Take it outside when you can, take it easy and be flexible.
That’s just some of the advice from a homeschool mom to parents who may be worried they’ll need to take over teaching duties as learning moves from the classroom to the living room.
Educators across the state are working on plans to continue to teach children, in most cases utilizing online tools to create a virtual classroom, as classes were canceled to slow the spread of a deadly coronavirus. It’s not yet clear exactly what that will look like, which has some parents worried they’ll be unprepared to handle the schoolwork.
Katrina Springer has been homeschooling children for years, and said there are challenges and rewards when it comes to educating students at home.
“It all depends on your child and the approach you take. I don’t know what the districts are going to do, but the vast majority of parents will be able to figure it out,” she said. “For some parents, it’s going to be a struggle. There will be some ‘not fun’ times and there will be times it gets frustrating. Sometimes, we all just need to take a break.”
The flexibility of homeschool is its greatest asset, Springer said.
In this situation, take advantage of the flexibility by starting or stopping your day at convenient times, but stick to a routine as much as possible. Children do best in a structured environment, but that doesn’t mean an 8 a.m. start time is always the answer.
In Springer’s home, the children wake up, eat breakfast and finish chores around the farm before they start classes. On nights when they had extra-curricular activities, they’d sleep in a little later.
Don’t be surprised that the time for instruction will be significantly less than a typical day at school, she said.
Springer homeschools son Rohan, an 11-year-old who is in sixth grade, daughter Moira, a 7-year-old in second grade, and also son Declan, a 3-year-old who receives preschool lessons. A recent day’s worth of lessons for Moira took an hour, with about 15 to 20 minutes of time for her to complete necessary worksheets.
“It doesn’t take nearly as much time because you don’t have to spend all that time lining up 20 kids and getting each of them through their activities,” she said.
And speaking of time, Springer encouraged parents to take advantage of opportunities to learn something that isn’t in the school curriculum. Maybe study a specific event in history, learn Latin or take a walk through nature and learn how to identify different types of birds.
“You’ll have extra time to spend on some random thing they are interested in, and you can let them go with that for a while,” she said.
Springer said her son Rohan struggled with writing for years, “to the point where we were banging our heads against the wall.”
Springer then sought out suggestions, landing on an approach that worked.
“I would take it as an opportunity to really look and see if maybe your child could excel with a different learning method,” she suggested. “There are a lot of great books and websites out there that explain different styles of teaching.”
