Hello once again! I realize it has been a while since I last posted on my blog. I had a baby! I’ll do a family update later, but right now, I thought it would be more prudent to discuss how you can get through this time with your children at home. I have seen a lot of parents talk about how easy it’s going– homeschooling while the world is on lockdown– but I have also seen many parents who don’t know how or where to begin, are battling with their children, or feel like they don’t have the time to fit a 6-8 hour school day in with the rest of their day.

I’ve been homeschooling for a while now, and I’ve picked up a few things along the way that helped me transition into a homeschool mom. I’m not going to sit here and tell you exactly how to homeschool your child because there are as many ways to homeschool as there are children, but I would like to share a few basic things that helped me get started and to feel like maybe I was competent enough to teach my child something.

1. You absolutely do have time for that

“Public school is a six-to-eight-hour day!” you say. “There is no way I can do six to eight hours worth of school with my kids and do anything else at all. Like, ever.”

That’s the way I felt, too, when I first started homeschooling. I had a house to clean. I had errands to run. I had another child to take care of, for goodness sake! How could I do any of these things AND have time for educating my son?

Well, I have great news for you! Public school has a lot of filler. There is library time, recess (or between class periods, for those of you with older kids) lunchtime, PE, assemblies… the list goes on. No way do you need to spend six to eight hours teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic!

The guideline should look more like this–
Kindergarten and First grade: No longer than an hour
Second and Third Grade: 2-3 hours
Fourth through Sixth Grade: 3-4 hours
Seventh grade and up: 4+ hours

“But Summer.” You say. “4 hours or more is still a really long time.”

Which brings me to my second tip

2. Much of what your child does can be done independently

Sure, there are lessons that you may need to teach, but most of the schoolwork can be done without you looking over their shoulder, sitting next to them, or even necessarily being in the same room. In my household, my son does his schoolwork at the kitchen table, and I do spend most of that time in the kitchen (washing dishes, preparing food, etc.) but I leave him to do his work, and then we go over it afterward. He does get done with some things a lot more quickly than others, so I do sometimes feel like I’m going back and forth between tasks ad nauseam, but the sooner he gets his tasks done, the sooner we can all be done, so it’s worth it.

Don’t think you have to be relegated to the kitchen table just because that works for me, though. That’s one of the great things about homeschool.

3. Education Can Happen Anywhere

Most of us are used to education being done from a book, sitting in rows, being taught by a teacher standing in front of a classroom. However, there are so many other places and ways we can learn. Think about babies and toddlers. They are learning the most, and yet they are rarely sitting down, waiting for their next instruction. Get creative! Math can be taught at the grocery store (I know some of you don’t want to even think about taking your kids to the store right now, and I can completely relate). A lot of science can be taught in the kitchen! Baking and cooking are great ways of learning science. Need to build an erupting volcano? How about a lava cake! Chemistry? Well, that’s basically baking! You have your different types of mixtures, your emulsifiers (usually eggs), and apply a catalyst (heat), and chemistry becomes quite yummy.

If you have access, go out into the woods for some solitude. Nature is also part of science. You can make simple observations about the world around you just by being in it. And the quietness of the woods provides a great ambiance for reading.

4. Read! Read! Read!

Another great tool for the parent who doesn’t have all day to sit around and cater to their child’s education– books! We have a rule for books read as part of my son’s education: if he has to ask what some of the words mean, it’s a good reading level for him. If he’s just reading the same Dogman book over and over again (and he will, if you let him) he’s not really learning anything new. That book isn’t the right level for him (although, we do let him read whatever he wants when it isn’t for school). Obviously, there reaches a point when a book is too difficult for your child, but you may be surprised about what your child is capable of understanding. Last year, as a second-grader, my son read ‘Call of the Wild’ and ‘Hatchet.’ This year, we are almost finished with ‘A Wizard of Earth Sea.’

I’m not telling you this to brag about my child, though he is pretty great, but in hopes that you will feel encouraged to let your kids read books a little higher than their reading level. It’s a great way to not only expand their vocabulary but also teach them how to spell! Therefore, you can knock out two birds with one stone.

5. Less is more

You don’t need to teach your kids everything, every day. I know while they were going to public school, they had math, reading, writing, social studies/history, science, art, and the list goes on. If you don’t have time to turn yourself into the stay at home parent of everyone’s dreams, you don’t have time for it. And that’s okay. Stick to the basics. Reading, writing, arithmetic. We just discussed reading, so I don’t feel obligated to discuss it further than to say try to have them read something you, yourself have read so you can discuss it after. If that means it’s an article off of a website, then that’s fine. The daily newspaper is fine, too. The point is that you’re encouraging them to read.

If you’re not sure what to have them write about, you can have them journal about their day. You don’t even have to go back and read and correct every single one. My son and I only go over one of his writing assignments per week and check it for spelling, grammar, and cohesiveness.

And if you don’t feel comfortable teaching them math because the new common core standard seems daunting and unrealistic, well I have a tip for that, too.

6. Let your children lead the way

In the beginning, I would look at my son’s schoolwork and go, “what the heck is this? How does this even work?” I did not feel like I could teach my son any of the common core math because that’s not the way I had learned math when I was his age. The first few months, at least as far as math is concerned, my son spent more time teaching me how to do his math than I was teaching him. And you know what? That’s okay! Turns out teaching someone to do something is a great way to solidify and bolster skills your children have already learned. So turn it around! Have them teach you a lesson or two. If you can’t teach them what they don’t know, then helping them to better understand the things they already do know can still be helpful.

You can even let them wear your hat.

7. Wearing different hats

Sometimes children are resistant to the idea that their parent can also be their teacher. We all have to wear different hats in life, and you can illustrate this by actually putting on a hat (or an apron or a coat or whatever you like) whenever you teach, and having that be the signal that you have gone from being the parent to the teacher for this portion of the day. We had to do something like this for my son because he’s not so good at making transitions, so it really helped to establish “this is school time, I should behave as if I am in school.” I even had him call me ‘Ms. Mommy’ for a time, to really drive the point house. 

This may not work for every child, of course, and other children may not need that kind of signal, but you know what every child does need?

8. Go outside!

In our house, we call it “mandatory fun.” Call it whatever you want, but all children need some time out of doors. I know that isn’t feasible for everyone right now, but do the best you can. Some people can get to a place with wide, open space for their kids to be outside and not have to worry about seeing another person. We have a backyard that our kids go outside and play in with the dogs for about an hour every day, rain or shine. If all you have is a balcony or even just a window you can open, then I hope that you do sit there and enjoy the fresh air. One day we will be able to go outside and not have to worry as much, but for now, do what you can, judgment-free. Even if that means your kids just have playtime all day long because this is rough and you don’t need any more added stress.

9. Playtime is learning time

I don’t care how old you are, you can still learn through play. Lego blocks, wooden blocks, balls, dolls, little green army men… all offer the opportunity to learn. If engineers can learn by building with Lego, then so can anyone. Play is an extremely important part of learning, so if all your kids are doing is playing, then you’re doing just fine. Even video games can offer opportunities to learn. Minecraft can teach engineering and how to plan ahead. Portal gives lessons about how gravity works. Some video games might be a stretch, but we do what we can.

10. The internet is your friend

Just like for anything, you can find a lot of resources on the internet. Hey, that’s where you found this, didn’t you? And now is the best time because we are coming together now more than ever to offer solutions to your homeschooling problems. A lot of curriculum is being offered for free because of this, and with a simple web search, you have more opportunity than ever before to find something for your kids to do. I don’t want to fill this blog with links, but I will offer a few that have been helpful to me.

Xtramath.org is a free math teaching site for students, parents, and teachers. You can also download it as an app for your phone or tablet.
Education.com is a great tool for printing out worksheets, coloring pages, and lessons. Ordinarily, they only allow a certain number to be printed out for free per month, but while schools are locked down, they are offering independent study workbooks for free
Cosmic Kids Yoga All kids need some daily form of exercise. Cosmic Kids is a free YouTube channel that has yoga workouts specially geared to children’s’ interests.
Kids Activities! If you have Facebook, consider joining this group of parents who regularly update it with ideas of things your kids could do.

And there are many other wonderful resources you can access to help you on your homeschool path. You can check out all of them, or none of them. Because let’s face it, this time period may be struggle enough for you and your children, and the important thing is that we all get through it.

Stay safe, everyone! And as much as possible, stay home!