How to Homeschool on Short-Notice
Donna J. Wright
My first knowledge of homeschooling was during a visit to Dahlonega, Georgia where we ate at Smith House. They seat family style with anyone who walks in. We ate with a mother and her daughter who were at North Georgia College (now North Georgia University) for a piano competition. She explained homeschooling to us and we were interested but not sold on it.
Another time happened when my oldest child was nearing kindergarten age. Along with several other moms from our church, we attended a public school informational meeting where they explained early elementary teaching methods and curriculum. I left after the meeting and was informed by the other moms later that they had decided I should homeschool their kids. We laughed together, but we had a decision to make.
Because we were moving school districts in the middle of Jason’s kindergarten year, I decided to homeschool him. I purchased Sing, Spell, Read & Write and proceeded to use it along with other activities on my own. Our 3-year-old insisted on sitting in on every lesson and we had a successful year.
Jason began public school the following year and he was not yet a reader. I was a little concerned because although he loved books at home, he was not interested in the readers they had at school. In October and November, we had to put him on temporary homeschool status while his Dad had a sabbatical at Oxford University in England. We packed up his school books and off we went. We did a lot of touring and Jason was particularly interested in the road mileage signs and the maps we were handed at tourist sites. Although not really reading, he spent a lot of time figuring out the words. Maps were his motivation for learning to read we discovered.
When he returned to first grade, he came home to announce that the class had not gotten to where he was in math yet (his teacher had told me how much to complete during his absence). His teacher also asked me what I had done in those two months. I asked what did she mean and she said, “He is reading so much better than he was when you left. I'm amazed.” Jason had started to read when he found something he really wanted to read: maps.
About 6 years later, our daughter Amy announced to us that she had learned to read as a 3-year-old when she watched me teach Jason. She was reading when she entered kindergarten and I wasn’t sure how she learned to read until she told us years later. I learned that you can teach kids exactly the same but they will proceed to learn it at different speeds and are motivated in their own unique ways.
What does this mean for you if you are now homeschooling because of COVID-19? Here are my tips. If you want more, ask, and I will do another blog.
1. Don’t try to do it exactly the way they do it in the classroom.
It is homeschool and your environment and number of students is very different from a classroom. Some kids will catch it with very little explanation and others ask a lot of questions, while others will guess. Some like activity sheets and some will detest them.
2. Make assignments and check their work every day. Kids are children. They will do what comes naturally and avoid the difficult. They will also hurry through it so they can do something else. If you do not check their work, they will be behind and will know you aren’t paying attention.
3. Celebrate the wins. Homeschooling can be a lot of fun. Provide lots of encouragement and variety. You can do more fun activities with two or three children than you can do with a classroom full. Learning fractions? Have them figure out how to half or double a recipe of cookie dough. Let them pick up the mail and read some of it to you for practice.
4. Individualized learning is now easier to do. Your children are different and will thrive in their own way. My daughter wanted a desk and a quiet room to work. My son wanted to work in a different room every day and noise did not bother him. If there was no noise, he made some. These two children did not thrive doing school in the same room. I put my son’s books in a laundry basket and he moved around.
5. Don’t bribe too much. Sometimes it can be tempting to offer a reward for every bit of work done. If you start this, it is hard to keep doing it. Remind them their brain belongs to them and they need to fill it with good knowledge they will have for the rest of their lives. Their education is something that will benefit them from now on.
6. Teach some home skills. Having your children at home is a great time for them to learn to do their own laundry, cook a simple dish, or peel an apple. Skills like this will benefit them every single day. We made bread one day and I gave my daughter P.E. credit because it was a great arm exercise.
7. Play. I don’t mean video games or anything sedentary. Figure out how to build a bowling alley in the yard. Dig out a marble racetrack on the side of a ditch. Take a walk and pick wildflowers. Look at the clouds and figure out what kind they are. Make mud pies. Jump rope or ride bikes.
8. Use your curriculum. Sometimes it can be tempting to ditch the assignments. Don’t do it. Your child will re-enter a classroom at some point and you don’t want a gap in their education. Curriculum provides age-appropriate material, packaged in the correct amounts. Someone with particular skills and experience worked to write it so why reinvent it?
9. Read to your child or listen together to some great stories. To be a learner, your child needs to read. Getting interested in reading and encouraging it will serve your child well in any subject area. Look for some books to read aloud and provide audio books.
. Arrange to do the most difficult subjects during your child’s “prime time.” Figure out when they are the most alert with the most energy and then do their hardest subject then.
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Our children went to public school for a total of six years combined and we homeschooled the rest of the way through high school. Our daughter has an MBA and is employed using her degree and our son is in the dissertation stage for his Ph.D. At some point, they chose to learn for themselves without depending upon me. Don’t panic about COVID-19; look at it as an opportunity to enliven their educational experience.
[The photo shows us on a double-decker bus tour in England with Jason reading the map, circa 1995.]
