I know that you might be feeling overwhelmed, especially with the prospect of homeschooling your children. However, I don’t think that’s the correct perspective we need to have right now. Homeschooling is a lot of work, and it requires a certain level of organization and prep work. Kids are dealing with suddenly not being in school, in the middle of the year, and not going back! They are hanging in a weird limbo and this isn’t something our modern society has ever faced. So much of school today is crowd control and meeting a lot of criteria that homeschooling kids just don’t have to deal with. As someone who was homeschooled, I can attest to this. There isn’t a whole classroom of kids to deal with, behavior issues, pulling children for evaluations or to give individual assistance to and all the different factors that make up a regular school day.
I believe that we should be looking at this like an “Avoid the Summer Slide” type of situation. As someone who has homeschooled a child for a year, been homeschooled and someone who works in the schools, I stand by this. Even if you were to homeschool your children you wouldn’t be doing it for the same amount of time as a regular public or private school day. So, please, take a deep breath, figure out what works out for your children and do your best to help them avoid a slide before September, and take it one day at a time.
I am sharing below some great resources and things that I am using personally. If your children are playing an instrument keep that up. We have incorporated that into our schedules, along with drawing and art YouTube series or just free-crafting time. Plenty of outside time, playing games to encourage critical thinking and fun and asking the kids what they want to learn. There are so many fun science experiments online and you can cook and bake with the kids as well.
In short, or long apparently, I’m thinking of you guys out there!
Math Resources
IXL.com – available for all grades
Prodigy – Download the app (Premium is available, but we love the free version)
Reading Resources
RazKids from AtoZlearning.com – app and online
Multi-subject Resources
Mr. Nussbaum – grades 1-6 multi-subject resources. Subjects from Colonial America to Birds of Prey. Mr. Nussbaum is offering full access at 80% off through March with the code “keepeducating”.
Teachers Pay Teachers – small fees
- A favorite on TpT is The Active Educator (especially good for young kids)
ABC Mouse – we no longer use it, but for pre-k – first grade ABC Mouse is wonderful. We used it for all three of our children
Adventure Academy – made by ABC Mouse for ages 8-13 (first month free!!)
Language Arts
Writing anything is really what kids need right now! I own cursive booklets that I have the kids do every once in a while, just to mix it up. These are summer activities that I do, that I pulled out for now. For Phillip, because he loves worksheets, I pulled out his Grade 2 Language Arts Summer workbook for him to do as well. It works through grade-appropriate tasks, working on sentence structure and adding more sight words to his vocabulary.
Writing Prompts (elementary through high school) – JournalBuddies.com
Science
Breakout EDU – Science mini online escape rooms with a science twist. You just have to hunt for free ones!
available all grade levels
YouTube
art classes – art hub for kids, cartooning for kids, draw so cute and babble dabble do
math help – Bro and Sis Math Club, Math Antics, Khan Academy
Character Building
CBS Evening Series “On the Road” has developed a Kindness 101 series and it is the most amazing thing right now. We sit down as a family and watch. It airs live on Facebook at 2pm Eastern Time but can be viewed later on YouTube and online. There is even homework provided for the kids. I highly recommend this as a family experience and an uplifting one at that.
Games (Amazon Affiliate)
Our Favorite Workbooks
Highlights Workbooks – PreK – 2nd
BrainQuest workbooks – older kids
