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With millions - yes, that's MILLIONS - of American children home from school for at least the next two weeks, parents who are ostensibly self-quarantining at and working from home are finding themselves in a strange new predicament: How do we help our kids with their schoolwork without driving them and ourselves completely bonkers?
Enter homeschooling mom (and total rockstar) Winkie Ilic. I reached out to her after searching for a local homeschooling group that might be able to help me navigate these strange new waters with my own sons. Heck. If I'M going through it, you are too, right?
Turns out I hit the jackpot with Winkie. She's part of a group called North Hills Christian Home Schoolers, a collective of parents who share ideas and tips with one another as they home school their children.
"The most important thing to understand with this current situation is that parents have an incredible opportunity to connect with their children!" Winkie told me. "This is really a remarkable time to spend time with them that you wouldn't otherwise have."
Winkie’s most important piece of advice? Relax!
“Being together is a blessing,” she told me. “Savor it. Talking together, getting lost in a project, doing something unusual is what this is all about.”
Home schooling has become a popular alternative to traditional brick and mortal schools in recent years. School shootings, bullying, teachers with a political agenda... these are all reasons parents have become interested in home schooling. But how do we do it effectively?
Here is some advice from home schooling parents that may help guide your own family’s approach to education during this Coronavirus situation:
Some inspiration for little ones:
1) Older kids can help facilitate this, if they are around. Involve the kids in making dough that can be used for multiple purposes, including shaping letters. Older kids can also help teach the younger ones with sounds, simple words, etc. They can come up with their own design challenges.
Make dough ornaments to be used on the Christmas tree next year.
Make dough objects that can be given as gifts in the future.
2) Go outside!
Take a notebook. Make an observation journal. Check the same trees and shrubs every day to see if any, even minute changes have taken place. Have them record the weather. This is writing, science, observation, and even drawing, if you want to include that. With the weather warming up later this week, the tree buds will start to take off. Pure science, lots of fun! Take pictures every day of the same tree and note the changes. Put it all in a final journal or report (for older kids). But kids who are even pretty young can do this if the parent does the writing of what the child says.
Even just observing anything outside is a great activity and to compare from day to day.
3) Narration skills:
Read a book and then have the children re-tell the book to you, using their stuffed animals as puppets. Be a role model the first time around. They will get it. The more narration skills they have, the better in terms of verbal skill development. This is fun and can take up hours!
Younger and Older Kids:
4) Lego challenges. Limit the range of bricks available, give design challenges, use a time limit and see what they come up with. Take pictures. Have the kids write a description of the objects. You have multiple learning objectives in that activity!
5) This is more for older kids, but it depends on the kid: Publish a magazine!
Come up with a magazine idea and have the kids brainstorm articles that they would like to write. Some of them might want to just experience using MS Word to type it up, while others might want to experiment with formatting templates. The topics can range widely, from Lego sets to fashion to recipes to current events to book reviews. History, science, how-to's and puzzles are also fun. I did this with several groups and the final product was awesome. What a great momento your family would have as a memory of this unique time in history!
6) Cooking is always an option, as well as Youtube how-to's.
More home schooling resources: khanacademy.org
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