in the comments!

This post is part of the 31 Days of ADHD Homeschooling series! Stop by tomorrow for Day 27: How to Increase Attention Span in ADHD Kids!