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5 Tips for Parents Doing School at Home

March 29, 2020
By Coastal Community School

 

Coastal Community School is a “hybrid” model school. Our students and families use prepared lesson plans from a qualified, classroom teacher and complete instruction using these lesson plans 2 days at home (from a parent) and 3 days at school (from a classroom teacher). Our parents are pros at doing school at home, which is what all parents in our country are facing in this “school at home”.

While our parents bear their own apprehensions right now about doing school at home 5 days a week, they know they have the instructional support of administration and their teachers to guide their extra time at home. We hope you do too! Here are some things we’ve learned along the way..  

5 Tips for Parents Doing School at Home

1. Be prepared to focus on school first.

Don’t try to fit school into your day, work your day around school! Have all materials in one area and within reach. 

2. Breaks are good for the brain.

Take breaks as needed, because you can - there aren’t other classmates to hold back, disrupt, or inconvenience - working individually is a convenience!

3. Be flexible, especially with multiple siblings.

If you have multiple siblings working together, teach/guide one while the other plays an educational technology game and then switch! And, acknowledge that students, even siblings, have different temperaments and work at different paces. 

4. Make learning meaningful.

Use lessons learned during the day in later play to make instructional concepts concrete - a history lesson can lead to watching a related movie, a science lesson can lead to an experiment, such as setting off rockets or baking a cake, a literature reading can inspire an art project or drama role play!

5. Embrace this opportunity for individual instruction.

Individualized instruction is the best instruction! If you know a better method than the textbook steps to teach something to your child to help them understand a concept, do it! Better that they learn the information in the lesson rather than a lesson in “going through the motions to get it done”. You will come to know your child’s individual strengths and weaknesses. The dynamic at home will be different than in a classroom. Harness and focus on the strengths. A textbook alone is not “the curriculum”. Teaching, learning, practicing, exploring, and absorbing are all part of a comprehensive curriculum.

Numbers 6:24-26

‘“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”’

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