Dealing with Homeschool Burnout

About this time every year I started to feel burned out. I can't wait for the kids to finish their subjects so that we can take a break from school for part of the summer. I normally attend our homeschool curriculum fair towards the end of April and that helps a bit. This year I decided to buy the book, Add Two Cups of Laughter by Cyndy Regeling and Tammy Duby. These ladies give creative ideas on how to spice up your homeschool. They talk about how to motivate and encourage your students. We started implementing some of those things today and already there is increased motivation to get things done instead of the normal dragging of the feet. I love their ideas because they are so simple and don't take a lot of organization or time. One idea that I want to start implementing is writing them notes of encouragement that I can leave in their schoolwork or even mail to them! One of my goals in the past few months has been to build up my kids and this sounds like a great way to do that! Here are just a few of the other ideas that are in the book:
*Rewards (that cost no money) to motivate a child to get their work done
*Calling a relative to help with schoolwork over the phone a few times just to break up the monotony of the lessons.
*Creating lessons in which your child is the "star" of the lesson. For example, making up word problems based on your child and his interests.
*Using educational games.
*Taking a P.D. (Particularly Daffy) day, explained in detail in the book.
*Doing a workshop day in which the whole day surrounds a certain topic.
*Having characters (played by mom) visit during lessons...there are some fun ideas for this in the book!
Anyways, I am hoping to add some life to our school days for these next two months before we take a break. I will be referring to this book often to get my ideas!