So this is it… the first day of (at least) 2
weeks of e-learning. Impromptu
homeschool. The twins have MFW afternoon
preschool. The Girl is in first grade. And The Baby runs his own self-paced
leadership seminars throughout the day. Let’s
do this.
The difficulty here isn’t necessarily providing
the kids (The Girl in particular) with activities—there are plenty out there. The difficulty is how to keep them organized
and out of each other’s business long enough for some sustained learning to
occur.
We tried to make a schedule – based on this
widely shared visual. I like the
inclusion of chores, creative time, and outside time… I am not a fan of
throwing kids in front of a TV for two straight hours before they go to
bed. So we shifted it to try to meet our
needs and gave it a shot. The first
attempt at many.
I’d say mostly it went pretty well. I’m working from home so could help in a
limited capacity with high-need transition times, but mostly it was Kelly just
putting forth a herculean effort, per usual.
I’m sure I’ll include more details about
homeschool-e-learning in the future. As
a former teacher, my views on the societal value of teachers is not unbiased…
but in short, I think the vast majority of teachers are remarkable and do
immensely important work with less than sufficient recognition. I think many parents will be confronted with
just how difficult some of this work is, especially as homeschools starts to
move from “practice what you already know” to “we need to develop a new
understanding about something you haven’t previously encountered.”
All that to say, if I could step off my soapbox,
I feel fortunate and grateful that The Girl has had such a great experience so
far in first grade this year. I am
routinely impressed at how much she has learned and how much she’s improved
some essential academic skills. Case in
point, her reading. At the beginning of
the year, it was a slow process to read even very simple books. But now she is just plowing through chapter
books. She’s been on a Magic Treehouse
kick – she starts and finishes the book the same day. She can discuss the plot, make predictions,
identify clues… all sorts of stuff. It’s
really pretty great.
That’s my big takeaway from Day 1 of
e-learning/homeschool/whatever… I’m grateful The Girl is such an avid reader
and that she enjoys it so much. It’s so
fun to see.
One last thing that I’ve also been enjoying (I’ll
try to share things like this periodically) is Jarrett Lerner’s website. His free drawing activities are really fun
for all ages, and he has great writing/thinking prompts… it’s a gold mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment