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I’ve been intending for some time to write a post to share some of the things that I’ve learned in my 4 years of homeschooling.  Today school was cancelled for the state that I live in for the rest of the month due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  Knowing that I have many friends who will now be homeschooling under duress I figured now was the time to share some of my experiences!

For starters let me tell you the most important secret of homeschooling – HOMESCHOOL DOES NOT LOOK LIKE PUBLIC SCHOOL!  If you’re dreading spending 6 hours instructing your kids – you’re in luck! If my kids are moving along through their schoolwork like they’re supposed to then we can easily be finished before noon and then they have the rest of the day to themselves. That sounds crazy to most public schoolers, but the truth is that if you don’t have to account for all the time lost with lining up to go places, settling down other kids, waiting for others to finish their schoolwork, travel time, unpacking belongings etc – you make up a lot of time. Plus, all of the instruction can go at the child’s individual pace so they’re never left behind because the concepts were too difficult or bored because they understood the material faster. Being done by noon is one of my kids’ favorite parts of homeschooling. Especially since they know that they have all the power to do it and it’s their choice if they’re finished by then or not. They just know that there’s no electronics time and mom will keep nagging them until all of their tasks are finished. They each have a checklist that they fill out and review with me in order to know if they’re “free” or not each day.

Also, you do NOT have to be the instructor.  Most of my kids’ schoolwork is completed online which means that I am not actually the one teaching them. I know lots of parents have different feelings on using technology with kids, but for me, this is a critical element of any curriculum that we use is that my kids can largely go through the work with little intervention on my part. I will look over my kids’ schoolwork but the only actual teaching I do in a typical day is to do a 15 minute reading lesson with my kindergartner and once a week I will facilitate science and social studies activities. I might work out problems on the whiteboard with my 3rd grader, or help my 5th grader through his grammar lesson – but I don’t actually prepare lessons or teach. While my older kids are working on school work I can mostly work on other household tasks, or entertain the 2 year old.  I will share some of my favorite resources for curriculum in another post, but just know – it’s not all on you.  I think the biggest thing to keep you from going crazy during these couple weeks is to try to set up a reasonable routine.  Do what you can but don’t feel like you have to hit every single subject every day.  So without further ado, here’s what we try to hit each day – 

  • Morning Chores
  • Exercise & Meditation
  • Math
  • Language Arts
  • Music Practice
  • Daily Special Subject (Science, Social Studies, Technology, Art or Music)
  • Daily Chore

KISS – Keep It Simple Smartie! You don’t need to do any more than this in a day, and if you do less – YOU’RE DOING FINE! I’ll break down below what each of these might look like in a typical day –

Morning Chores – These are super basic things that your kids probably have to do before they go to school anyways – get dressed, brush their teeth, brush their hair, clean up their rooms, make their beds. Easy enough? K, next!

Exercise/Meditation – You can skip this if you want but I think it helps to get some physical activity in before we get started for the day. It gets the blood flowing and their brains working better. All we do is use the free app 7 Minute Workout which runs us through a little routine of jumping jacks, sit ups, push ups etc. Our 2 year old thinks it’s the best thing ever and he wants to “Ex-er-cise with us?” all day long – he’s a nut. Our meditation is nothing fancy, I have my kids sit still for two minutes and focus on taking deep breaths with their eyes closed. When we finish we usually try to have our family prayers before jumping into school work.

Math – I use exclusively online curriculum for Math because I think that’s easiest – the lectures are done for me and computers are unsurprisingly good at grading math problems 😉 My kids’ math usually takes them less than 30 minutes to get through. You can use Khan Academy for free and set your kids up with an account. Just set them a timer for 30 minutes and let them get through as much as they can. I have other curriculum that I like better but for a few weeks of homeschooling I think Khan Academy is probably a great solution. Another great option would be to let your kids play Prodigy – it’s a free math adventure game that my kids love. It’s not a full curriculum but it will keep their math skills up for a few weeks 🙂

Language Arts – I have a few different things that I try to focus on with my kids – grammar exercises, reading and handwriting. I would probably not worry about grammar for these few weeks – there are great curriculum out there but you probably won’t get far enough into one to make it worth the effort. I would just encourage your kids to maybe write a journal entry and spend some time reading whatever they would like to be reading – or listening to books. My 3rd grader’s journaling requirements each day are supposed to have the date written out, a simple weather report, each of his spelling words written out and 3 sentences (with at least 30 words in those sentences) about whatever is in his brain that day. (I had to give him very prescriptive requirements or else he tries to talk his way out of doing anything at all 😛 )

Music Practice – Unless you already have your kids doing a musical instrument or something just go ahead and skip this. This is just when my kids have to do their regular music practice.

Daily Special Subject – We try to hit each of these subjects just one time each week. We do Science on Mondays, Social Studies on Tuesdays, Music lessons on Wednesdays, Technology on Thursdays, Art on Fridays. I probably wouldn’t go that complicated, I’d just do some Science and maybe Social Studies for this limited amount of time. If you want to do something for Social Studies I can’t recommend the Tuttle Twins books enough – read one with your kids and discuss it or do the workbook pages that come with the books. I have learned so much from these books and they are my favorites by far and away. For Science, there are some AWESOME science videos out there that will keep your kids engaged – pick one or more and let your kids watch them and call it a day 🙂 Here’s some of my favorite YouTube Channels and other resources –

  • Mark Rober – I can’t say enough good things about Mark Rober’s channel. He is by far and away my favorite YouTuber, everything he publishes is high quality and teaches complicated concepts in ways that make them seem simple.
  • Wow In The World – This podcast is SO much fun for kids! My almost 9 year old (he won’t accept being called 8 anymore) LOVES this show so much – he insists on listening to it almost every night and talks to me about what he learns all the time.
  • DIY Sci – Steve Spangler has long been a staple in the children’s science world. If you have Amazon Prime I highly recommend this series as well. My kids have learned so much from this and I’m always interested to hear what’s in their brains after watching these episodes!
  • Magic School Bus – If you didn’t watch Magic School Bus growing up I’m sad for you. These shows are fun, engaging and they teach kids a lot! The series is available on Netflix – along with a new remade series which I find every bit as enjoyable as the originals!
  • Smarter Every Day – Another great YouTube channel with lots of interesting things for kids – and adults too!

Daily Chore –  Each day I have a household chore that my kids are responsible to accomplish.  If they’re going to be home have them make your life a little easier!  The chores I give my kids are – cleaning laundry, folding laundry, cleaning a bathroom, vacuuming bedroom, & cleaning up the playroom.  Just one of those each day and in theory our household runs smoothly ;P

That’s it! In a nutshell you can do a fairly full school day with a quick workout, an online math lesson, some form of reading, a journal entry, a science video and then put your kids to work keeping the house! Then let them have the rest of the day to do legos or board games or building forts. I refuse to entertain my kids and they find plenty of good things to do with their days. I made a simple printable that you can print and laminate and then let your kids check it off each day to keep them accountable.

Download PDF version here

Good luck friends! Stay healthy and enjoy this time with your kids!