Homeschooling

As we are all quarantined in our house, those of us with kids are left to homeschool them. As there has only been one week we've been home so far, the schools are treating this past week as if it were a blizzard and the days are snow days, so no work has been assigned. This week they are all sending out enrichment activities for kids. As schools cannot provide special ed services during this time they cannot force students to do the work, they cannot grade the work and they cannot advance curriculum. As a high school teacher I see both sides of this. While some kids can do the work they should be expected to as we have plenty of time and lets face it, we have the technology to teach our curriculum online, so we should. Yet I do see how it is unfair to those that need more time, more help and more instruction. As a parent, I am wearing my teacher had Monday - Friday and structuring 'school' for my kids each day. We have a schedule that we've been more or less sticking to. Although I am a high school teacher, my skillset translates just fine to 2nd grade and Pre-K. My girls are excited learners and the idea of Mom being the teacher is fun to them. Although school with mom might not be as rigorously academic as their actual schools, we're still learning valuable lessons together. We're doing plenty of cooking, cleaning, imaginary play, lego challenges, painting, drawing, taking care of our pet - walking him and feeding him, yoga, etc.

As most of you know we love Harry Potter in our house, so on Thursday of last week we switched it up and did a Harry Potter themed school day, the "Briggs' School of Witchcraft & Wizardry." This was a super fun way to switch it up, plus we already. had all the supplies from a Harry Potter birthday so it wasn't that difficult to do. But I know that not all parents are teachers and the idea of trying to be a homeschool teacher and working from home is overwhelming. I'm going to continue to make Thursdays 'Theme Thursdays' at our house. Probably just not as over the top as the Harry Potter theme though. This coming Thursday I've put together a 'Blue Planet' theme where the kids will learn all about ocean life. I'm going to have them keep a 'scientific notebook' to sketch and write what they are learning. We'll be going on virtual tours of aquariums and building submarines out of legos. Hopefully this will be a nice change of pace from what we normally do. I would love to do this each day, but there is just no way I have the energy to do that at this point!

Having everyone be stuck at home has made so many wonderful places move online which has been great for teaching and learning. I'm not sure I'd have knows about aquarium live stream cams or virtual tours before this. So many museums, events, and learning opportunities have moved online and everyone is so willing to share the wonderful resources they've made or found. It has been great help for me to seamlessly create lessons & academic activities for my kids this last week.

Just today I found even more resources to help with fun at home learning. I'm putting together two more Theme Thursdays for the coming weeks. One week will center around the National Parks and the landscapes, biomes, animals and geography. Another one I'm thinking will be the wonders of the world using google earth and a third will focus around space. I'll post the activities once I finalize them for others to use!