My Attempt at Homeschool

Oh, imaginary friends! I have worried about you during this crazy, weird time! I hope you all are safe and healthy. I hope your jobs are secure and your futures are as certain as they can be right now. I hope you are social distancing or self-quarantining like responsible human beings and that you are getting along with your families. I hope that your emotional state is clear and hopeful and that if it isn’t, you have been able to reach out to family and friends for support and love.

Basically, TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, IMAGINARY FRIENDS!

Here in our world, we are self quarantining in our home. Both Chris and I are working from home and our kids are out of school until at least April 15 (though we suspect it will probably be much longer). As you might remember, Bean has asthma, so we have been extra careful during this time to make sure we don’t expose him to anything that could be really challenging for his respiratory system. These days, I err on the side of overly cautious in honor of Bean and other people like him. I hope you are, too.

Last week was our spring break, so this is the first week that my family is attempting to homeschool. My kids were kind of excited when I said I get to be their teacher, but then when it actually kicked off today with, like, school work, they were not quite as enthusiastic. But we’ve started a new rule around my house during this quarantine. If you complain, you do a chore. So, a few vacuum lines in my living room later, and everyone was ready to sit down and get to work! Amazing!

At 2am last night, I made a tentative schedule for myself. Notice that I said “for myself.” This is strictly to give me the false sense of having some kind of control over this situation. In reality, this is more like a loose guideline of how our days will roll this week. Our teachers will have actual instruction for students starting next week, so I hope I only have to create work this week and that next week will be a little smoother.

• Anyone can use screens before 9:00 (Bean plays video games in the morning and Gracie usually watches Netflix on her laptop). No screens after 9am.
• 9:00-10:00 – Breakfast, empty the dishwasher, get dressed, brush teeth and hair, feed the dogs
• 10:00-10:30 – iReady Math (iReady is an online program our district uses, so this is super easy for me to set up. The kids sit at the kitchen table with their laptops and get to work!)
• 10:30-10:45 – Outside stretch break – They can take a walk, ride bikes, or just stretch their legs outside.
• 10:45-11:15 – Reading activity *see below*
• 11:15-11:30 – Outside stretch break
• 11:30-12:00 – Specials (either PE, art, or music) *see below*
• 12:00-1:00 – Lunch and free time
• 1:00-1:30 – Silent reading
• 1:30-2:00 – iReady Reading
• 2:00-2:15 – Outside stretch break
• 2:15-3:00 – Gracie does a math activity and Bean works on his 6th grade math course online

Notice that the kids don’t work on anything for too long at a time before an outside break. I’m cutting myself some slack because I know that they will already be getting school in a “concentrated” format right now, so there is no need for them to sit all day long working on academics. I tried to break up the day with enough breaks that a) they don’t revolt against me and b) our days don’t creep by like slugs on drugs.

For the reading activity, I went to TeachersPayTeachers and searched for generic reading tasks for 3rd-6th grade. I found this packet of reading activities for $5. It included 20+ activities that kids can do for any book or story. Each day, I give the kids their own activity and have them complete it about the book they are currently reading. It isn’t rocket science and it’s not going to win them any scholarships, but it will at least keep their brains from turning to mush and that’s really my only requirement right now.

If you’re looking for other activities like this, here are a few for elementary kids I found while I was poking around last night:

• 4th-6th grade math menus
• Elementary math puzzles
• Dice Math Activities for upper elementary math
• Upper elementary reading comprehension
• Skill-based reading logs

Another option to use are online learning programs. These require a little more work on the part of the parents because you have to set up the account and assign your students work, but once you’ve done that, your child is good to go for a while. Here are a few of my favorite online programs to use in my classroom and with my own kids:

• Khan Academy – A FREE website with video lessons, assignments, and quizzes. On the homepage, I typed in the area I wanted Gracie to work on in the search bar. For example, I typed in “3rd Grade Math” and then selected a fractions lesson for her to work on. She watched a video lesson (which is great because it’s actually a teacher teaching her!) and then completed a practice worksheet.
• MobyMax – I used this in my classroom for a long time when I used to teach a flipped classroom. If students didn’t complete their work online, they had to work on MobyMax during class. I have also used it with my own kids over the summers for practice. The nice part about this is that it gives them a placement test first and then assigns them work based on their learning level.
• Legends of Learning – This is new to me and I’ve only used it once at school and then once with Gracie last week, but both students and Gracie seemed to like it. I like this one because it’s free and because you can assign work on specific topics. For example, Gracie did a science lesson last week on plants and a few science classes I worked with a few weeks ago did lessons on cells.

Okay, that’s all I have for now. I’ll continue to share as I find resources and as I get better at homeschooling. If it makes you feel any better, our first day to attempt all of this was today and it failed miserably. I put them on the computer while I was on a conference all, only to look out the window during my call and saw them swimming in the pool. *eye roll* We’ll try again tomorrow…

WE CAN DO THIS, MOMMAS!