Introductory Blog
The 2020-2021 school year was a crazy year. Where were you when COVID hit, and the economy completely shut down? I doubt we will ever forget this time period.
I had a child in 3rd grade (Kathy) and a child in preschool (Emily). Everything shut down and I had to facilitate virtual learning for 2 kids. I never left the house and I had 2 kids strapped to me 24/7. I was going crazy. Thank goodness I have fairly good kids. They may not always listen, and they don’t always get along, but for the most part they are good kids. Kathy has difficulties focusing, so most of my attention the rest of that year went towards her. I helped her turn in her assignments and kept her focused. As for Emily, other than reading to her every day and reviewing some basic concepts, I didn’t worry too much about her.
The end of the year came, and I was relieved. Then my husband throws a curve ball at me and tells me he wants to move. After looking at him like he had two heads, I did some research and decided it was a great time to move. I started searching for our house in June, we picked a house we absolutely loved in August and went to closing in September. It was about an hour away from our current location. Amazing house, wonderful school district, and incredible neighbors. We couldn’t be happier.
Our moving date was 3 days after the school year began. I got permission from the new school district to start Kathy on day 1. It wasn’t that difficult since we started the year virtual. Kathy was now in 4th grade and Emily was starting Kindergarten. Because we were in the midst of moving, I had Kathy stay with her aunt for a week to help her virtual school while we focused on moving into our new home. In regards to Emily, I decided not to send her to Kindergarten. I decided to homeschool her instead. With the move, I thought it would be challenging to help her with virtual school and organize our new house at the same time. I thought it may be better to teach her on my own schedule instead of having to sit with her every morning helping her navigate through zoom.
To give you a bit of my background, I was a kindergarten teacher for about 10 years before I had children and decided to be a stay-at-home mom. So, you may be thinking that this was right up my alley. It’s been about 12 years since I’ve been in the classroom. I tried to remember everything I did while I was a kindergarten teacher. Granted in the 12 years that I’ve been away, things have changed. However, I figured learning to read and add should not have changed too much. I gave away most of my resources, but still had a few tricks up my sleeve. I also tried to remember when Kathy went through kindergarten and what she did. I kept some of her old workbooks that I used as a resource.
I was hesitant about my decision because I’ve been out of the classroom so long and wasn’t sure I was up for the challenge. But now that Emily is about to enter 2nd grade and thriving, I realized this was the best decision I ever made. At our 1st grade parent-teacher conference in November, her teacher told me that Emily was reading at the same level as a first grader would be reading in May, while slightly more than half of her classmates are being pulled out for reading support. The teacher gave the kids a math assessment in September. 50 simple addition problems. Most kids got through about 15 – 20 problems. Emily answered 48 problems, all correct. She explained that this was very unusual for a child at the beginning of the year, and it was obvious that Emily had some of the problems memorized.
So, I am here to share with you my year of homeschooling experience. In September, I focused on unpacking and helping Kathy with her virtual school. During this time, I did the bare minimum with Emily – mostly just read her books. Didn’t have the time or the energy after a full day of helping her sister, preparing meals, unpacking and organizing. The schools opened up mid-October. Kathy was now in school half day. The house was looking great. I took this opportunity to really work with her sister.
When you homeschool a young child, you don’t need to put in that much time, especially with their attention span. We worked about 90 minutes a day, every day with short breaks in between lessons. The focus of our activities revolved around math and language arts, about 20 – 25 minutes each. For about 20 – 25 minutes I alternated days teaching science and social studies. I also tried to incorporate the specials they had in school for about 15 – 20 minutes. We went outside to ride bikes or take walks for her Physical Education time. When it was raining or too cold to go outside, I put on some kids dance videos for us to follow and keep on moving. For music class, I gave her piano lessons. I tried to incorporate art into the core lessons as much as possible, but we did do some fun art projects at times. Didn’t need to include library time since I read to her every day.
This was such a great bonding moment for us. Emily absolutely loved everything we did together. I set up a schedule for her. I found that working in the morning worked best for us. She was not as attentive in the afternoon. We woke up, ate breakfast, and sent her sister off to school. 9 AM to around 10:30 AM, we would do our core activities with short stretch breaks in between subjects. We did our “specials” after our core lessons. Then I would prepare lunch, get her sister from the bus stop around noon and we would have lunch together. She knew exactly what was expected of her every day. That is very important when dealing with children. We wrote out a schedule for her so there were no surprises. Any change in schedule for whatever reason, I would tell her in advance. Sometimes we would wait for her sister to get home from school before we did our science experiment, so her sister was able to join in on the fun. You need to set up a schedule that will work best for your child. If you notice your child getting cranky, take a break, come back to it in an hour or so or maybe after lunch or snack. They have to be receptive and in a fairly good mood in order to soak in all that information. Below is the schedule I used for Emily.
Future posts will be about my experience homeschooling my daughter. I will include lessons, activities, art projects, science experiments and any other tools I found helpful while homeschooling my child. Many of the educational tools I used in my classroom, I got from seminars, workshops or educational classes I took during my teaching days. I implemented these ideas in my classroom ages ago and still utilize them today with my own children. These are simple tips and suggestions that may help you along your journey. They are also great to use as support to go along with what your child is learning in the classroom, especially if you find him/her struggling in certain areas. I am not claiming myself to be an expert in anything. This is what worked for me and I’m hoping it will work for you as well. If you have any questions about what I did, please do not hesitate to contact me. Most importantly, have fun, keep things light and present it in a way your child can understand.
