Distance Learning in the Home

 As a teacher I thought that teaching my own child from home would be easy. Boy was I wrong!! Trying to navigate through her live sessions, my live sessions, her computer assignments, my teacher meetings, setting up my lessons, and the list goes on, has proven to be incredibly challenging. My husband has returned to working outside our home, so my daughter and I have to be ruthlessly organized in order to make this craziness work. 

We started our year off with an at home schedule that follows our live sessions and allows each of us the time we need on the computer get the day to day stuff done for school for both of us. We color coded it so she can see when her favorite parts of the day are coming up and when she has to be focused and working hard. All of her quiet or independent activities coincide with all of my live sessions or meetings. This way she has an activity to keep her occupied that does not require my assistance and I know that I can focus on my meetings with students and staff without interruption. So far it is working really well for us. 

Her favorite time of day is Creative Time. This is when she does all kids of STEM or building activities. Some of them I prep the night before for her to use and others are from her Kiwi Crate kits. If you haven't heard of those yet, I encourage you to check them out. They have been a lifesaver for us during quarantine. You can check them out here. I am not sponsored by them. I am just a parent who really loves their product. The activities that we prep for her include legos and STEM activities from Brooke Brown's amazing collection of STEM products. With legos we pull her lego bins out and give her a step by step direction sheet of something to create. These you can find on the Lego website. Then she has to create a second item from her own imagination that could go with whatever we asked her to build. 

This schedule is keeping me sane and my little one busy while we are learning and teaching from home. I encourage you to come up with a schedule for your family as well. It will help keep you organized and help children transition back to school a little easier. 

Ashley