How to Keep Your Kids Learning and Your Sanity Intact When You’re All at Home

You survived the spring, but the fall looks just as uncertain. Will kids be going to school full-time or part-time? Are teachers reaching out to students with real-time classes, or is there too much time spent with online quiz and drill sites? Or have you been left to figure it all out on your own?

As a veteran homeschooling parent, the former Hands-On Learning columnist for Home Education Magazine, and a past Homeschooling Expert for About.com (now ThoughtCo), let me assure you, homeschooling may be a lot less stressful than dealing with whatever schools are able to offer.

And with a little encouragement and support, you and your kids can survive and thrive through this rough period. Here are a few tips to help you get started. For more, check out my blog, and join my DIY Homeschool group on Facebook!

Don’t Just Do School at Home

After Hurricane Katrina, when FEMA’s response to displaced families in emergency housing was to hand out workbooks and tell them they were on their own, I began a project to collect and share “emergency homeschooling” tips parents could use even if they were cut off from community resources.

The good news, as I learned then, is that you don’t have to recreate school at home, even for the short term. For most families, the best thing about homeschooling is the flexibility to do whatever fits your needs at the moment.

To show you how, I’m sharing some ideas to help you keep your kids learning and active while they’re stuck around the house, the best way to make those experiences meaningful and educational -- and how to maintain your sanity while you do it.

Be sure to also check out my books of hands-on learning activities, my project tutorials, and additional blog posts featuring tips for covering every subject for kids from elementary school on up!

Make Screen Time Worthwhile

If you opt for online school, virtual lessons and activities will fill at least part of the day.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of your kids’ time online has to be mindless entertainment. There are sites that offer straight school-type lessons, like Khan Academy. But kids will enjoy, and learn from, information presented in less static ways too. For instance, they can:

Practice a new language with an app like Duolingo.
Watch science in action with exciting shows like Mythbusters Jr..
Begin to program their own games and animations with free online software like MIT’s Scratch and Microsoft’s MakeCode.
Learn 3D design with a collection of real-life “building” objects like pencils and cardboard tubes using the free online Tinkercad Making at Home collection.
Read or listen to e-books and audio books borrowed from your local public library!

Use What You Got

Homeschoolers know that kids can learn a lot just using stuff around the house. With you, or on their own, they can:

manipulate fractions by measuring out ingredients for a recipe (try some from my book Edible Inventions)
analyze social issues through children’s literature (anything from the classic Little House books to this year’s Newbery-winning graphic novel New Kid)
test physics principles while they assemble a house band from cans, bottles, boxes, and a little string (get ideas from my book Musical Inventions).

Give Kids the Gift of Unstructured Time

Use the break from scheduled activities to give kids something they don’t get a lot of these days – unstructured time to take a deep dive into their own projects and interests.

Let them work on that graphic novel or animated series they’ve been talking about forever.
Encourage them to organize and research that collection of interesting rocks or ancient coins growing dusty under the bed.
Nudge them to finally master that piano piece they always wanted to learn.

Experiences like these don’t just give kids a break from the daily grind – they also look good on college applications. (It worked for my kids, who got into programs to study filmmaking and video game programming!)

Talk, Don’t Test

You may want to keep track of the “work” your child does while they’re not in school. That’s great — but when you’re already dealing with a major disruption to your daily routine, don’t make record-keeping your top priority.

And unless your kid loves worksheets and quizzes, it’s not necessary to grade their work, either. You’ll know how much they’re learning just by asking them to show and tell you what they’re doing.

If you want more, suggest ways they can document their own work. For instance, have them:

write and illustrate a book, compose a song or dance, or make a video about topics they’re interested in
design a game set in another place or time in history
create a quiz for you to take!

Make “school” playful and (with luck) they’ll happily spend hours on it without prodding from you.

Take a Deep Breath — and Let the Kids Help

It’s going to be stressful enough keeping the household functioning during an emergency, especially if you’re trying to work from home at the same time. Cut yourself as much slack as you can, and don’t set unrealistic goals.

This is a good time to give kids an age-appropriate taste of autonomy — and responsibility. The more they get to choose their own activities, the less likely they’ll be to squabble with siblings or whine about being bored. Put them in charge of tasks and they will feel useful. You may be surprised to see how they rise to the situation.

There’s not a lot of good things to say about an epidemic. But if you use this break in the routine to let kids to follow their interests, it doesn’t have to mean time wasted for their education.

Some additional resources:

Some awesome teens I know — Makers and STEAM experts in their own right — are launching a Twitter account with activities for kids called StayInPlayin.
Family Maker Camp — from the creators of Make magazine and Maker Faires around the globe — has live videos from great STEAM educators to help kids develop new skills and a Maker mindset.
High school math teacher Chris Woods has 77 open-ended STEM activities for all ages, most of which can be done at home with everyday stuff.
If your family likes podcasts, my friend Amy Kraft (and her kids!) help produce the content for Pinna, a screen-free, ad-free audio streaming service custom-made for kids 3-12. Get a 60-day free trial.
Teacher Nick Hoover is keeping a spreadsheet of student websites that are free for the duration.
STEAM educator Rob Morrill collects some links to other great resources.
Amazon is offering free online computer science courses for students in grades 2-12.