Homeschooling During the Quarantine: How to Map Out Your Child’s Day

As the coronavirus quarantine is reaching the end of its first month, I have been approached (through email, text, and phone calls since nobody can actually approach any of us at the moment) by concerned parents asking for help. They would like tips and strategies on how to effectively homeschool their children.

It can get a bit tricky when trying to teach your own kids. For instance, when we have holiday parties in the classroom, the students are perfectly well behaved until their parents come in to offer assistance with the parties. Then the children are literally bouncing off the walls. The problem is they know they can push the boundaries with their own parents much of the time without any recourse. But during this quarantine and the homeschooling, you have to separate yourself into two people. There will be hours during the day when you are their strict teacher holding them accountable for learning and then the rest of the day you can be their loving parent. It really is the ultimate bad cop/good cop routine.

Listed below are a few tips on how to map out your child’s day during the everlasting quarantine. For the topics that are being taught, address your child’s school textbooks and use them as a type of curriculum map. If you feel like you don’t have the qualifications for teaching certain subjects, you can always reach out to the professional tutors, such as the ones provided by iAchieve, that can teach just about any subject and grade level through video conferencing and email.

Morning Wake Up Call

Children should still have a scheduled time to get up every morning otherwise they will be staying up late and sleeping all day. An 8 am wakeup call should be a good compromise. Treat homeschooling as much like an ordinary school day as possible.

9 AM to 10 AM Math

There has been research completed that has shown that students perform better at Math in the morning than they do in the afternoon. As far as teaching Math, start off the hour by revisiting past concepts that have been taught. Next, move into the new items the child is to learn. Start off by doing a few practice problems together and then assign other problems to tackle on their own. Grade the assignment together afterward so they can find out instantly how they did. Explain how they missed the problems they got wrong and go about showing them the mistake they made.

10 AM to 11 AM History

Depending upon the age of your child, they will either be learning History or Social Studies. It would be a very good idea to mix in a little Geography as well. Be sure to use the internet to further your child’s knowledge of the topics being covered. There will be videos that can be watched, websites to visit, and even games to play that will be associated with the learning process.

11 AM to 12 PM Physical Education

With it becoming warmer outside, children can now run around and get their exercise outdoors. Also, as kids often like to compete even against themselves, markdown how many pushups, situps, pullups, and laps they can run every day and see if they can continually improve upon it. You may also get a basketball game going in the driveway or hit around a baseball outside as a way to change things up now and then.

12:00 PM to 1:00 PM Lunch

Instead of just handing your child food to eat, give your children lessons about cooking in the kitchen. This will be just as much education as any of the other subjects you will be teaching. Give a child a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and they can eat one day. Teach the child how to make their own sandwiches and they can eat for life!

1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Reading

You probably have enough books already in your house to outlast this quarantine, but if you don’t, many libraries will send you electronic copies. Plus, there are plenty of websites and apps that will provide books for children.

Reading is a fun subject to teach! You can create your own quizzes and tests, have the child write a summary on the book, or compare and contrast the book to the movie. If you want to get really creative, you can have your child create a diorama of their favorite scene from the book. You are only limited by your own creativity!

Keep It Simple!

You may think that doing all of this day in and day out will be exhausting for you as a parent. But when your child is working independently, this leaves you free to do other things around the house. And if you start to feel overwhelmed once in a while and think you and your kids could use a break, just make it a day of independent reading instead!

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