5 ideas for an organized home school day
Is anyone else challenged with keeping your kids anchored, regulated and focused for online learning?! Raana shares a few tips that have helped in her house:
Like many of you, having everyone at home these days is challenging enough with managing the kids online learning schedules, but how can we help our kids make the experience a productive and fun one? Here are a few tips that have helped in my house:
1. Create a space for learning: Our dining room has become a work space for all! It’s great because we each have a dedicated place to sit and enough space to move around if we need. Plus, there’s a wall behind my son so that I can move around freely without making cameos during his live sessions! (Yes, that did happen on the first day, in my pajamas and bathrobe no less!)
2. Set expectations: we have our daily schedule taped to the tablecloth so that my son can see what’s coming next and can easily access zoom codes so that he can dial into his online classes himself.
3. Provide supports: Need help for the wiggles? I keep a basket of hand fidgets, mini chewy candy packs and chewing gum on our dining table. My son can grab any of them (limited to 2 gums and 1 candy per day) when he feels like it. This weighted lap pad worked wonders at helping my son get through yesterday’s last hour! The weight provides pressure on his legs and helps his mind focus on the task at hand rather than wanting to move.
-Kids don’t have to sit in a chair the whole time. How about trying an exercise ball or letting them stand, especially during the live sessions.
-Headphones! They’re great to keep noise in during live classes (and won’t annoy siblings!) Noise cancelling ones are great to keep noise out. Not only for kids, parents should think about using these too! (I’ve been seen using these in the past few days😉)
4. Organize your breaks: I also have 3 baskets of activities on a table in another room that I change out each day. There’s 1 activity in each basket and contain screen free activities like Uno card game, play dirt, slime making, lacing activities, drawing with really cool markers, making brownies, etc. You can also use that time for free play, reading a book (on own or together), listening to an audio story, playing basketball or soccer, etc. Tailor these baskets to your child’s interest. During breaks, we don’t waste time trying to figure out what to do, we just go to our baskets and he gets to choose.
5. Alison shared that she makes packed lunches each day to minimize on time spent in meal prep during the day’s breaks. You can just grab and go to the dining table or maybe mix it up one day with a picnic in your garden or living room!
-The key is to be organized so that the day can run smoothly and minimize time spent on decisions like what to eat or what to do next.
-What has worked for you? Do you have any tips to share? Please do so in the comment below!
- Raana Smith
