Many of us have been pushed into homeschooling our kids over the last week or two. As a former homeschooling parent, I know that this time is much different than when I homeschooled my kids by choice. At that time, I was able to plan and try out different things to see what worked for my kids.
Now, I feel like parents are struggling with what they can do to educate their kids when they’re stuck at home. And that’s ok because most of us are in the same boat. Below, you’ll find a couple tips for your kids now that they are home for the time being.
Homeschool Tips, Tricks and Hacks
Phonics Hack– On Facebook, Erin Blake shares how she combined phonics and fun with her kids. Erin printed out different phonic sounds on paper and then taped them randomly on a bare wall. When she would say the sound out-loud, her kids had to find the sound on the card and shoot it with a nerf gun. Not only is this really fun for kids, it’s also helping them to learn different sounds.
Math Hack – On Facebook, Erin Alford shared a tip that will make teaching your kids math and helping them with their homework a lot easier. A lot of kids have trouble when they are doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division because they write the numbers on their paper horizontally. Flip the paper and have them write their problems and their work vertically. This allows them to line up the numbers correctly and let’s them write the digits in their correct spots.
Another math hack is from Stephanie from “Homeschool Hacks with Stefee Grutz”. Stephanie, a credentialed teacher and veteran homeschool mom, shares a great tip about using Scrabble tiles for a fun math game. Kids will create a word using the Scrabble tiles, write it on a sheet of paper, then create a math sentence (such as 3+2+3=8) on that same paper. Check out her video for more info.
Snack Hacks – One more hack that Stephanie shares is all about snacks. If your kids are anything like mine, they’ve been snacking a lot! Stephanie suggests putting out a basket with each child’s name on it and put in snacks that they are allowed to eat. By doing this, they can head to their basket any time, without having to ask over and over again for a snack.
Photo Credit: Homeschool Hacks with Stefee Grutz
There’s another great snack hack that could also be classified as a math and life skills hack too. Huong Thi shared about how they teach their child about the cost of food. If you’ll notice in the picture below, the healthier foods “cost” a lot less than the not-so-healthy choices. Her kids “earn money” by doing their school work. She sets the price for the healthier items lower so that her kids will make healthier choices with the snacks they choose.
Check out this virtual fieldtrip!
Now, I feel like parents are struggling with what they can do to educate their kids when they’re stuck at home. And that’s ok because most of us are in the same boat. Below, you’ll find a couple tips for your kids now that they are home for the time being.
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