I think we can safely say that we’re in strange, strange times. Millions of Americans are suddenly having to contemplate how to educate their kids at home. And many are also simultaneously trying to figure out how to work remotely. It’s a recipe for anxiety and confusion.

Our family has been homeschooling now for all of two months. So in many ways, I’m exactly the wrong person to be writing a crash course in homeschooling – there are many parents out there who have been doing this for decades, and are homeschooling experts. But in many other ways, I’m exactly the right person. It’s a recent transition for us, and I’m right in the middle of figuring all this out for our family right now. I’d like to hope I can offer useful advice for anyone who is abruptly homeschooling without the benefit of time to plan or prepare.

In this post, I’ll offer some tips and things to think about, and I’ll include a list of resources after that. Our kids are seven and five, so take what I’m saying with a grain of salt if your kids are a different age. I may do another post in the future about some different philosophical approaches to learning at home – today is not the day for that.

Know your limits

First, the bad news. In my experience, you can’t do work and homeschooling at the same time. I have found that for us, either Tim or I have to be actively engaged with the kids during any kind of homeschooling activity. At first, I thought I could give them a task and they would do it while I took care of something else. But that quickly led to frustration and anger. As soon as I put everything else aside, I found that we all were a lot happier and could get our schoolwork done much more quickly.

Don’t be a hero

Now, some better news. I’ve found that we can replicate the educational part of a school day much more quickly than the six or seven hours they spend at school. Once you subtract out recess and lunch and transition time and everything else, the hard-core academic learning time at school is much shorter. Don’t try to fill a full day with school-like activities – it’s asking for too much from you and your kids. 

Get the jiggles out

I’ve found that my kids can focus a lot better if I build in time for them to run around and use up some of their energy. So we’ll focus on a task for a while, and then we’ll take a short break. One of my favorite activities is a family game of Follow-the-Leader. We’ll all take turns being the leader, and hop, jump, dance and wiggle our way from one end of the house to the other. When it’s my turn to be the leader, I’ll sneak in some skip counting or ABCs. This game is one of my favorites – we’ll all come away laughing and ready to focus again on our next tasks. Seriously – I think more offices should adopt this game. But really, it doesn’t matter how you do it, you just need to find a way to let your kids be kids and move.

Use what you’ve got

I’ve had months to prepare for homeschooling – to think about what I wanted to do and how and to research the materials that I wanted to use. In this moment, many people don’t have that luxury. But you might be surprised at what you already have around your house that can be repurposed as educational material. Empty out your kid’s piggy bank and make a lesson about money and math. Dig out your Highlights for Children and read and discuss the stories together. Share some of your work with your kids (No, don’t ask them to do it! Just share it with them). We had an impromptu lesson about diagrams one day after my daughter looked over my shoulder at my work laptop. She started diagramming all kinds of daily chores and processes. Use a baking project to talk about fractions and adding. Crack open the math workbooks that your kids brought home from school. Dig out the board games that have been gathering dust because you never have enough time and play them – there are all sorts of lessons to be gained from them. Invent new rules and find new ways to incorporate math and reading into some of them.

Get outside

No, don’t break all the social distancing rules that we’ve worked so hard to put in place. Go for a walk. Find a creek. Explore the backyard. It doesn’t take much to fascinate kids. Give them a scavenger hunt to find a certain number of bugs or plants or… anything. I just typed ‘Nature Walk Scavenger Hunt’ into google, and there are oodles of great finds. Ask them to draw what they find, and then ask them to write or dictate some of their observations. Practice the scientific method by asking them to make a prediction and then test it. 

Try Copywork

There are some schools of homeschooling that rely heavily on what’s called copywork. I’m sure I’m probably doing it wrong according to those philosophies. But for us, I’ve found copywork to be a great anchor for our homeschooling. Every time we start our homeschooling day, I’ll give our kids a quote to copy. For my youngest, who’s still too young, I’ll give him some individual letters to copy and write. This feels like a great way for my kids to practice handwriting, to learn about the mechanics of good writing, and to think about inspirational, character-building ideas. Depending on who the quote is from, we’ll sometimes use it as a stepping stone into history. I’ll repeat the quote for a week and we’ll have discussions about what the quote means, and how we might use the idea in our own life. This week our quote is by Marie Curie: “Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” I’ll admit I chose it to calm myself as much as anything. After our first session of copywork, we spent some time talking and learning about Marie Curie and the challenges she faced in her life.

Give yourself (and your kids) the gift of grace

You’re going to get frustrated. Seriously frustrated. Your kids are going to get frustrated. We’re all dealing with a lot of anxiety and change right now, and the kids are feeling it too. So when you get frustrated, just take a deep breath. Quit for the day. Seriously. I’m giving you permission. Your kids won’t lose their chance to get into Harvard because of one rough day in the middle of a crisis. Figure out how to take a step back and then how to have a little fun together. After a little time away, you may come up with a new way of doing things that works better for you and your kids.

Have fun when you can

It won’t be all rainbows and flowers, and I don’t want to pretend that this isn’t hard. Crazy hard. But when you can, try to find the joy and the fun in this. I’m having fun learning alongside my kids. It’s amazing to be able to see them make connections and ask incredible questions. I’m learning who they are in a much deeper way than I’ve been able to otherwise. And that’s fun. 

Resources:

Overdrive: Many libraries now allow you to check out books through your phone or computer. Yolo County has a great selection of kids books, if you’re a resident there and have a library card with them already.

Flipster: The same thing as Overdrive, only for magazines. You can check out Highlights for Children and other magazines for kids.

Headspace: Every once in a while, I’ll do a short meditation with the kids to help them focus before we start a homeschooling task. I’ve been surprised at how successful it’s been. I subscribe (for my own mental well-being), but in response to the crisis, Headspace is offering free access to part of their library.

MommaStrong: Okay, this doesn’t seem quite relevant because this is an online workout program. But the community is amazing and has been a bedrock of my self-care. It is a paid subscription ($5 / month), but it’s the best value I could get out of $5. And they are about to start a program called KiddoStrong for kids to exercise at home. When we’re all cooped up, that alone is priceless. I can’t speak highly enough about this program.

PBS Kids Videos: This is another strange one. But I’ve grown to seriously love the show Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. After finding the Marie Curie quote I mentioned, I tried to find a YouTube video for kids about Marie Curie. We watched a few that were okay, but none were as good as the Xavier Riddle episode.

Let’s Make Art: This subscription was a gift from my mom that I really love. But you don’t have to have a subscription to have fun with their tutorials. You can do their projects at home with whatever arts crafts you happen to already have around the house. Amelia and I have done these a few times together, and it’s a lot of fun.

K5 Learning Math Worksheets: In general, I’m not wild about math worksheets. But I’ve found that some concepts are way more efficient to learn using worksheets. This website is pretty amazing, given that it’s free.

Pretty Random: I use an app on my phone as a random number generator to make up my own set of math problems. Easy peezy. I like this app – it does exactly what I need and nothing more.

Scholastic: I haven’t actually tried this yet, but Scholastic has offered a set of books and lesson plans to support parents. It looks like a great resource, and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

2020 Census: Another odd one. But the Census Bureau has activities built to engage kids. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but I’m looking forward to trying it over the next few weeks.

Other Homeschooling Blogs:

I think that’s it. If I think of anything I’ve missed, I’ll add it to the list. If you’ve come across other valuable resources, please let me know, and I’ll add those also.

Good luck in your adventures. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. We may not be able to see each other in person or have a cup of coffee together, but I’d like to think that we’re all supporting each other.