Coronavirus Homeschooling: What We Are Doing
We are heading into Week 4 of school being canceled in Austin, TX. We are anticipating the need to shelter in place for the long haul (until there is a vaccine?). So I worked with the staff at our school to come up with a coronavirus homeschooling approach. Our school is intentionally one of the most diverse schools in the entire city of Austin—racially, culturally, and socioeconomically. Therefore, we wanted a plan that could serve all families.
We decided to go with primarily digital apps for a variety of reasons. First, synchronous learning can be really hard. For families with multiple children, you would need to make sure there’s a 1:1 device to child ratio (which is not true in a lot of our families). Secondly, synchronous learning is really challenging for teachers. They have to juggle homeschooling their own children and 20+ other children simultaneously. It can also be difficult to engage learners virtually—both young children and older children!
There are many digital educational apps that provide really good adaptive content. The apps also help to build children’s independence with their work over time (since it’s the same routine every single day). More independence helps free up the parents and guardians to attend to their work or other household responsibilities.
We chose apps that could work on a smartphone, since the vast majority of our families have at least a smartphone. Then we delivered Chromebooks to everyone that needed them.
You can find the full explanation of our Digital Learning for Equity plan here. And if you (or someone you know) is interested in joining an upcoming webinar and small-group learning experience, you can send them here to sign up!
The plan is working really well for our boys. As 1st and 3rd graders, here’s what they have to do every day:
- Lexia for phonics and spelling: Lexia is an awesome reading app that I love! (The boys just think it’s okay). It builds a strong foundation in phonics and other literacy skills. My kids really need phonics (the research says that 60% of kids really need phonics), so I love this program. They can see if they are meeting their recommended usage every week (which is 60 minutes for both of them).
- Reading A-Z (RAZ Kids) for independent reading: My kids are both drawn to reading books that are way above their levels, so they have learned to just skip over hard words. It’s a terrible habit! That’s why I love asking them to read texts on their level in the “Level Up” feature of RAZ Kids. They also answer short comprehension quizzes and earn points.
- IXL for Math Lessons: Our math specialist makes a math video every day with a lesson related to the IXL work for the day. Then my kids have to complete two standards. This program is decent.
- Prodigy for Math Practice: Prodigy is a game-based product that kids love! It’s essentially just a lot of math practice problems, but it’s very engaging. We ask children to complete at least 10 problems a day.
- Writing for 20 minutes: Matt is working with the boys to write comic boys right now, as well as drawing and labeling pictures. My kids are very reluctant writers!
- LetterSchool or iTrace for handwriting practice: Tate needs this so badly!
- BrainPOP Jr. for Science and Social Studies: My kids love watching the 5-minute videos about science and social studies topics in BrainPOP Jr. The content is really well done, too. We are studying about the human body right now. After we learn a bunch of stuff, we are going to make a big human body on paper with all the different systems.
- All About Spelling: Our school uses Lexia for spelling during Distance Learning, but we use All About Spelling at home as well. I really love the program and think it has benefited my children immensely.
- Daily Dyslexia Lesson: Henry received a dyslexia diagnosis this year, so the reading specialist at our school produces a daily video for everyone in his group to watch asynchronously.
I’ve enjoyed reading all the various articles about coronavirus homeschooling. There are articles about how schools shouldn’t be doing anything at all because it’s not going to reach the families in low-income communities. (At my school, we know it’s harder to reach the families in low-income communities, but it’s also worth it.) I’ve also read articles about how families should just let their kids watch TV all day and their children will be fine (which is true for many upper-class families with high levels of education).
These are such unprecedented and uncertain times we are living in. For now, I’m feeling good about the work we are incorporating on a daily basis.
What route have you decided to take with your children? And how is it going?
4 Comments
Carissa
Ah, your list of resources is so helpful. Our oldest is in kindergarten right now and we also have a two-year old at home. Our school uses Lexia for language and Freckle for math. And they just started a program called Seesaw that I find pretty clunky and not really educational, but a way to ‘turn in’ work for attendance. I’ve made a note of a few of the other digital resources you listed so we can expand what he is working on at home. But, to be honest, it’s been really, really hard. My partner and I both work full time at home now – with increased work load stress caused by the pandemic – so adding on top just the childcare alone each day is a lot. And our kindergarten is a sweet boy with developmental delays. His teachers and therapists have worked so hard with him all year long and he had been doing so well, so I know it’s really important to keep him from backsliding. But it’s also hard because we have to sit with him the entire time to keep him focused and doing his work. We have days where we do good with it all, and we have days where we don’t. Mostly, I’m prioritizing keeping everyone (mostly myself) calm, patient, kind, and extending grace in lots of directions. I have no idea where he will be whenever school gets to be back in session. And I might have to advocate for having him repeat his year of kindergarten. I’m doing my best to remember what I can control, and what is beyond my control, and accept wherever we are at the end of this. Hope you all take care. Thanks again for the resources.
Sara Cotner
I’m glad they were helpful, Carissa! One of my teachers really likes Freckle math. And I have heard that Seesaw is better than Google Classroom for turning in assignments, but our team went with Google Classroom. I hear you on 24/7 parenting/working/childcare/surviving. And your priorities sound spot on! And your reminders to yourself to remember what you can control (and can’t control) are so important. Thank you so much for sharing! Sending well wishes your way…
Mary B.
I’m currently doing home learning with my third grader. She attends an alternative school with a large focus on hands-on learning and cross-curricular learning, so what we’re doing tends to align well with how she would be learning at school. The guidelines in Ontario are 5 hrs/week for JK-grade 3 with a focus on mathematics and literacy (both French and English). Her teacher has set up some different programs through their google classroom, although we are doing our own thing (it helps that I am a teacher, too). She does an hour of literacy (I build social studies and science into this) and an hour of math a day. I am choosing to go a low-tech route, because my child cannot handle extra screen time. She’s also doing virtual piano lessons and plays ukulele with me, and I figure everything else will fall into place via play/self-directed learning (lots of crafts, baking, pretend play, outdoor time, building, etc).
I am also making the leap to distance education as I try to teach grade one math without a grade one classroom! There are so many variables to consider: equity of tech access, parent schedules, special needs, who has a printer, whether work can be completely independently or not…it’s a huge challenge to do while also caring for my 18 month old and my 8 year old. Currently we are being told to plan activities that maintain key skills, and we will eventually branch out into teaching new skills online. We have to be very specific about the what and the how! It can be tricky to plan lessons with multiple entry points while having access to school resources and the routines of the classroom, and doing it via distance adds another level of difficulty! Still, I am happy with the level of collaboration that I see in the primary department of my school, and with the support and flexibility that is being given to the teachers now also doing home learning or distance education with their kids.
Sara Cotner
I love this, Mary!
I wish I could use my teaching skills to create really hands-on and cross-curricular learning experiences for my kids. I’m working so much that all we really have time for is to support them on their educational apps.
I’m not letting myself feel guilty though. They are only doing about 2 hours of school work a day, which leaves a lot of time for imaginative play and sheer randomness! Today it was carving a shield out of cardboard (Henry) and building a “surfboard” out of a small piece of wood (Tate). Plus they were swimming and pretending that screwdrivers were “activated air tanks.”
We are making it day by day!