So, you’ve chosen a career which, quite by design, has nothing whatsoever to do with spending all day with your kids and providing them with an education and 15 hours of entertainment per day. There’s nothing wrong with that until WHAM, COVID-19 says you’re staying home and doing just that. You’re overwhelmed. You’re confused. You’re lost. The school has stepped in to help and provided you with 5 hours of screen time per day, but maybe this solution doesn’t feel great to you, or maybe you’re not sure what to do when those 5 hours are up, because there are still another 10 waking hours in the day.
Well, I’m here to help. I also chose a career which, quite by design, had nothing whatsoever to do with spending all day with my kids and providing them with an education, (I was a PI in my past life). Then I decided, fortunately before COVID decided for me, that I’d rather prepare 72 snacks per day, listen to tiny people tell stories about things that happened 6 minutes earlier, and, lucky for you, write curriculum about seemingly obscure subjects. Check it out.
When you step outside of the traditional schooling box, think of all the stuff your student isn’t learning and yet, somehow is expected to potentially choose as a lifelong profession the moment they turn 18. We have those classes. We have architecture, dissection (I don’t mean that one frog you did in high school), coding for 5 year olds, dinosaurs, comic book creation, math games, immigration for middle schoolers, life skills (think sewing, gift wrapping, CPR)…I could go on and on.
There is so much to learn that doesn’t come in a math book. In the coming weeks, we’re going to be putting together some unit studies that you can do in your home and neighborhood without violating the 6 foot rule. We’ll provide resources and ideas you can use to explore these subjects.
Note: Netflix, Prime, and YouTube are great places to find episodes and educational videos we may reference. Even with the library closed, there are tons of ways to access books. Epic is an app, and there are many others that offer subscriptions for book downloads. YouTube has read-alouds for tons of titles. Public libraries offer Libby, Overdrive, and other programs which allow you to check out digital resources or audio books without going in person.
