Suddenly Homeschooling because of the Corona Virus? Homeschoolers can Help! Part 1: Fun Stuff

With so many parents suddenly at home with their kids because of the Corona virus, I can’t help but feel unexpectedly excited for everyone who will get to experience a taste of what a slower paced life with your kids can be. Family connections will strengthen, children and parents can have time to be together in a relaxed way, read, play games, and live life. A national emergency might be a hidden blessing for learning and growing as families.

Parents who are stressed about children falling behind academically… exhale. Kids will learn more from your parenting and building strong relationships than any curriculum. That being said, I’d love to share some of the more joyful parts of our homeschooling academic day. It takes many months to find your homeschool groove, but as a temporary situation, these activities might give you some inspiration over the next few weeks. It isn’t all we do as homeschoolers, but this list is some of the the most fun and easily implemented things you can do without expensive curriculum:

1) Morning Time

2) Read Alouds

3) Nature Walks

4) Poetry Tea Time

Morning time: This is the backbone of our group learning. I have five kids ages 12-2 and even our little toddler River joins us for most of what we do in morning time. These activities have broad age appeal. Think of these suggestions as a buffet, try a few.

First, I have a YouTube playlist with several learning songs: usually 10-15 minutes, and we listen to the same songs most days for a month or more. I often have something from history (preamble to the constitution, a song with the presidents in order, state songs) a Spanish kids song (Calico Spanish has great ones), and then a folk song or a hymn, and math skip counting songs are great for kids learning their multiplication tables. My girls will generally sing along, my boys are less enthusiastic, but I know that the lyrics are sinking in and learning is happening. I usually play our songs while I’m helping everyone get their breakfast. When they eat I start reading.

We then usually read half a chapter of the Bible, and a poem read from either a collection of poetry or a single poet we choose for the term. I pick one poem or a bible passage for us to be memorizing, and I read this twice everyday, until the kids start to know it and then I have them say it.

Once a week I do a Mad Lib. Once a week we all quietly look at a painting from our artist of the term, for 3 minutes straight. Then, youngest to oldest we all tell every detail we can remember from the picture without looking at it. This is such a quick, awesome, time efficient way for kids to really remember what a painting looks like. Once a week I play a piece of music from our composer of the term, and we listen for different instruments. Most days I end by reading a chapter from our family read aloud. I let the kids play with quiet toys, color, or craft (think perler beads, construction paper or playdoh) once they finish their breakfasts. If the read aloud is good and they are engaged in projects I keep reading.

All in all it takes about 45 minutes at most, and over the course of the week Morning Time hits so many subjects, in such an easy way:

History

Spanish

Grammar

Art

Music

Religion

Literature,

Poetry

Memory Work.

 

All you Need to Do it:

YouTube

Read Aloud Book, physical or ebook

A book with Art Prints or a computer to look at

A poetry book or https://www.amblesideonline.org/Year1poems.shtml

Mad Libs

If this seems overwhelming start with one or two things and add on. If there is something specific you or your kids want to learn about for science or history or anything, get a book and read a couple pages each day. The flexibility and adaptability of morning time is great. Think of it as little bits of truth, goodness and beauty to start the day. Here is a great resource for learning more about Morning Time: https://pambarnhill.com/homeschool-morning-basket/

 

Read Alouds: This is the heart of our homeschool.  Choosing a good read a loud is important. If you are new to reading aloud to your kids, start short, 5-10 minutes. If your kids are young, picture books are great. If your kids have a wide age spread look for stories that have families with kids of various ages like Narnia, The Vanderbeekers, and Five Children and It. If you don’t like to read a loud use an audiobook. The Little House on the Prairies series narrated by Cherry Jones and available on audible is fantastic, and easily could hold the interest of a three or four year old right on up. I have kids with wildly different tastes in books, Briggs likes realistic and serious books, Phoebe loves fantasy, Quinn rather be climbing trees so any story that sucks him in I know is a keeper, and Zinnia gets frightened easily.   Here are my diverse groups overall favorites of the last four years.

Series:

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingles Wilder

Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling (the first three only for younger kids)

The Vanderbeekers of 141^st Street by Katrina Glaser

 

 

Stand alone books:

Understood Betsey by Dorothy Canfield (and older classic in the public domaine so its available free online) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5347

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (this is a series but we’ve only read the first one)

The Prairie Thief by Melissa Wiley

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit (also online) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17314

 

A great resource for all things read aloud is this site https://readaloudrevival.com/ and her podcast and books are also wonderful. Its worth putting your e mail in to get her lovely book lists. I’ve also written a blog post on our family’s read aloud life including many other of our favorites: https://raisingveggiesandhumans.wordpress.com/2020/01/26/how-our-family-become-voracious-read-alouders/

 

Nature Walks: If you are home all day with your kids day in and day out I can not overstate the importance of getting outside as much as possible. Our family has taken this to extreme measures in the fact that we go to Florida for the coldest part of the year, so we miss the worst of the weather hat home in Maine, and can be outdoors many hours a day year round. Taking a walk, even just around the neighborhood, can be a great learning experience. Take a nature guide along, or use your phone to identify the trees around your house. Super low effort, and if you do this most days, you will learn to identify a lot of plants and animals. You can focus on a group of organisms (birds, fungi, wildflowers etc) or just take it day by day with what you see. Notice how trees change over a few weeks in spring.  If you’d like, your kid can keep a nature journal, with pictures and labels of what they’ve learned. This is a fun website for nature journaling: https://johnmuirlaws.com/

 

Poetry Tea Time: Make a fun snack, set the table, brew some tea or another special drink, and grab a book of poetry. Spend a few minutes reading poems. Kids like this way more than you might think, especially if the snacks are good. If your kids are really enjoying a family novel read aloud, you can read that instead of poetry. Here is a great website for ideas:https://bravewriter.com/program/brave-writer-lifestyle/poetry-teatimes

That is a glimpse of some of the fun stuff we do as homeschoolers. If you are looking for a more rigorous academic program that you can implement without all online books, this is a great resource: https://amblesideonline.org/HELP.shtml

We have used this full curriculum for years. The website it old school intentionally, so that you don’t need a lot of bandwidth to run it. This is a very rich, very well thought out curriculum put together by volunteer homeschool mothers over many years. It is Christian but has lots of resources that are not religious.

I hope to write more in the days ahead. like the importance of getting breaks from your kids, household chores when everyone is home and making messes constantly, and what to do when your child resists doing academic work. The homeschool community has so much to offer at this point in time, feel free to ask me questions!