Need Help for Teaching Kids at Home?

Parents may feel the jitters as they approach their first day of school – as the teacher – on Monday. Here’s some help for teaching kids at home.

School closures throughout the country cast parents into the roll of teacher. It can be scary. With that in mind, we looked at social media posts from other communities, where kids haven’t been on spring break this week. We cobbled together advice and discovered local resources to help parents flesh out  lesson plans.

Parent-to-parent Advice For teaching Kids at Home

It seems like parents shouldn’t worry if it doesn’t go well at first:

Messages abound that you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. One person who has homeschooled for 12 years advised parents not to expect to engage students for a 5 – 8-hour school day. The educator encouraged “new teachers” to let their students sleep in to boost their immune systems, to spend an hour reading, to make cooking a math and science lesson, and to co-opt students to be part making a daily schedule.

First Step in Teaching Kids at Home: Make a Schedule

When creating a schedule, there’s no need to plan to the minute. Block out time in 90-minute to 2-hour increments and call it good enough.  Then, define these time increments loosely. Abbey’s schedule includes waking-up activities, two blocks of academic time and two blocks of outside time and opportunities for extras. Today’s blog is about the academic time. (cymbalta) Check out our next blog for OUTDOOR FUN!

Omaha Attractions Offer Teach at Home Resources

Area teachers used spring break to develop lesson plans and methods of instruction to fill the academic time blocks. In Greater Omaha, area attractions and organizations are sharing special programs to keep kids “edutained.”

For example, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium runs  daily Facebook videos of zoo staff working with various animals. Already, viewers have been introduced through a Facebook video, to Chakira the chinchilla and her mate, Chico. Bodo the sloth bear stars in a 20-minute video. Videos air live at 2 p.m. daily. Other zoo videos and learning activities on the zoo’s website. Find these videos by clicking here.

The Durham Museum offers a digital learning program at 10 a.m. at least March 23 – 27 (with more dates to come). Kids can, for example, discover what it was like to be a student in an historic school room, find out about Omaha’s “World’s Fair,” or virtually visit the Union Station. Find out more and register to receive connection to these programs by clicking here.

Need more resources to fill academic time? Nebraska Educational Television, Nebraska’s PBS and NPR stations, offers Learn at Home activities grouped by age for kids in preschool or in grades K-12. Click here for lesson plans, videos and other materials that are matched to state and local educational standards.

With resources like this, you will knock planning for “academic time” out of the park. Next up, more help for teaching kids at home, but with a focus on fun in the outdoors, whether in the backyard or in an actual park.

Post written by Kema Geroux