Setting Up a Home Classroom

Chances are that the pandemic COVID-19 has impacted your family's life and educational choices. Parents and children are staying home together and must adjust to a new work-life with new routines. It can be challenging for parents to fulfill their job requirements while implementing a learning plan for their kids' academic needs.

Homeschooling looks different for every family. The two most common approaches are a traditional school setting and a more relaxed method that stresses the children's independence and ignites their curiosity.

Here is some guidance on how to set up a home classroom:

1. Communicate your expectations to your kids and set goals and daily schedules. At the same time, be flexible and make changes if something doesn't work with your family's routine. Involving children in planning and decision making encourages them to participate in this alternative learning experience.

2. Understand your children's learning style and motivation to determine the best time and way for them to learn. Pick the time of day that fits your schedule and works best for your child. There are four learning styles:

• visual: a child learns best using pictures and images
• auditory: a child learns best through listening and talking
• verbal: a child learns best through reading and writing
• kinesthetic: a child learns best through experience and practice

3. To plan classroom activities, consider your child's age and attention span. You might have to sit and help younger children while older kids can study independently. Children's attention span grows by two to three minutes per year. A two-year-old can concentrate on a task for 4-6 minutes, but a sixteen-year-old can maintain focus for up to 48 minutes. Make sure to eliminate any distractions: such as noise, tiredness, hunger, and boredom. To help them concentrate: be creative, give them fidget toys, check on them frequently, and build in breaks.

4. Start slow, take your time to add things to the schedule. Start the day with something fun and then add subjects gradually and increase the time each day.

5. Determine what subjects your child will study while in homeschool. Use the school primary subjects as guidance while finding age-appropriate activities. The basic elementary school subjects are mathematics, science, social studies, and language arts. Do not have the same classes every day, either alternate them or concentrate on only a few. There are additional subjects that are as important as the primary ones such as physical education, arts, and crafts, music, foreign languages, etc. You can decide which subjects are the most important for your family.

6. Don't be too rigid with the schedule, make sure to include some non-school related tasks. Many schools removed home economics from their curriculum, so it would be a perfect time to teach your kids life skills such as:

• Cooking and making healthy food choices
• Organizing toys, books, and their room
• Counting money or learning about saving and investing
• Taking the trash out and loading the dishwasher
• Separating clothes for laundry and learning to use a washing machine
• Planning a vegetable garden
• Talking about how to find reliable news sources and internet safety
• Learning about mental health and how to talk about it

7. Nobody expects parents to turn into experienced teachers and come up with a curriculum on all these subjects. Feel free to ask your child's school for help, use online sources, activity books, ask your friends and neighbor for suggestions, or visit your library or bookstore for ideas.

The most important thing to remember is to have fun and spend as much time relaxing with your children as you can. Try not to worry about their academic grade while being home. To reduce stress, stay active, eat healthy meals, and limit screen time as much as you can. We are all role models to our kids; as guides help them solve problems, deal with many different expectations, and teach them to help others.