7 Fantastic Ways To Promote Learning During Quarantine
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Parenting, Kids, Learning, Pandemic, Education

7 Fantastic Ways To Promote Learning During Quarantine

What to expect from yourself and your kids during Covid-19 school closures

Photo by Johny vino on Unsplash

In my state, schools are closed for the next six weeks, at a minimum. I am skeptical about whether we’ll go back at that time, and a large part of my brain thinks the kids won’t be back in school until fall. The announcement had barely had time to settle before my Facebook feed was full of parents talking about curriculum, workbooks, learning, and homeschooling.

While some parents jumped straight to resource-gathering and planning, others were on the edge of panic. I’m not equipped to homeschool, we thought! People vacillated between militant scheduling and chaos as they tried to figure out what exactly their kids would be doing stuck in their homes for the next couple months.

These are uncertain times. We are navigating uncharted waters. Luckily, there are things you can do to make this time a little easier on your children and yourself, and still keep everyone’s minds active.

Don’t Look at This as Homeschooling

Homeschooling is different than encouraging learning, or stepping in to pinch-hit for professional teachers during a crisis. One of the things that’s bothered me most about people sharing ‘forced homeschooling’ memes is that people who homeschool full time have resources, plans, and work hard to educate their kids. They have often thought long and hard about their decision to homeschool, and put a lot of work into it. Your kids being home from school does not automatically make you a homeschooler.

Homeschooling is different than encouraging learning, or stepping in to pinch-hit for professional teachers during a crisis.

Instead of looking at extended school closures as a forced switch to homeschooling, focus on keeping your kids brains active. Remember that you are doing something you haven’t prepared for, and don’t expect it to be more than it is.

This is a brand new situation none of us have faced before, and when our kids go back to school, there will be review and catch-up work to be done. There is just no way to stick to the same curriculum or standards as if they were in an organized learning environment for 8 hours a day.

Leave the Formal Curriculum Behind

In many districts, teachers are working to provide some sort of learning to their students during this time, but it’s an unprecedented situation with a lot of uncertainties. Worksheets and packets are available online by grade level, but this is also an opportunity to promote a different kind of learning.

Getting your kids’ mental gears turning can happen in a myriad of ways.

You can keep your kids’ brains active without a formal curriculum. Some parents have been panicking because their skills and knowledge about the things their kids are learning are not up to par. Some families don’t have access to the internet or a printer, and now that libraries are closing their formal resources are limited.

Now is the time to use what you know. We all have stores of knowledge about something floating around in our heads. Get your own break working and drag out those facts about raising chickens or the life cycle of bees. Remember getting your kids’ mental gears turning can happen in a myriad of ways.

Take Advantage of Ample Free Resources

On Facebook and around the web, tons of organizations are stepping up to provide free opportunities for learning for our kids. Check out MCN’s fantastic list of museum and e-learning resources, for example.

There’s something for everyone, from huge image repositories to museum collections to online art instruction, recipes, and international library access. Many learning organizations like Scholastic, Mystery Science, and dozens of others are offering their services for free during the current crisis.

Additionally, though many libraries are closed, your card can still get you access to materials. Most libraries offer digital services to cardholders, including e-books, audiobooks, music, language learning, and digital magazines.

Take a Virtual Field Trip

So, we can’t get out of the house. Well, good news! Tons of museums, zoos, and collections offer virtual tours you can take right from the comfort of your own home. This is a wonderful way to explore art, history, science, and more that you would not normally be able to access.

Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden is doing a daily ‘home safari,’ where they’ll highlight one of their residents as well as suggesting an activity kids can do at home. Many zoos have Facebook pages, Instagram profiles, or websites where they share videos and more about their furry, scaly, and feathered friends.

Arts and culture organizations are stepping up to provide virtual access to concerts and plays, art galleries, and cultural sites like The White House and the Palace of Versailles.

Use the Tools You’ve Got

One of the best things about learning outside of school is the ability to use the world around you as your classroom. Math doesn’t have to mean worksheets; it can mean figuring out how to double a recipe of measuring pieces to build a bookshelf. Physics can be explored with marbles and balls, and chemistry can be learned by baking a cake and figuring out why it rises.

Things that seem mundane and ordinary can become learning experiences.

All those Lego pieces you cursed when you stepped on them in the middle of the night are an amazing learning tool. Have your child build a replica of a famous building, or create a stop-motion video of their favorite story or their own creation. Now is the perfect time to dig out that box of art supplies that’s been gathering dust and create something beautiful to brighten your home.

Things we have to do and which seem mundane and ordinary can become learning experiences for kids who will have to do them alone one day. Have them sit with you while you pay bills and balance your checkbook to show them how money flows in and out of the household. Show them how you check the kitchen for which groceries to buy, or how to do their own laundry.

Make a Schedule

This one also applies to working from home. Get up in the morning, have your coffee, wash your face, and put on clothes. It can be tempting to just sit around all day in your PJs, and we all need a day like that once in a while. But having a routine and getting yourself into awake brain mode each day will help differentiate the days and keep them from morphing into an endless string, especially when our movement is so limited.

The schedule you create can be as loose or as regimented as works for the personalities in your home.

The schedule you create can be as loose or as regimented as works for the personalities in your home. Separate the day into 30 or 60 minute blocks, and be sure to include time for relaxing and meals. Other types of activity blocks could include academic time with screens, academic time without screens, reading/quiet time, physical activity, chore time, creative/art time, fresh air, and free time.

Have Realistic Expectations

You can’t expect your children to behave the same way that children who have been homeschooled for any length of time would behave. You’re not used to teaching them in a structured way, and they’re not used to learning at home. Now is a time to give lots of leeway, and lots of grace.

In a post on Facebook, Seattle teacher Beth Thompson pointed out:

A lot of my parent friends are suddenly in a position of no longer having their children in school. They are being labeled as “homeschool” families for awhile.

As someone who teaches as a profession, please keep this in mind: What you are being asked to do is NOT homeschooling. It’s harder and very different. Here is why: Kids in transition are the hardest to teach. When emotions are high, learning is low.

Kids out of routine are scattered and their brain is focused on regulating not building. You, as the new “teacher”, didn’t choose the curriculum you are being asked to use. You aren’t familiar with it. Or maybe you weren’t even given a curriculum. Getting used to curriculum can take a whole school year. You also didn’t chose to be a homeschool teacher. That is a mental hurdle to accept. Most homeschool families make careful decisions over a long time before making this jump to homeschool. Likewise, everything you try to implement right now will be new, ie, trial and error. This is exhausting for even the most experienced classroom or homeschool teacher. The days in my job when I try something new are the hardest days, and I have a lot of educating experience behind me. Please don’t look to your homeschooling friends or online posts and think — wow, they can do this everyday? I’m failing! Those homeschooling families you are comparing yourself to have been doing this for months, if not years. Their kids are familiar with the process and expectations. The parents likely researched curriculum for months before implementing. They have co-ops and groups that support each other, with established relationships. Also many homeschool families aren’t also “working from home” a full or part time job while they monitor their kids education. As much as I love the schedules and ideas the homeschool veterans are sharing, don’t expect your children to fold into that on Monday morning. Maybe they won’t fold into it at all. That’s ok. If your kids have been sent home from school because of covid, you aren’t homeschooling. You are supporting your children during a stressful time when nothing is normal. Kudos for helping them keep up with learning, but lavish upon yourself and them lots and lots of grace please.

Try to Stay Calm

This is a stressful time for all of us, parents and kiddos alike. If you’re having a rough day, don’t be afraid to throw the schedule out the window. Though normalcy and routine will help in many ways, adding more pressure to the situation isn’t going to achieve anything.

Some days will call for extra cuddles, family movie time, saying yes to silliness, and frozen pizza.

Some days are going to have to be mental health days for everybody. These days will call for for cuddles, family movie time, saying yes to silliness, and frozen pizza. Remember that our kiddos are often really tuned in to what’s happening around them, even if they don’t realize it. The pressure we are all feeling is getting passed on to them, so doing what we can to stay calm and centered in each moment is important for them too.