What to Do if You're Panicked About Curriculum

 
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Buy a cheap, complete curriculum workbook for your child’s grade. Boom, done.

If you have reporting requirements for a state like New York, you can use it as a placeholder on your IHIP for the school district. Just add a statement that says the materials you are list “include but are not limited to” and that you will be adding more details in the quarterly reports.

Then relax as you figure out what else you can do during the year that’s more engaging and meaty.

What can you do with a workbook?

  • Flip through it to find topics you might want to cover during the year.

  • Use it to see how to describe skills in “educationese.” For instance, learning to tell time falls under “math.”

  • Give it to your kids for “busy work” when you’re frazzled but want to feel productive. Some kids like worksheets! But if your kids find them stressful or boring, let them pick out the pages they want to do. And don’t make a big deal of grading them. Instead, use their work to see where you might need to help them improve their skills as you develop your own teaching plan.

You can find all-in-one curriculum workbooks in book stores, department and big box stores, and online. Here are a few examples. Some are specifically for homeschooling, and others are designed to reinforce classroom instruction (but can probably work for homeschooling) as well. If your child is middle school or older, look for workbooks or review books for specific subjects. Some examples:

 
 

Another Option: Outline a Plan of Instruction

To fulfill the New York State homeschooling regulations, you must show the school “a list of the syllabi, curriculum materials, textbooks or plan of instruction to be used in each of the required subjects.”

If buying a curriculum isn’t your style, create a plan of instruction based upon guides aimed at helping parents figure out what their kids should be learning when. Some list specific topics, such as:

Others offer suggestions for topics, as well as techniques to help you cover a wide range of topics, including:

Regardless of which strategy you choose, you’ll get past that planning logjam and begin to move on to working and learning about homeschooling along with your kids!

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Talking with Educators and Makers at Virtually Maker Faire!

 
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Maker Faire is a world-wide phenomenon that has introduced people around the world to the idea that you can learn and grow through hands-on Maker activities. It’s run by the same company that published many of my Maker books for kids and other beginners and is now running Maker Camp, a wonderful resource for parents. And this year, with the global shutdown, the flagship event is going online!

For 24 hours on Saturday, May 23, you can watch talks by adults and kids who are making equipment to help us all stay safe from COVID-19, learn about projects of all kinds to make our lives better now and into the future, and see what people are doing to challenge themselves and provide fun and entertainment for others.

Here are the panels I’m moderating for this year’s Maker Faire and links to the videos. I hope you find them inspiring!

Reimagining Education in School and at Home

 
 

What will school look like in the new-normal world? How can we combine the best of traditional classroom, remote, and homeschool education? I talk with a panel of public, charter, library, and homeschooling maker-educators — Kristina Holzweiss, Bianca Forrester, Peter Rawitsch, and Rick Shertle — to discuss what models might work best for the diverse population of students, parents, and educators in the US and around the world.

 
 

While hospitals for the most part have finally found commercially-made supplies, there’s still high demand for re-usable, washable cloth face masks from office, retail, and services workers as well as the general public. I talk with mask creators Todd Thomas and Kelly Cheatle as we go through the challenges of designing an effective mask to make at home, from sourcing materials to breathability, and discuss how and why this low-tech solution to the problem of containing the coronavirus pandemic is so important to our country's recovery.

This page may contain affiliate links. Thanks for helping me to keep producing great learning advice and activities for kids!

Talking with Teachers About Homeschool/School

 
 

Family Maker Camp — from Make magazine, which also publishes some of my books — is providing some great content for both kids and adults. I was invited to take part in a Parent Happy (Half) Hour panel discussion of teaching during the pandemic, which turned out to be very affirming.

I got to meet two hard-working, passionate educators from the West Coast, Bianca Forrester of Oakland Charter High School, and Tobie Garcia of Urban Montessori Charter School. Also on the panel were Make: author-educator Rick Shertle and hosts Gillian Mutti of Make: Community, along with Mario the Maker Magician and his wife Katie Marchese. Both Rick and the Marcheses are homeschoolers as well.

I was pleased to hear that everyone was on the same page in terms of what we should be expecting students to do at this time of great upheaval, and about the opportunity for schools to make a radical change when they return to the classroom.

You can watch the whole conversation above. Enjoy!

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Housekeeping Versus Homeschooling

 
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I've heard there are homeschoolers whose houses are always neat. Who never lose a handwriting worksheet under a pile of manga drawings. Who can plop down in the living room without noticing a thicket of cobwebs underneath the bookcase.

To be honest, I've never met one.

Keeping a house clean can be a challenge for any parent with kids. Throw in the extra responsibility of working from home while helping with school work, and it's no wonder things can get a little messy.

As a veteran homeschooling mom once said, "Something has to give, and that's it."

So let me share some strategies for keeping the chaos at bay while still maintaining a livable environment.

Set Realistic Standards

Being a homeschooler doesn't mean you have to live in squalor. But giving up a little control, along with your fantasies of Instagram interior design perfection, can help you avoid burnout.

First, don’t compare your kids to anybody else’s. I once spent a morning holding my breath in the home of a mom who had trained her young twin daughters to respectfully avoid her collection of precariously-displayed glass knickknacks. I was very glad to escape with my two oblivious children without mishap.

The safest way to avoid having to be constantly on guard is to “child-proof” the spaces you share with your kids for the stage of life they’re at. They may not be toddlers, but if they’re spending most or all of their time indoors, chances are they’ve got a lot of pent-up energy to expend.

Make Your House as Kid-Friendly as Possible

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You don't have to turn your entire house into a playroom, but create some areas where kids can be comfortable. Some ideas:

Use easy-to-clean flooring and furniture. Move valuable rugs to another part of the house. Cover your couch with a blanket. Get a vinyl tablecloth that lets you wipe up spills, paint, or glue easily.

Put books, toys, and crafts supplies at child level. If you can, rotate the selection of playthings to keep the offerings fresh and interesting. It can make it less likely kids will get into things they're not supposed to.

Find storage that kids can use themselves. Clear off some low shelves. Collect school materials in baskets and bins. Get plastic drawers to sort school supplies (and Lego bricks!). If your kids aren’t reading yet, print out labels with pictures so little ones know what goes where.

Teach Your Kids the Art of Housekeeping

Teaching your kids to keep house is a skill that will serve them well throughout their lives. And if you are keeping records of what your kids learn, you can file it under “Life Skills!”

Start with simple chores before they hit the tween years and they may even think it's fun. Young kids can help sort clothes or set the table. Older kids can do dishes, sweep the floor, make their beds, and care for pets.

To increase the odds that kids will cooperate, break down tasks into parts that are short and easy to manage. It only takes a few minutes to wipe down the bathroom sinks or the microwave, but getting those little jobs done makes your house feel instantly cleaner.

And if a family member has a favorite chore, let 'em at it. Some kids are happy to clean anything if you hand them a Swiffer duster.

Most of all, keep things in perspective. You've got a lot on your plate. Now’s the time to give up some control and let your family members share the burden – even if they don’t do the job up to your standards.

When you weigh what’s really important at this time, a house that’s safe and comfortable may be all you need for right now.

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Join our DIY Homeschool community on Facebook!

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How to Turn a Book Into a Class

 
 

A wonderful example of how educators are coming up with creative ways to keep kids learning during this difficult time comes from Chicago-based educator Kathryn Born. She and her daughter are following along with my book Micronations, using it as the basis for a series of lessons that she’s also sharing online, with the hopes that other families will join them.

Thanks to the generosity of my publisher Nomad Press, she is also able to show some of the material on her blog for a limited time. Born writes:

“Micronations is a great book, especially right now, and especially with an influx of parents who are suddenly homeschooling for the first time. The book is a great resource as you can simply read it and do the exercises, there isn't a lot of direct instruction they have to design themselves. You can also do all the activities with supplies they already have.”

Educators often tell me they use my books as a teaching guide — which is only natural, since many of them grew out of afterschool classes I taught when my kids were young. My micronations class, which was called “Invent Your Own Country,” was one of my favorites. (My youngest son told me it was the best class he had ever taken, so there you go.)

In my classes, I loved the ideas the students came up with for their countries, and the great artifacts they made to represent them. They even expanded upon my lessons by reaching out to other micronational governments in the class to form their own alliances and trading agreements — a remarkably diplomatic concept for fourth- and fifth-graders to embrace! Here’s a sampling of what they produced:

Born’s project with her daughter reflects the times we’re living through:

“The book asks, If you were going to start your own nation, from scratch, how would you design it? How would your government run? What would your laws be? I’m doing a COVID-19 version of this with my 12-year old, so we are adapting it to ‘if your household was a nation, a kingdom, an imaginary country, how would we run it?’ (Which is kind of what’s happening with this isolation many families are in. Our homes have become our micro-universe.) ”

What’s more, Born writes, the project is giving her daughter a way to talk about the anxieties she’s facing in these uncertain times. “This book is a good discussion starting point about why countries are making the decisions they are right now,” she says.

Born is hoping to host an online World’s Fair with other “emergency homeschoolers” when the project is done. I can’t wait to see it!

This page may contain affiliate links. Thanks for helping me to keep producing great learning advice and activities for kids!