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Education Resources for At Home Learning

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

Dreambox.com

Prodigy – Download the app (Premium is available, but we love the free version)

Math Drills

K5Learning

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)

Trekking the National Parks

Our Favorite Workbooks

Summer Bridge books

Cursive Workbook

Highlights Workbooks – PreK – 2nd

BrainQuest workbooks – older kids

4 Easy Ways To Keep Your Kid’s Brains Active This Summer

I don’t know about your kids, but mine aren’t the biggest fans of doing much educational stuff during the summer. I get it and if I asked my mom she would probably say it wouldn’t have been my favorite thing either. But, the summer slide is a real thing! I came across a great article from NWEA, the Northwest Evaluation Association – a not-for-profit organization that has been operating for over 40 years! In this article they discovered that kids moving from 3rd to 4th grade can lose up to 20% of their learning from the previous school year. This is especially true in subjects like math and reading! Other statistics say that by the time child reaches high school 2/3 of the reading achievement gap can be attributed to the summer slide. Forcing kids to do endless amounts of work isn’t the best way to combat this. While all kid’s go through periods of time where school isn’t their favorite, making a positive connection with learning, to me anyway, is important.

So, how do we make learning fun during the summer?

Incorporate learning into everyday activities: This is an easy one! Baking keeps the brain working with reading, math and figuring out how to use the recipe. Plus, it also incorporates stuff like working together and ends with a fun dessert usually! Other ways we do it is countdowns to vacations, how many more days left to this activity or that activity. Using car time to do multiplication facts or reading license plates is also fun.
READ READ READ: I can’t stress this enough! The saying that “Reading is fundamental” is probably the most true statement I’ve ever heard. It is the basis of of EVERYTHING! My oldest isn’t a huge reader, like my daughter or myself, that just means we spend a little more time looking for books he likes. My kids still have a quiet time, even my almost 13 year old. During that time they can take a cat nap, draw, read, build Legos or something like that. Its good for their brains and gets them calm. Reading for at least 20 minutes is a great place to start! Reading endurance is a huge part of learning and something your kids are probably hearing about in school as well.
Simple workbooks – I love the Summer Bridge books because they help the kids work towards a goal, gets them ready school the next year AND are only one page (front and back a day). Its an achievable goal that doesn’t force the kids to do pages and pages of one subject, which might not be their favorite. Plus, my kids like it because it mixes things up, it isn’t just a bunch of one subject every day. We have been doing these bridge books since my oldest was in Kindergarten. They are $10 and you can get them in my Amazon store. They are a perfect price point!
Visit your local library – If your kiddos don’t have a library card the summertime is a perfect time to get one! Libraries usually have more activities during the summer time as well as a summer reading program with prizes!! Visiting the library during the summer is easier for us, and my kids are at the age now where they love to sit and read at the library! Learning to use the library catalog to find books that interest them and then going on the hunt for them all by themselves. More learning!!!

While summertime is for having fun, vacations and being outside, keeping your brain working and active is important for starting school off on the right food come summer’s end.

Education Resources for At Home Learning

4 Easy Ways To Keep Your Kid’s Brains Active This Summer

So, how do we make learning fun during the summer?

What ways do you incorporate learning into your summer activities?!