Suddenly homeschooling? Here are some tips and links to help you out. Sorry, I can’t send wine.

If you are a parent whose children attend public or private school and now they are suddenly home you may be panicking a little. That panic may be because you know they are going to drive you crazy, or it may be because you are afraid they are going to fall behind on their lessons. Either way, you’re feeling the stress right now.

Welcome to the world of this already homeschooling mom. *wink*

Seriously, though, stay calm. It’s not as hard as you think.

Maybe your child’s teacher has already given you lessons, paperwork, etc., but maybe your child has already worked through it or would simply like some supplemental educational resources. Either way, I’ve pulled together some links and advice that might help you feel a little calmer about the situation you’ve been placed in.

Blogger Heather Dawn from Every Small Voice had some great advice about this on Friday, actually, so make sure to check out her post as well. 

One of the most important lessons I have learned from homeschooling is something Heather mentioned on her blog as well and that is that homeschooling is not going to look or act like public school and that is okay.

As I told a friend this week: The issue is that a lot of parents think homeschooling has to be exactly like public school, in that the kids have to be sitting in a class for six hours at a time. That’s not the case. Kids aren’t even in instruction time all day at school. They have recess and lunch and study hall and getting on and off buses and by the time they are done they really have only had 2-3 hours of instruction time, perhaps a little more as they get older.

Also, with younger children, everyday activities can be a chance for learning. For example, when my daughter wants to play a game or watch something on my phone she has to type in my passcode and has been learning her numbers that way. If she wants to watch one of her kid-friendly shows on YouTube, she and I search for it together, which helps her practice her letters.

On Friday my daughter and I were outside drawing with sidewalk chalk and she was practicing writing her letters at the same time.  Homeschooling creates many hands-on situations like this for every age.

Unlike what some may think, homeschooling families do not simply sit at home playing video games, though they probably have more time to do that than some students since they don’t have homework. They do all of their work during lessons, which means homework is completely unnecessary. 

And speaking of lessons, some students are self-sufficient when it comes to their lessons and assignments and some students require the parent to be more of a teacher to them. Every age group and student is different. Our family has set curriculum that I research prior to each school year, but we also supplement with a number of resources, both written and digital.

We currently use America the Beautiful for our social studies; Apologia for our Science; CTC Math for math; Saxon Grammar and Writing for part of English and we read books through America the Beautiful and on our own for English.

For my 5-year old we use The Good and the Beautiful.

I won’t lie that we have been pretty thrilled with the free resources popping up for parents who have been flung suddenly into a homeschooling situation so I want to share some of the links I’ve found that have popped up recently, as well as resources we use in our regular homeschooling lessons.

So far, we have enjoyed Mo Willems, who is the current Kennedy Center Artist in Residence (literally), and is offering an art demonstration and lesson for young children every weekend day at 1 p.m.

Michelle at Blessings By Me mentioned a resource in the comments and I’m adding it here. Supercharged Science will send you science experiments via your email and explanations of the experiments, according to Michelle. Thank you to her for this additional link!

Crash Course offers digital learning on their YouTube channels related to history and science and current events. Their channel is aimed toward older children maybe 12 and up. My son has already been a little more mature than his peers so it’s hard for me to gauge the age that this would be appropriate for accurately. You might just want to watch a couple videos and see if the channel would be right for your student.  We use their videos as supplemental resources for our Social Studies and Science.

Speaking of YouTube, you can find a lot of supplemental videos there for a variety of subjects, but always be sure to vet them and double-check they are from reliable sources. 

Also on YouTube are a few videos from a farmer friend of ours. It’s good for students to understand the importance of farmers, especially right now when people are panicking about a possible lack of food. Mark creates videos to educate children and others about dairy farming. I don’t know how he even has time with all the work he has on the farm! My 5-year old really enjoyed this one.

I also saw a blog post from Cornerstone Confessions that shared a huge list of online activities to support music education.

I’m barely on Facebook, but I did happen to catch a very extensive list of sites offering either virtual tours of museums and zoos or other educational opportunities. The sites range from offering ways to learn about art, history, culture, and music and other academics to simply offering ideas for child-related activities. FYI: not all these sites or activities are free.

• Google Arts and Culture partnered with over 2,500 museums and galleries around the world to offer virtual tours of their spaces. Some of the options include New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum- https://artsandculture.google.com/partner?hl=en
  The Louvre, based in Paris, is also offering its own virtual tour online for free- https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne
• The San Diego Zoo has a live webcam for animals- https://zoo.sandiegozoo.org/live-cams
• Explore the surface of Mars on the Curiosity Rover- https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/
• This iconic museum located in the heart of London allows virtual visitors to tour the Great Court and discover the ancient Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies- https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/
• Geography with National Geographic- https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
• Children’s books read by famous- people https://www.storylineonline.net/
• Crafts and activities- https://www.allkidsnetwork.com/
• Fun games, recipes, crafts, activities- https://www.highlightskids.com/
• Online history classes for all ages preteen through adults- https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive
• Educational games K-12- https://www.breakoutedu.com/funathome
• 35,000 pages of online content on the cultures and countries of the world- https://www.countryreports.org/
• Illustrated recipes designed to help kids age 2-12 cook. Recipes encourage culinary skills, literacy, maths and science- https://www.nomsterchef.com/nomster-recipe-library
• Young Explorers is a magazine designed specifically for young children. Children can listen to the magazine being read to them as they follow along with the highlighted text- https://ngexplorer.cengage.com/ngyoungexplorer/index.html
• Type in any city, state, or country to view an archive of historical photographs and other documents. It’s a unique way to help children learn about history-
  http://www.whatwasthere.com/
• Helps children learn to appreciate the arts by providing them with the opportunity to play games, conduct investigations, and explore different forms of art- https://artsology.com/
• Live video of the National Zoo and Smithsonian Learning Lab right- https://www.si.edu/kids
• This NASA initiative covers a wide range of topics including weather, climate, atmosphere, water, energy, plants, and animals- https://climatekids.nasa.gov/
• Kids Think Design explores careers in fashion design, graphic design, interior design, book design, product design, film and theatre, architecture, animation, and environmental design- http://www.kidsthinkdesign.org/
• Kid-friendly workouts — choose from Strength for Kids, Agility for Kids, Flexibility and Balance for Kids, Warm-Up for Kids, Cooldown for Kids, Stand Up and Move for Kids, OR create your own custom kid workout- https://app.sworkit.com/collections/kids-workouts
• Mo Willems, the author of ‘Don’t let the Pigeon Stay up Late’ is uploading daily drawing lessons-
  https://youtu.be/MjaYnyCJDdU
• Maths as a fun part of your daily family routine- http://bedtimemath.org/
• Music is for everyone- https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments
• Projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing- https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/…/learnathome.html
• Learn a language- https://www.duolingo.com/
• Yoga and mindfulness for kids-
  https://youtu.be/0ImHIWzP49M
• Online classes for kids- https://outschool.com/#abk7vott3k
• Short videos and texts that answer various burning questions for children. There are vocabulary challenges and comprehension questions- http://wonderopolis.org/
• Learn to code- https://www.codecademy.com/
• Listen to astronauts at Story Time From Space- https://storytimefromspace.com/library/
• Math games galore- https://gridclub.com/
• Lots of science experiments that you can do at home-
  https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/
• Work on the 8 parts of speech- https://www.grammaropolis.com/
• Google Earth. All sorts of learning here- https://www.google.com/earth/
• Scratch teaches students all about coding- https://scratch.mit.edu/
• A wonderful, endlessly detailed way to get kids engaged in the world of art- https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/metkids/
• Tests kids’ geography skills. Using images from Google’s Street View, it plops players down in the middle of the street and asks them to figure out where they are- https://www.geoguessr.com/
• Short videos about numbers that help kids explore complex math topics and make math more fun- https://www.numberphile.com/
• Helps kids learn to appreciate the arts by providing them with the opportunity to play games, conduct investigations, and explore different forms of art- https://artsology.com/
• Lets kids play instruments online. Instruments include the guitar, piano, pan flute, drums, and bongos- https://www.virtualmusicalinstruments.com/
• A large selection of fun songs to help teach preschool students- https://www.songsforteaching.com/preschoolkindergarten.htm
• This NASA initiative covers a wide range of topics including weather, climate, atmosphere, water, energy, plants, and animals- https://climatekids.nasa.gov/
• Coding for ages 4-10- https://www.kodable.com/
• For budding Marine Biologists- take a deep dive into ocean life. https://ocean.si.edu/
• Science podcasts to listen to with your kids- https://medium.com/…/19-great-science-podcasts-you-can-list…
• Red Tent Art- step by step instructions on art projects including origami, Easter, 3D cards, clay pots, etc- https://www.youtube.com/user/redtedart
• ABC- Educational resources- https://education.abc.net.au/home#!/home
• Boost writing confidence with Storybird- http://storybird.com/
• Kids numbers- http://www.kidsnumbers.com/
• Maths Frame- http://www.mathsframe.co.uk/default.aspx
• Make your own animated videos with Go animate- http://goanimate.com/
• Prezi (make your presentations zoom) http://prezi.com/
• Create interactive avatars to showcase children’s learning- Voki: http://www.voki.com/
• Go Geocatching- https://geocaching.com.au
• The Kid Should See This- https://thekidshouldseethis.com
• Lady Gaga’s former backup dancer, Mark Kanemura, is hosting virtual dance sessions on his Instagram page- https://instagram.com/mkik808?igshid=xp9gywx8gc02

Have any tips of your own for parents who are “suddenly homeschooling”? Or links to blog or sites that do? Let me know in the comments and feel free to leave links (I’ll check my spam in case any of them get kicked in there.)