Tips for Teaching and Keeping Kids Happy while Stuck at Home
Around the world, schools are closing. Some of these schools are giving programs to continue learning, but others aren’t, and either way parents, grandparents and other caregivers are finding themselves suddenly full time caretakers and teachers for kids stuck at home.
As a teacher, with kids of my own, I wanted to share a few resources to help you through these weeks without losing your sanity.
Indoor Movement Activities
First off, we all know that kids need exercise to get them through the day, and there is an amazing Youtube channel that will help with that. It is called GoNoodle, and if you have never heard of this channel before it will be a lifesaver in these weeks at home.
Each video has lots of movement, a virtual obstacle course, or a dance that makes the kids smile and move. Both of my kids would be happy to do this for long stretches of time, and it also has been used at my school during rainy days to get out those wiggles.
Balloons are another great easy toy to get them moving in the house, and it also strengthens their hand-eye coordination. You would be amazed at the variety of games that kids can come up with as soon as you give them this small, cheap versatile toy. I am pretty sure that balloons are still readily available at your local store or amazon, since you can’t use them to sanitize anything.
One last movement activity only requires some of your family’s clothing. Take some socks, roll them up and tuck them in so that each one makes a ball. Then you have snowballs to be used for snowball fights, or you can use the balls to try to make a basket, knock down some plastic cups, play hot potato or any other indoor game you can think of with a ball.
Reading
Some families have access to lots of books already at home, and that will give your kids a lot of opportunities to read and be read to, but other families have never acquired a lot of kid’s books.
If your family is in the second category, don’t despair.
I recommend the website/app Libby.
This is a free resource that just requires your local library card number to use. It has a large selection of audiobooks and picture books available to borrow.
If you don’t have a library card or the ability to get to your local library, or just want another resource you can go with another site for a low monthly fee after the first 30 days are free.
This site is called Epic.
The best thing I have found with this resource is the large selection of “Read to Me” books that allow mom or dad to get some work done while the site reads the book to your child, for kids not old enough to read to themselves.
They have chapter books as well as non-fiction books available, and will easily keep your child entertained if they enjoy a good book.
There is an app for this as well, so you can put it on a tablet for your child if you don’t have a computer to offer them.
Reading has many long term benefits for kids, and if nothing else, if you have your child reading during this break, you are going to be working on a lot of skills at the same time. Reading improves vocabulary, imagination and boosts school performance in other areas as well.
If you want your kids to learn some science, encourage them to read a non-fiction science book. They can learn history through biographies and books about knights, Egyptians or other historical topics.
Then you can use what they have read to work on writing or typing skills by having them write sentences about what they have learned, typing up a Google document about the book or even making a Google slide presentation to “teach you” about whatever they learned.
Besides math, I personally would have a book focused learning for this time at home. By letting them pick the books that interest them, they will be more interested to share or write about what they have learned.
Easy math learning that you can do with the computer
I’m going to probably differ from my colleagues on my opinions about math during this time of quarantine.
I would not try to teach them something new.
Even as a teacher, I want this time to be fun. Kids are already bummed to be missing their friends, missing recess and might not be in the right mental mindset to learn something new or challenging.
If you insist on a high educational standard, you can create a free account at Khan Academy. They have grade level math courses that kids can work through with videos and quizzes, and they only move up as they pass levels.
But personally, I will be trying to keep it more fun for my kids.
I highly recommend Prodigy. It has a free version as well as a paid, member version with more perks. But my son asks me to play the game, even when I am not asking him to learn.
It is set up like a role playing game that you have your character that does attacks, much like Final Fantasy or Pokemon. But the trick is that every attack requires a correct answer to a math question. They even keep track of the questions your child gets right and wrong, so that you can see how they are doing.
It goes all the way through grade 8, and as your child progresses, they go to the next grade level if they are proficient at the grade level you start them at.
I also recommend Sheppard Software for math practice, as it has fun games to reinforce concepts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and more. Even once this time at home ends, it is my recommended resource to practice any skill your child is behind in- even fractions, decimals, percentages etc.
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