Emergency Homeschooling Resources
For those of you who are here because you have become a home educator unexpectedly due to pandemic-related challenges, I welcome you to use this blog as a home base and resource center. Please reach out with questions and tips!
If you need help navigating any of these websites, please contact me! I am happy to guide you through them.
Khan Academy - Math, History, Grammar
Hundreds of lessons sorted by grade level and Common Core standard. Create a class for each child to assign them independent work.
ABC Mouse - Reading, Math, Science
AbcMouse.com is offering lessons in different subjects like math, science and art for free thanks to the amazing department of UNICEF that deals with emergency education around the world (my mom is their admin!). Go to ABCmouse.com/redeem and type in the code "AOFLUNICEF"
Reading AZ / RAZ Kids - Decoding, Sight Words and Comprehension
Tons of books and lessons, organized by reading level! This resource is amazing! Try a 30 day trial of this service and let's hope the kids are back in school by the time it runs out!
Google - History, ELA
Virtual tours of Museums Around the World
Virtual tours of Museums Around the World
San Diego Zoo - Science
Live cams of zoo animals! What's better than that?
Live cams of zoo animals! What's better than that?
A Two Week Plan for Homeschooling
The info below should be able to get you through 2 weeks of learning.
Wake up at the same time they would for school. Have them wash up and get dressed as if they were going to campus. If their school has been diligent about setting up a digital system, great! If not, here's a sample schedule for K-8, adding 5-10 min breaks as needed (time these!):
8:15-8:30am: Mindfulness: https://youtu.be/Bk_qU7l-fcU
8:30-9:30am: Math lesson or activity (below, or see links on Emergency Resources page)
9:30 - 10:30am: D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read). Get cozy, it's silent reading time.
10:30 - 11:30am: Science lesson or activity
11:30-12:00: Clean-up/organize. Coach them in how to clean up.
12-12:30: Lunch - Coach them in making it themselves, if possible
12:30-1pm: "Recess" outdoors. Or follow a workout or yoga video of their choice.
1-2:00pm: ELA Lesson or activity
10 Easy Math Activities:
1. Play Monopoly and have your child be the banker. Coach them through making their own change.
2. Teach them about time. Have them calculate the minutes in a day, or the seconds. What time will it be two and a half hours from now? What time was it 11 hours ago? Have them guess how long something will take and let them record the actual time.
3. Play with the Calendar Can you figure out what day of the week your birthday will fall on? How much older are you than your brother? How many years ago was 1986?
4. Measurement - Talk to them about units of measurement and have them estimate the size of things around the house and check. If you don't have a ruler at home, have them practice estimation (we know that a sheet of paper is 11.5") and help them evaluate their reasoning.
5. Estimate the number of marbles in a jar/rice in a cup/anything in anything. Check answers.
6. Cook - Double a recipe together, or cut it in half. Talk about fractions.
7. Money - Have them label Items In the house with estimated prices. Choose a few items and have them do the mental math to estimate the total cost. Evaluate their answers together.
8. Find the "WHY?" - Have them make a list of all the ways that people use math. Profile someone in the world whose job requires math skills.
9. Make a chart or graph. About anything.
10. Draw floor plans of your house, or your dream house.
10 Easy English Language Arts Activities:
1. Read aloud, or put on an audiobook.
2. NewsELA.com - Sign up for free for Newsela.com. You can adjust any text to fit your child's grade level or reading level. Have them read once for comprehension. Then have them read again while highlighting important ideas or words (or taking notes if no printer is available). Finally, have them take the quiz and self-check answers.
3. Read the newspaper together. Find difficult vocabulary and try to figure out what it means without looking it up. Then look it up.
4. KhanAcademy.org - Khan has grammar lessons!
5. Biography - Research a person of interest, or write an autobiography
6. Informational Text - Read and interpret instructions for that game that no one in the family knows how to play. Or read and interpret a recipe.
7. Use a model text - Choose a story of interest. What do you like about the writing? Was it descriptive? Dramatic? Write a story and try to mimic what the author does.
8. eHow -Find something of interest to learn on eHow.com. Read and interpret the instructions.
9. Keep a daily journal. We are living through a major historical event. What does it feel like?
10. Interview the family. Come up with thoughtful questions for a family member. Take notes during the interview. Write up a summary.
*BONUS* Read together! - This one is my favorite so I had to tag it on. Kids notice when we ask something of them that we don't do ourselves. Dust off that novel and join them on the couch!
10 Easy Science Activities:
1. Research something. Cite your sources.
2. Measure things.
3. Survey people.
4. Graph stuff.
5. Make hypotheses. Test them.
6. Build the tallest structure possible using only ______.
7. Make detailed observations.
8. Explore rates using timers.
9. Build a Rube-Goldberg machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vXwWfEfGM
10. Build with Legos. It counts. ;)
Or check out http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/ for fun, hands-on projects.
Wake up at the same time they would for school. Have them wash up and get dressed as if they were going to campus. If their school has been diligent about setting up a digital system, great! If not, here's a sample schedule for K-8, adding 5-10 min breaks as needed (time these!):
8:15-8:30am: Mindfulness: https://youtu.be/Bk_qU7l-fcU
8:30-9:30am: Math lesson or activity (below, or see links on Emergency Resources page)
9:30 - 10:30am: D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read). Get cozy, it's silent reading time.
10:30 - 11:30am: Science lesson or activity
11:30-12:00: Clean-up/organize. Coach them in how to clean up.
12-12:30: Lunch - Coach them in making it themselves, if possible
12:30-1pm: "Recess" outdoors. Or follow a workout or yoga video of their choice.
1-2:00pm: ELA Lesson or activity
10 Easy Math Activities:
1. Play Monopoly and have your child be the banker. Coach them through making their own change.
2. Teach them about time. Have them calculate the minutes in a day, or the seconds. What time will it be two and a half hours from now? What time was it 11 hours ago? Have them guess how long something will take and let them record the actual time.
3. Play with the Calendar Can you figure out what day of the week your birthday will fall on? How much older are you than your brother? How many years ago was 1986?
4. Measurement - Talk to them about units of measurement and have them estimate the size of things around the house and check. If you don't have a ruler at home, have them practice estimation (we know that a sheet of paper is 11.5") and help them evaluate their reasoning.
5. Estimate the number of marbles in a jar/rice in a cup/anything in anything. Check answers.
6. Cook - Double a recipe together, or cut it in half. Talk about fractions.
7. Money - Have them label Items In the house with estimated prices. Choose a few items and have them do the mental math to estimate the total cost. Evaluate their answers together.
8. Find the "WHY?" - Have them make a list of all the ways that people use math. Profile someone in the world whose job requires math skills.
9. Make a chart or graph. About anything.
10. Draw floor plans of your house, or your dream house.
10 Easy English Language Arts Activities:
1. Read aloud, or put on an audiobook.
2. NewsELA.com - Sign up for free for Newsela.com. You can adjust any text to fit your child's grade level or reading level. Have them read once for comprehension. Then have them read again while highlighting important ideas or words (or taking notes if no printer is available). Finally, have them take the quiz and self-check answers.
3. Read the newspaper together. Find difficult vocabulary and try to figure out what it means without looking it up. Then look it up.
4. KhanAcademy.org - Khan has grammar lessons!
5. Biography - Research a person of interest, or write an autobiography
6. Informational Text - Read and interpret instructions for that game that no one in the family knows how to play. Or read and interpret a recipe.
7. Use a model text - Choose a story of interest. What do you like about the writing? Was it descriptive? Dramatic? Write a story and try to mimic what the author does.
8. eHow -Find something of interest to learn on eHow.com. Read and interpret the instructions.
9. Keep a daily journal. We are living through a major historical event. What does it feel like?
10. Interview the family. Come up with thoughtful questions for a family member. Take notes during the interview. Write up a summary.
*BONUS* Read together! - This one is my favorite so I had to tag it on. Kids notice when we ask something of them that we don't do ourselves. Dust off that novel and join them on the couch!
10 Easy Science Activities:
1. Research something. Cite your sources.
2. Measure things.
3. Survey people.
4. Graph stuff.
5. Make hypotheses. Test them.
6. Build the tallest structure possible using only ______.
7. Make detailed observations.
8. Explore rates using timers.
9. Build a Rube-Goldberg machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3vXwWfEfGM
10. Build with Legos. It counts. ;)
Or check out http://www.sciencefun.org/kidszone/experiments/ for fun, hands-on projects.