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April Newsletter: Poetry Month, Canva Game Creator Contest, Foreign Language Fun, and More!
Published 28 days ago • 6 min read
April is National Poetry Month, and we have some specials for you including a sale and a week long Shakespeare camp. We also found some games and links to make learning foreign languages fun. You'll find details on how to enter our Canva game creator contest, and we have new offerings in our regular features. You'll want to check it out!
Disclosure: This newsletter may feature affiliate links, which means we will earn a small commission if you purchase through the links provided.
Teacher Spotlight
Meryl headed to Nationals with her Science Olympiad team.
Meryl van der Merwe
Meryl started homeschooling her four children when they arrived in the US in 2003, from South Africa. At the time, the kids were between the ages of 3 and 13. She discovered she loved teaching other people's children too - first at a local co op and then also online when she started FundaFunda Academy.
Additionally, Meryl started a homeschool Science Olympiad team and a quiz bowl team; she spends many hours with students helping them prepare to compete. Her love of contests led her to create many contests FundaFunda hosts in order to encourage your children to stretch themselves.
Meryl loves learning new things, including technology (she used to work as a computer programmer at Shell in South Africa). So she started the Homeschooling with Technology podcast to share the cool tools she finds.
Meryl's biggest passion is travel and you can follow her adventures on our Instagram account. She also shares tech tips and general homeschooling info there. She's visiting a very interesting (new to her) country this summer!
In her spare time, Meryl enjoys reading - everything from historical non-fiction to science fiction to classics. Meryl speaks English, Afrikaans, and German and is trying to learn a few more languages with the help of DuoLingo.
Review of the Artificial Intelligence Class for Teens:"I loved this class as it taught me about the dangers of AI I did not know about, and how AI can help somebody. But the coolest thing I learned about this class is learning about vibe-coding. I realized that I could finally make my own app and earn money from it. I have always wanted to make my own, which could be like a calculator, but I did not have the coding skills to do so. Vibe-coding was a great discovery for me, and it actually helped me make my own website, which I hope will make me money."
Maria U.
JUST FOR YOU:
April Special
To celebrate National Poetry Month, all Literary Adventures poetry book clubs and courses are 30-50% off for April. Use the code POETRY. You can find more details here.
Poetry and a Movie, a semester course, is included in the sale. Check out this blog post for more information about the course.
In this video conversation, Melissa Muir (Curio ) and Meryl (FundaFunda Academy & Homeschooling with Technology Podcast) get honest about their own AI journeys. You'll learn why they both recently switched from ChatGPT to Claude, what Anthropic's courses changed about how they use it, and how they're helping homeschool families navigate AI without losing critical thinking skills.
Your kids are already using AI. The real question is whether anyone is teaching them to think with it — not just copy from it. Listen to the conversation, and you'll discover some tips to help you navigate the AI world in your homeschool.
To apply for the Minecraft $2,000 Scholarship, students need to write a short essay (500 words) on how Minecraft can positively impact education and career development.
Entrants must be U.S. citizens in high school or college with a 3.0 or higher GPA.
Submissions close July 31, 2026, and winners will be notified by email in early August.
AI Tip of the Month
Google Maps now has an 'Ask Maps' button. For example, you can use it to ask for teen field trips within an hour of your home, or for parks that are within 5 minutes of the highway when you are on a long trip. It provides a list with a description and shows you the location on the map.
Upcoming FundaFunda Events
Canva Game Creator Contest for May!
Most people think of Canva as a design tool, but students can actually use it to create online games too.
In our Canva Game Creator Contest, students will build their own original game in Canva. They can create any type of game they want, and we will provide guidance on how to use Canva to make a video game. The contest is open for students in grades 6th - 12th grades and runs through Mary 31, 2026.
Prizes: 1st place: $50 Amazon gift card 2nd place: $25 Amazon gift card 3rd place: $15 Amazon gift card
Plus, the $10 entry fee includes FREE access to our Intro to AI unit study (a $20 value!)
This contest is a fun and affordable way for students to build creativity, tech skills, and problem-solving skills while making something original.
There are just a few days left to purchase courses at 2025 prices! Price increases take effect May 1, 2026.
This month, we've gathered fun links to foreign language learning for you. Maybe your family could work together and start to learn a new language over the summer!
Duolingo is fun, and they use quick, bite-sized lessons to help you learn. You earn points and unlock new levels while gaining real-world communication skills.
StudyStack is a simple language learning website with flashcards and other games to help you study a new language. You can learn a set of words through crossword puzzles, quizzes, matching, word scrambles, and other games.
Learn A Language is a fun tool for brushing up on basic or common words after you have a good introductory understanding of the language.
Conversation Exchange helps you find someone to help you learn a language. You can look for a pen pal to practice reading and writing with, a partner to talk with you over voice or video chat, and/or someone to meet up with to practice conversing in person.
ACT CORNER
Is Freshman Year Important?
In this blog post, ACT experts break down the significance of 9th grade and what colleges are really looking for from students.
The short answer: Yes, but it's not the determining factor in college admissions.
Latest Podcast Episodes
In our Homeschooling with Technology podcast, we explore new and different ways of using technology in homeschooling. There is an episode released every week!
You can start listening at any time. Just click on a link to listen in a browser, or find the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Email me if you need help! We have a tab on our website to browse through all our past podcast episodes easily. Check it out!
The Artemis 2 mission has four astronauts circling the moon right now, and it’s a perfect time to bring space exploration into your homeschool. In this episode, learn about free (and nearly free) tools organized into four categories: learn and explore, games and interactives, simulations, and citizen science.
In this episode, Meryl shares practical tools and creative ideas for helping homeschool students understand current events, global conflict, geography, and media literacy in ways that feel engaging and age-appropriate. If you’ve ever wondered how to teach world affairs in your homeschool high school, this episode is a great place to start.
In this episode, Meryl explores Padlet Arcade — a game-based learning branch of the popular Padlet platform. She walks through the types of games available, how to find existing games by subject and grade level, and how to quickly create your own AI-generated review games using a topic, a webpage link, a YouTube video, or your own uploaded materials.
NotebookLM has graduated from Google Labs beta into a fully featured, stand-alone tool — and it has grown dramatically. In this episode, Meryl walks through all nine features currently available in the Studio panel, explaining how homeschool parents can use them to save time and how students can use them to study more effectively.
Free Resource Library for Subscribers
Access the Free Resources Library HERE. Password: edufun
** Apologies - not sure what happened, but the email I typed and the one that was sent were not the same. I have recreated it now ** This is being sent to all those FundaFunda newsletter subscribers who signed up to get notifications of special deals. Some of the deals mentioned below we are affiliates of and we will receive a portion of the sales. But we never promote any classes we don't think are high quality! FundaFunda Classes Most of our classes increase in price on May 1, so grab them...
Spring is here and we have some fresh deals for you this month: a self-paced sale, fun games and links for learning history, and a free magazine with 100 pages of free and affordable homeschool resources . Of course, we have new offerings in our regular features as well. And, last but not least, we have our winners from the Canva Poster Contest, and details on our April contest. Disclosure: This newsletter may feature affiliate links, which means we will earn a small commission if you...
It may be cold outside, but we have some warm deals for you this month: a unit study special and an offer from Literary Adventures. We also found some help from other homeschoolers for those of you who have been asking us about extracurricular activities that involve socialization. Of course, we have new offerings in our regular features. And, last but not least, we have our winners from the January Vocabulary Contest, and details on a new Canva Creation Contest for February. So, grab a warm...
