Wondering if you can homeschool during a pandemic? The answer is YES!
This past spring, your kids might have spent a large amount of time filling out worksheets and attending web classroom calls while schooling at home. As you facilitated your child’s learning, you might have thought: I could teach my children better than this! And maybe you could. But it’s actually more challenging to teach a child at home than most imagine.
Remember, teachers were forced to teach online without any time to prepare. Many children had to deal with sadness and disappointment of not seeing their friends or celebrating school achievements. Children had to learn online etiquette, how to scan and email documents, and how to entertain themselves, quietly, so one or both parents could work their full-time jobs from home.
Still, do you believe you could do as good of job, maybe even better, educating your child at home? Or wishing you didn’t have to worry about school safety procedures or the chance that your child could come home with coronavirus? You might consider that if you homeschool, you’d be two steps ahead if there is a virus outbreak at your child’s school and all the kids end up sent home. If you’ve made up your mind, then here are a few “to-dos” to get you started.
- Check out local and national homeschooling laws. https://hslda.org/
- Do your research by reading several homeschooling blogs which will provide you with tons of information about curriculum and teaching. https://www.homeschooltracker.com/our-favorite-homeschool-blogs/
- Join a homeschool group, online, or a cooperative learning community in your local town or nearby city. https://homeschoolbase.com/facebook-homeschool-groups/
Your best teaching resource when crisis homeschooling is Google. YouTube is the second most valuable resource. You can find out any answer and watch any tutorial about any topic, by using the Internet. You, as the responsible adult, will need to lead the way while learning at home.
Finally, set up an Internet filter on all of the devices in your home. I’ll provide more details on keeping your child safe while online in an upcoming post.
Have you found a helpful blog or website about homeschooling during a pandemic? Please share in the comment section below!