Teaching at Home : A Guide for Parents in the Time of the Coronavirus
Most school districts have made the difficult decision to close for at least a few weeks as the world collectively seeks to practice social distancing and voluntary quarantining to help prevent the continued spread of the coronavirus. Extended time away from school as a community is unchartered territory. School leaders are scrambling to help teachers and families put together plans for home-based learning. There is no blueprint to follow when you find yourself suddenly homeschooling your child. And it can be especially difficult if you are also trying to work full-time.
However, there are silver linings to be found in these weeks of slowing down and staying home. Families have opportunities to spend a lot of hours together! With just a bit of planning, children may get dozens of hours of exploratory, hands-on learning. Opportunities for learning are absolutely everywhere when you have the right perspective.
Most of us could use a little help getting oriented to life as work-at-home-mom or homeschool-dad. Check out these quick tips to help you get started.
Part I: Set Up the Learning Environment
Before you dive into the unfamiliar logistics of your new role as homeschool parent, hold a family meeting to determine your shared values. What is important to each member of the household during this uncertain time? What will communication look like? How will different needs get met? Does anything need to change right away?
Teachers do this work in their classrooms at the start of every school year. It doesn’t have to take all day, but do spend an hour or so thinking through what matters to each member of your family. The ages and abilities of your children will shape what this meeting looks like.
If both parents work remotely and the children in the home are fairly self-sufficient teenagers, one value may be ‘respect each other’s silent, independent work time.” If you are a stay-at-home parent to a 3-year-old and 4-year-old, you will lead the values conversation with prompts. You might discuss the importance of sharing toys during playtime, never canceling outside play, and following directions the first time they are given.
The key is to agree what values will ground your time together in the coming weeks. Post those values with words and/or pictures so they are easy to reference throughout your days.
Make A Schedule
After you’ve set your family values, make a schedule. Don’t write it in stone, or even ink. But do write it. And then post it somewhere where you will see it so you and your children can easily reference it. The schedule will help bring a sense of normalcy and routine to this otherwise disorienting time. Coupled with your calm leadership and a commitment to being fully present, a schedule will help create a rhythm for your family. It will help all of you exhale and keep moving forward.
Time
When you’re creating your schedule, note times for waking up, getting dressed, meals, snacks, academic time, quiet time, playtime, chores, and family time. If possible, try to make these activities happen close to when they would happen on a normal school day.
Children thrive on structure and routine. Though there is no ‘typical social distancing routine’ to follow, you can still set a rhythm. When children know what to expect, they feel safer and more available for learning.
The family schedule for a stay-at-home-mom of three children under age 6 will look quite different from the routines of two parents working at home with one middle school student who is fairly self-sufficient. That’s OK. Don’t compare your rhythms to your neighbor’s routines. Think about what will work best for your family, and be willing to adjust as you go if something isn’t working well.
Here are two sample schedules for you to consider as you draft a new normal for the coming weeks:
Sample Schedules
(use our free printable schedules! )
If you are a stay-at-home parent now responsible for teaching your young kids at home:
7:00 Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast
8:30-10:30 Academic time*
10:30 Snack
10:45 - 12:15 Playtime*
12:15 - 12:45 Lunch
1:00 - 2:30 Nap / quiet time in bedroom / chores
2:30 - 3:00 Read aloud
3:00 - 3:30 Screen time
3:30 Snack
3:45 - 5:45 Outside time*
6:15 Dinner
*Academic time: academic time will vary considerably based on your child’s age, abilities, and instructions from his/her school. It may be more formal if your child has a packet of work to power through and an online module to complete. Or it may feel more informal if there were no materials or explicit instructions from the school. You might work on fractions by having your 8-year-old measure the ingredients when you bake cookies, for example.
Opportunities to learn are everywhere! Reference Part II (coming later this week!) for in-depth guidance on how to facilitate learning in different subject areas online and with materials already in your home.
*Playtime: Encourage your children to use their imaginations to create and build. Give them a kitchen table or laundry room floor to sprawl out with art supplies. Let them learn a new song on the family piano by watching a lesson on YouTube. Take out pots and pans and let them play the drums while you prep dinner in the afternoon. Build with Legos or blocks. Paint toy trucks in the bathtub.
Feel free to use technology for learning and for play. But try not to use screens to simply pass the hours. Instead, set boundaries around the length of screen time and its purpose.
*Outside time: Get outside as much as you possibly can! Take a family walk around the neighborhood. Go on a scavenger hunt for twigs to build a house for fairies. Find an empty parking lot and run relay races or ride a scooter or a bike. Use chalk to make the longest-ever game of hop-scotch. Fill a big container of water, take it outside, and conduct sink-or-swim science experiments. Puddle-jump in the rain. Have a tea party on the porch and read aloud to one another.
*Other: For pre-readers, early-readers, and non-readers, visual schedules work great!
If you have your own work to get done while teaching your middle or high school kids:
6:00 Adult work time*
7:30 Kids wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast
8:30 Family Walk outside or YouTube yoga
9:00 Academic time* until lunch
11:30 Lunch
12:00 Kids: independent play or study
Adults: work time
2:30 Chores
3:00 Snack, read aloud, or family check-in
3:30 Screen time
4:00 Outside
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Family time / free play / free time
8:30 Bed
8:30+ Adult work time
*Adult work time: accept that you won’t be as productive these next few weeks. You already know this, but it’s important to say it aloud and internalize it so you don’t wallow in frustration over this next stretch. There will be small pockets of time to get some work done – mainly when your young children are asleep or when your older children are playing/working independently – and then there’s grace for the projects and deadlines that need extensions. Remember, this won’t last forever.
*Academic time: if your child is able to work on some portion of her school work independently, such as reading a book or working through an online learning program, work alongside her! Make it fun by setting a timer to share specific times to focus together and specific times to take a break together.
Place
Most children will respond well to having a designated place for schoolwork at home. Maybe that spot is the kitchen table, a desk in a bedroom, or at the card table in the playroom. Choose a place that will be relatively free of distractions.
Learning will be dynamic during these next several weeks and certainly won’t be confined to a desk, but there should be some space that’s specifically for school. Think of it like basecamp. You will discuss current events while watching the news on TV as you fold laundry. You will practice observation skills on a nature walk in your backyard. You will apply decimal computation while counting change in the piggy bank. But this designated spot in your home will be the place for the books and binders and backpacks. It will help you all stay organized.
Attitude
You can find dozens of sample schedules online if the two examples here don’t fit your family’s needs. But try not to get too caught up in the details, or in making it exactly right.
No schedule is absolute, especially in this unknown time about the course of the coronavirus. Tweaks (or an overhaul!) will be necessary at some point. A kid might get sick, you might have an urgent conference call. The point is to create a loose schedule to give shape to your days at home with your children while they learn and play to bring confidence and stability for the whole family.
And, if you have a few days of sleeping in, eating cinnamon rolls, and watching Frozen 2 in the name of quality family time, you’ll still get an A+ for teaching loving your child in the time of the coronavirus. The best teachers love their students. You’ve got this!
We’d love to hear from you. What do you need help with as you transition to homeschooling and online learning? What has been helpful to you?
Leave a comment below, and don’t forget to download your free printables here.