Homeschooling this month? It’s easier than you might think. In fact, you are a pre-qualified expert!
Because so many people will be homeschooling for the first time, I created this Corona Special blog to share a week’s worth of super-simple, but terrific lesson plans.
If you’re like me, you like to have a plan. Especially when things seem a tad bit crazy. You CAN roll out your homeschool in the simplest, most successful way possible!
Here you will find help and easy-smeasy ideas to make you the expert! You got this!
You can do the following homeschooling lesson plans with books and supplies you already have on your shelves. No need to shop! As you will see, you probably already do many things to inspire self-learning in your children.
Homeschooling Can Be Easy!
This week, I’m posting this special blog on the weekend just to get you ready for the challenge you may feel about your week ahead. (You can find tons of great ideas for homeschooling with your kids on our website. Search Anna Krafve Pierce, here and you will find tons of easy learning ideas to use in your home.)
The following plans can easily be delegated. In order to work from home, you may need to have teenagers and grandparents engage with your little ones. Please, dear one, give yourself a break. Children are natural learners and some of the best stuff they will learn in the coming months will be about how to adapt to change and handle stress with grace. You got this! (To sign up for our free weekly podcasts and blogs, click here.)
Monday
1) Memory Work: Start with memory work, like beginning the day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Kids love memory work. Pick only one until they get it which may take several weeks. Some of our family’s favorite memory work:
- Poems, like Paul Revere’s Ride or Hiawatha
- Bible Verses, like Philippians 2
- Patriotic American speeches and documents extolling principles of freedom, like the Gettysburg Address or The Declaration of Independence
2) STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math): Make a favorite family recipe. Then, sigh with joy because you are teaching your kids science, engineering, and math the easy way. Have your children make their own math flashcards, according to their level.
3) Language Arts, History: Read the first chapter out loud of a great classic, like Charles Dickens.
4) Innovation, Ingenuity, and Stewardship: Encourage your children to use their imagination to create something wonderful. This can be a game with each other, a craft, a poem, or a gift for the neighbors. Play a game or read a children’s book in a second language. Introduce your kids to new words to stretch their vocabulary.
5) Emotional Intelligence: Remember to build individual quiet time into your day for all your family. Children, like adults, need time to decompress alone.
Homeschooling Can Spark Innovation
My son started a weekly newspaper when we homeschooled. Believe me, he quickly learned the value of a dollar as he collected his fee in coins from neighbors. Soon he was managing the business side with monthly billing. Each week he interviewed elderly neighbors about how they fell in love and how to create lasting marriages. The lovely thing about his neighborhood newspaper was how it united us all. (For more on how learning styles differ among kids, click here.)
Please turn your children loose to innovate and create! Help them understand they are stewards (managers) of the Creator’s bounty. God designed them to steward human relationships, natural resources, their own bodies, their intelligence and their opportunities. God is the leader of their team! As their parent, you are stewarding their education! Wow! (For more on how prayer can unite us, click here.)
Tuesday
1) Memory Work: Review your memory work together out loud several times. Make it fun by using silly voices, like the loud voice, the whisper voice, the Texas accent, the Irish accent.
2) STEM: Plan meals for a week together with your kids so they can learn planning skills. Inventory your pantry. Take stock of how you can work together to make your supplies last. Note anything you can share with neighbors. Talk about the way big companies use supply chains and inventory to stock for their customers. Review your kids’ math flash cards. Talk about all the ways math makes our lives better.
3) Language Arts and History: Read Chapter 2 of a great book. Act out the first two chapters just for fun.
4) Innovation, Ingenuity, and Stewardship: Relax as your children play a board game or run outside. As they use their imagination freely, they can also learn important people skills with each other.
5) Emotional Intelligence: Notice how well you are multi-tasking since #4 is also #5 today! Good job!
Wednesday
1) Memory Work: Review your family memory work out loud together.
2) STEM: Review their math flashcards quickly today because you want to do something special for your neighbors. Kids love creating surprises for others. Create a Carona Kit for your neighbors—something fun and silly to give them a little pep in their day. It could be a collection of riddles, a crossword puzzle printed off the internet, a jar filled with flowers from your yard, bread crumbs to feed the birds. (For an example of our family’s first Corona Kits, see the picture with this blog.)
3) Language Arts and History: By day three, you may be feeling the need for some rules about proper behavior to curtail bickering. Today, create a Family Magna Carter. Talk about how the original Magna Carter set the stage for American thinking about self-government. Have your children discuss the basic principles of self-government and self-respect in your home.
4) Innovation, Ingenuity, and Stewardship: See #2 above.
5) Emotional Intelligence: Relax and laugh together a lot today.
Thursday
1) Memory Work: Review your family memory work together out loud.
2) STEM: Quickly review Math flashcards. Then, let your children hand them over to you for safekeeping. Next, deliver your Corona Kits to neighbors’ doorsteps. Ring and run! Drop and dash! Fun!
3) Language Arts and History: Review your Family Magna Carter. Talk about the difference between the broad strokes of a charter or constitution and individual laws. Have older kids research the book of Romans in the Bible, looking for the purpose of law. For younger children, discuss who creates laws in our country and how laws help us.
4) Innovation, Ingenuity, and Stewardship: Read the next chapter of your classic book. Discuss what the author had to understand in order to write such a classic.
5) Emotional Intelligence: Relax and laugh. Yep, relaxing and laughing is part of homeschooling, too! Sometimes, we took whole days to do nothing but plan our next field trip. This is a great time to talk about where your family would like to go for an educational adventure.
Friday
1) Memory Work: Give rewards for independently reciting the memory work for the week.
2) STEM: Before the kids get out of bed, hide their Math flashcards all over the house in a kind of scavenger hunt Start a stopwatch and time them to see how fast they can find all their cards, reciting each card as they pick it up. The kid who gets back to you first with all his cards gets a prize. The last kid gets a silly prize like having to sit on a whoopee cushion.
3) Language Arts, History: Read the next chapter of your book. Talk about what other books your family could enjoy reading out loud together in the future.
4) Innovation, Ingenuity, and Stewardship: Post a message on Facebook about your Corona Kits. By now, you will be receiving texts or phone calls from happy neighbors about your treats. Enjoy the moment with your kids. Remind them how fun it is to put a smile on someone else’s face!
5) Emotional Intelligence: Review your week. You probably didn’t check everything off this list. Instead, you created your own unique learning and stewarding opportunities. Give yourself a lot of credit. You deserve a big hurrah!
Keep It Simple
Apprenticeship parenting means parents teach their kids terrific life skills as they go along throughout their day. So simple! Don’t stress over what your kid is missing in the classroom when you are modeling amazing leadership skills as you adapt to change and innovate yourself. You served the best interests of those you love this week. Glory! I am proud of you!
At the end of the day, pour yourself a cup of hot tea and pat yourself on the back. Your kids are better off for spending time with you–the person who loves them most in the whole world!
More Help with Homeschooling
One of my favorite leaders in the field of homeschooling, Susan Stewart, has more info on her blog than you can use in a lifetime. But it’s all practical and really helpful, so be sure and check out her stuff for encouragement and easy ideas. If you are thinking of using some of your at-home time to start that book you’ve been meaning to write, her website offers tips for you about that, too.
May I pray for you?
Dear good Father, You patiently teach us like a gentle parent with a beloved child. Your kindness to us is unlimited. We see Your creativity and goodness in all You made. Your mercy endures forever. Oh, how blessed we are to be Your children! Strengthen this dear one now as we focus on the best interests of our beloved families and neighbors. Give us courage to embrace the education of our children. Surround us with grandparents and mature friends who mutually share wisdom together. Teach our children to seek You as they develop a love for self-learning, too. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
We LOVE to hear from YOU!
What are you putting in your Corona Kits? How has homeschooling been a blessing this week? What help do you need to rock your homeschool experience?
Cathy Krafve, Columnist, Speaker, Blogger, Podcaster, and Christian Writer, invites your stories, ideas, and questions at CathyKrafve.com. Truth with a Texas Twang.
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