Educational resources in case you have to teach at home because of covid 19

Need ideas to keep kids busy or help teach them at home? Enter: The Internet. Here is a list of online homeschool resources that are free, educational companies waiving subscription fees, and podcasts that are entertaining and educational. These are the ones we’ll be using to help our elementary-age kids learn and hopefully stop parkouring in our house. If anyone has any suggestions I might have missed, let me know and I’ll add it to the list. (I mean. Maybe. We’ll see.)

Homeschool Resources Free

Here are some excellent homeschool resources that are always free, and some that have fees that have been waived. There are lots of them, but we’ve picked these for a reason – some are really basic and uncluttered learning tools, some include engaging games and activities that will keep your kids occupied (and learning!), and all of them are worth checking out.

Educational Podcasts for Kids

Sometimes everyone has had enough of worksheets and reading and you’re feeling some serious guilt about your kids’ screen time. Fortunately for us (parents and kids alike), we have access to some truly fantastic podcasts, so someone else can teach your kids or read them stories, and everyone can get a break from each other. This is clearly the podcast’s time to shine. Here are a few that we love.

A Few Tips: How to Homeschool For People Who Never Thought They’d Homeschool

1. Try to relax – you’re not going to know the best way to handle this right from the start. A lot of homeschooling is figuring out what works best for you and your family, and being flexible when it comes to creating a schedule. Try a few different things out and see what works for you.
2. Let your kids’ interests help guide what you do next. What do they love doing? Ask them what they want to learn about, and think of ways to incorporate it.
3. Be mindful of giving your kids breaks when they need them – if they’re getting frustrated with a math problem or some other assignment, having just a 15-minute break will help everyone. For my kids, getting outside for awhile and getting some exercise always helps.
4. There are A LOT of free homeschool resources out there (see excellent suggestions above). You really don’t need to spend anything to get started. Seriously. Check out the ones we recommend here.
5. Don’t try to cram too much schooling into one day. Kids learn over time. If you start obsessing about how much they’re learning every day, you and they will get stressed and burnt out really quickly. 
6. Take notes. Write down what you’d like homeschooling to look like for your family, some goals you have, what you’re worried about, what success looks like for you, ideas for activities or topics – write it down somewhere.
7. Decide on a schedule and start planning your days with learning time, chores, meals, quiet solo time, and other activities (include things you know your kids love and will look forward to). Students are used to having schedules at school, so having one at home can feel familiar. Be reasonable though – kids aren’t learning the entire time they’re at school. And if you’re mindful about not filling the day with too much work and keeping your expectations realistic and flexible, this is going to go a lot better for everyone. You can be flexible and switch things around depending on the day, or you might find your schedule needs some rearranging. Make a schedule, and then adapt it till it works best for your family.
8. Try to learn some things that excite and interest you as well – it’s good for your kids to see you get excited about learning.

More Ideas for Kids Games and Activities

Here are some other ideas for activities, because suddenly we all have a lot more hours to fill and sometimes ideas are hard. Most of these can be adapted for any age and most can be done individually or together – encourage your kids to engage in these together if they have siblings, or alone if they need “alone time” (we know that’s best sometimes).

Math Activities and Games

• Cook or bake with an adult
• Add, subtract, multiply with cereal, legos, or other small objects
• Use dice to add and subtract and record on paper if they can- use a timer to see if they can beat their time
• Use playing cards to practice math fact fluency – add, subtract, and multiply – make it a game with siblings/parents or beat their own time using a timer
• Play store – practice buying and selling – use fake money if you have or any small items as “units of money”
• Build towers, mazes, traps
• Make a map: your room, house, community or school – you could also have your kids create a treasure map and have them hide things for each other to find
• Shape hunt/scavenger hunt: find something red, something small and square, a piece of string, money, three puzzle pieces, etc

Reading Activities and Games

• Read – to themselves, adult, teddy bear, friend, through phone/video chat, or just read with your kids if they’re not reading yet. You can also have nonreaders “read” to you by telling you the story using the pictures.
• Find nouns in your house – if possible have them write the words and add a checkmark when they find them.
• Use adjectives to describe the nouns – happy, silly, super, smart, gigantic, tiny, enormous, short, brave, bright, fluffy, adventurous
• How many verbs can you do? Have them do them and write them down in a “physical activity log” each day.
• Rhyme – you can play a rhyming game where one person says a word and the next has to rhyme with it.
• Write a letter to family or friend.

Health and Fitness Activities

Your kids can:

• Help plan and prepare a meal with your family 
• Try a new food and write a food critic review
• Have a dance party, or lookup dance tutorials on Youtube so they can learn new moves
• Stretch and breathing exercises (Cosmic Kids is a very entertaining online yoga class for kids on Youtube, (think Pokemon and Harry Potter yoga), and there are many free online yoga videos
• Workout – jumping jacks, high knees, run in place, push-ups, sit-ups, arm circles
• Write or draw your feelings about: your family, friends, pet, yourself, etc
• Learn to ride a bike
• Go for a walk, bike, scoot. Ask them to find certain objects on your walk (pine cone, red bird, dandelion).
• Play catch
• indoor snowball fight with socks
• Charades – choose a specific category, like movie characters/animals

And for now, that’s it! Let us know if you have any great homeschooling resources or activities that your kids love. And good luck parents. We got this.