A world turned upside down... or suddenly everyone is a homeschooler
It is starting to feel that way, isn't it? All of my college students, at three different colleges or universities, have now all been notified that they will have an extra week of spring break and when classes resume it is going to look different. Area grade schools and high schools have not closed here, yet, but based on what is happening around the country, that only feels like a matter of time. And my children? Well, we were supposed to have our official spring break these next two weeks, but since we have done nearly nothing school-wise for the past two or three weeks due to illness, I think we'll just be back to business as usual around here.
So it would seem that by the end of the month, it would not be too far-fetched to assume that every child in in the country is going to be doing their learning at home. While this is our normal, I know that this is bringing great anxiety to many families for a wide variety of reasons. I don't want to make light of those fears. It took us a while, certainly more than two or three weeks, to find our rhythm when we began homeschooling, and that was a conscious choice. If you have your children home to learn for just two or three weeks, the best thing you can hope for is a little peace and a lot of survival. I've been thinking about what I could share from what we've learned along the way which could prove helpful. Here's my best shot.
1. Having some sort of schedule is helpful for everyone.
We are generally (when well), up and dressed and fed and at the table to learn by between 9 and 9:30. We'll spend the next couple of hours working on math, grammar, and whatever our unit study happens to be. Then comes lunch, which at this point in my children's lives is something they are entirely responsible for managing on their own. (My youngest are 10, but this has been the case for a couple of years now, so they were 8 when I abdicated lunch responsibilities. Actually my children may argue and say I abdicated longer ago than that.) After lunch, we used to have a formal quiet time, with everyone in their rooms, but now the after lunch hours are just an entertain yourself sort of time. This translates into, Mom is not on call unless it's an emergency. At about 4pm, those who desire tea make themselves some, and we meet up in the living room to listen to the chapter book we are reading. This is followed by barn chores and dinner prep.
You'll see it's a pretty loose schedule, but there are landmarks through out the day so children generally know what's coming. This makes a huge difference in how life functions. We also go back and forth between together activities and alone activities. All of one or all of another is not good for anyone.
2. Don't get hung up on the specifics of learning.
I'm sure nearly everyone will be sent home with a packet of materials to work on over the closure period. I'm equally sure that many parents will find that packet insufficient and will want to do more to ensure their child doesn't fall behind. Please, I beg you, if you want to supplement learning, do not add more textbooks or worksheets! This is such a fantastic opportunity to find out what your child is interested in and dive in and learn about it. Sure, do the packets, but then have fun. Take what your child's special interest is and run with it. Learning transfers. Learning deeply about one topic can then help a child learn deeply about other subjects. It can also light a fire that ignite a child's desire to learn in general, as well. Read, play, build, cook, listen, create as part of the learning process. It all counts.
3. Life skills count as learning, too.
We do a lot of life skills learning around here. Cleaning, cooking, sewing, gardening... whatever it takes to run a house we include our children in it and count it as educational. You can, too. Now is your chance to bake bread or plant some seedlings or really figure out how to run the washing machine or what a clean bathroom looks like... together. One day, a child had a change making page in their math book. I'm big on being able to make change (without a calculator), so decided to close the books for that morning. I set up a store with random toys the children brought down. I put on price tags, made someone the cashier, designated someone else the shopper, passed out the play money, and off they went. They added, they counted back change, they had a ball. That was school for the day. That's usually how I work. I discover one child doesn't know something, so I gather everyone together and make them all learn about it. I figure is one doesn't know, there's probably others who have also slipped through the cracks. Have who-can-fold-the-fitted-sheet-the-fastest-races and call it a day.
4. Read. Read. Read.
Sure, they can read to themselves, but take this opportunity to read to them... even if you have never done it before. Heck, you've never had school closed and students sent home before, either, so blame the virus if they push back. I find food or snacks to help immensely. Then, once they are involved in the story, the snacks don't matter so much anymore. It doesn't even have to be 'educational' or 'good for you' books. Read something fun just for the sheer joy of experiencing the book together.
One summer, when we were up at the beach house in Michigan that we go to each year, J. had to head back down to Chicago for a day or two to teach. Since I was alone with five children, we played on the beach for a bit, and then went back up to the house and started reading the latest Harry Potter book which had just come out. We read and we read and we read. I looked at the clock I could see every so often thinking it must be about lunch time, but it wasn't, so we read some more. Children snuggled next to me or colored or played with small toys as they listened. Finally, I got up to move around and happened to see another clock. We had read for four hours and it was time to start dinner. We were all so engrossed in the story that we had no idea that much time had passed. What a gift to share a book like that with my children. Here's your chance! Find a good book and dive in. Make some popcorn, cozy up under some blankets, and go to a different world together. Comment or message me if you have no idea where to begin with finding a book. I will happily give you more suggestions than you will be able to get through.
5. Breath. It's going to be okay.
If you don't get everything done, it's going to be okay. If your child is so disregulated over the change in schedule and doesn't do anything, it's going to be okay. If you are bone tired and just cannot do another thing with your child, it's going to be okay. If they have sat in front of a screen all day because that is all anyone can manage, it's going to be okay. Breath, some more.
I've homeschooled a long time. Twenty-three years and going to be exact. During that time, I've either given birth to or brought home a crazy amount of children. What do you suppose my current children are doing during those last weeks of pregnancy, or right before travel, or those first couple of crazy months with the new child at home? Not a lot. Who has time or energy to teach long division or prepositional phrases when you've gotten two hours of sleep? I joke that during those periods my children become feral, and while that isn't quite the truth, it has enough basis in truth to make in uncomfortably funny. In hindsight. But the truth of the matter is, having raised more than one child to functional adulthood, is that those months where we didn't do formal math or grammar didn't really matter. Those things can be caught up. But I was still loving them, talking with them, reading to them, and interacting with them. That's what matters.
These two or three weeks will ultimately, in terms of overall learning, not really matter at all, even if not one single workbook page is completed. Give yourself permission to take everything just a wee bit less seriously, because it really will be okay.
So it would seem that by the end of the month, it would not be too far-fetched to assume that every child in in the country is going to be doing their learning at home. While this is our normal, I know that this is bringing great anxiety to many families for a wide variety of reasons. I don't want to make light of those fears. It took us a while, certainly more than two or three weeks, to find our rhythm when we began homeschooling, and that was a conscious choice. If you have your children home to learn for just two or three weeks, the best thing you can hope for is a little peace and a lot of survival. I've been thinking about what I could share from what we've learned along the way which could prove helpful. Here's my best shot.
1. Having some sort of schedule is helpful for everyone.
We are generally (when well), up and dressed and fed and at the table to learn by between 9 and 9:30. We'll spend the next couple of hours working on math, grammar, and whatever our unit study happens to be. Then comes lunch, which at this point in my children's lives is something they are entirely responsible for managing on their own. (My youngest are 10, but this has been the case for a couple of years now, so they were 8 when I abdicated lunch responsibilities. Actually my children may argue and say I abdicated longer ago than that.) After lunch, we used to have a formal quiet time, with everyone in their rooms, but now the after lunch hours are just an entertain yourself sort of time. This translates into, Mom is not on call unless it's an emergency. At about 4pm, those who desire tea make themselves some, and we meet up in the living room to listen to the chapter book we are reading. This is followed by barn chores and dinner prep.
You'll see it's a pretty loose schedule, but there are landmarks through out the day so children generally know what's coming. This makes a huge difference in how life functions. We also go back and forth between together activities and alone activities. All of one or all of another is not good for anyone.
2. Don't get hung up on the specifics of learning.
I'm sure nearly everyone will be sent home with a packet of materials to work on over the closure period. I'm equally sure that many parents will find that packet insufficient and will want to do more to ensure their child doesn't fall behind. Please, I beg you, if you want to supplement learning, do not add more textbooks or worksheets! This is such a fantastic opportunity to find out what your child is interested in and dive in and learn about it. Sure, do the packets, but then have fun. Take what your child's special interest is and run with it. Learning transfers. Learning deeply about one topic can then help a child learn deeply about other subjects. It can also light a fire that ignite a child's desire to learn in general, as well. Read, play, build, cook, listen, create as part of the learning process. It all counts.
3. Life skills count as learning, too.
We do a lot of life skills learning around here. Cleaning, cooking, sewing, gardening... whatever it takes to run a house we include our children in it and count it as educational. You can, too. Now is your chance to bake bread or plant some seedlings or really figure out how to run the washing machine or what a clean bathroom looks like... together. One day, a child had a change making page in their math book. I'm big on being able to make change (without a calculator), so decided to close the books for that morning. I set up a store with random toys the children brought down. I put on price tags, made someone the cashier, designated someone else the shopper, passed out the play money, and off they went. They added, they counted back change, they had a ball. That was school for the day. That's usually how I work. I discover one child doesn't know something, so I gather everyone together and make them all learn about it. I figure is one doesn't know, there's probably others who have also slipped through the cracks. Have who-can-fold-the-fitted-sheet-the-fastest-races and call it a day.
4. Read. Read. Read.
Sure, they can read to themselves, but take this opportunity to read to them... even if you have never done it before. Heck, you've never had school closed and students sent home before, either, so blame the virus if they push back. I find food or snacks to help immensely. Then, once they are involved in the story, the snacks don't matter so much anymore. It doesn't even have to be 'educational' or 'good for you' books. Read something fun just for the sheer joy of experiencing the book together.
One summer, when we were up at the beach house in Michigan that we go to each year, J. had to head back down to Chicago for a day or two to teach. Since I was alone with five children, we played on the beach for a bit, and then went back up to the house and started reading the latest Harry Potter book which had just come out. We read and we read and we read. I looked at the clock I could see every so often thinking it must be about lunch time, but it wasn't, so we read some more. Children snuggled next to me or colored or played with small toys as they listened. Finally, I got up to move around and happened to see another clock. We had read for four hours and it was time to start dinner. We were all so engrossed in the story that we had no idea that much time had passed. What a gift to share a book like that with my children. Here's your chance! Find a good book and dive in. Make some popcorn, cozy up under some blankets, and go to a different world together. Comment or message me if you have no idea where to begin with finding a book. I will happily give you more suggestions than you will be able to get through.
5. Breath. It's going to be okay.
If you don't get everything done, it's going to be okay. If your child is so disregulated over the change in schedule and doesn't do anything, it's going to be okay. If you are bone tired and just cannot do another thing with your child, it's going to be okay. If they have sat in front of a screen all day because that is all anyone can manage, it's going to be okay. Breath, some more.
I've homeschooled a long time. Twenty-three years and going to be exact. During that time, I've either given birth to or brought home a crazy amount of children. What do you suppose my current children are doing during those last weeks of pregnancy, or right before travel, or those first couple of crazy months with the new child at home? Not a lot. Who has time or energy to teach long division or prepositional phrases when you've gotten two hours of sleep? I joke that during those periods my children become feral, and while that isn't quite the truth, it has enough basis in truth to make in uncomfortably funny. In hindsight. But the truth of the matter is, having raised more than one child to functional adulthood, is that those months where we didn't do formal math or grammar didn't really matter. Those things can be caught up. But I was still loving them, talking with them, reading to them, and interacting with them. That's what matters.
These two or three weeks will ultimately, in terms of overall learning, not really matter at all, even if not one single workbook page is completed. Give yourself permission to take everything just a wee bit less seriously, because it really will be okay.
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