Homeschooling Tips for Difficult Times

• Find your minimum: At the beginning of the week, right after we'd found out the news, I took time to let go of my weekly expectations. The kids were sad, and I wanted to respect their grief so I consciously went through our school agenda for the week and removed everything but the barebones of our curriculum. 

• Supplement your learning: 

• Audio Books: A fun way to supplement learning! My family lives three hours away, so we had a lot of time in the car together. To get the most out of an audio book, I like to pause it intermittently and check in with the kids: "Who are the characters so far?" "What just happened?" "What do you think will happen next?" Easy questions like these help kids build reading comprehension strategies that then help with written material, too. Some audio books we enjoy: The Penderwicks, The Children of Green Knowe 

• Simple Learning Activities: Especially if they're portable, and can travel with you! They're easy to do during long car rides (see above) or in a quiet corner of a funeral home. Here's a few that both my older kids enjoy: Toothpick & Rubber Band Patterns, Busy Bag Buttoning, Leaf Sewing Practice

• Learning Books: Right now we're reading the "Life of Fred" series, which the kids love. Each book introduces math concepts through easy, kid-friendly, very funny stories. Isia enjoys reading by herself during quiet time! So I made sure to pack our current book (see link) for bedtime reading, since the chapters are quick & it's great, low-key learning to discuss the end-of-chapter questions together.

• Learn From It: There were quite a few hands-on learning experiences last week that had nothing to with our curriculum. We learned how to dress for a visitation & funeral. How to shake hands and properly introduce ourselves to adults, especially during the visitation. We learned what's helpful- getting water & extra Kleenexes for Great-Grandma, and what's not helpful. We learned what grief looks like, and had some great, age-appropriate conversations about death. 

• Let it go: Lastly, it's extra important to take care of yourself. During the week, the kids watched several episodes of  "Reading Rainbow" & "Wild Kratts" so I could recharge and work through my own grief. I think honoring & being present for my own grief made me more compassionate to my children's as well. 

The 17-Cent Daily Homeschool Calendar for Kids

• Daily Chores: Bed-making, un-loading dishwasher, emptying trashcans, organizing our shoe area, & sweeping the deck are favorites around here.

•  Daily Weather: Billy only draws the weather so far, but Isia also looks up temperature, writes a weather word, and now records the humidity (a great excuse to talk about percentages). Daily weather observations connect kids with their natural world and include science in your day!

• Daily Quote/Verse Copywork: Memorization is a great way to instill values in kids, and build mindfulness. There are so many words floating around the world through type, screen & audio that it's important to fill our children's core with loving, purposeful ones that aid them in filtering the rest. It's a helpful practice for parents, too (smile).

• Handwork: Simple sewing, knitting, crocheting
 

• Sibling Activities: It empowers older kids to be "in charge of" a simple task with a younger sibling. The best way to strengthen your own knowledge is to teach it to others, no matter how young you are! Whether it's singing the "ABC song" together, doing a puzzle, or reviewing flashcards, it builds sibling relationships and personal knowledge, too.

Homeschool Yearly Schedule

Kindergarten Curriculum

I was so nervous about this pattern: sportweight yarn, going back and forth between two needle sizes, sleeves?? But I'm happy to report that the "Baby Tea Leaves" cardigan ended up being a simple cardigan to knit after all, perfect for babies and toddlers when the leaves start to change. There was some light stretching of my knitting skills along the way, but Melissa's instructions were extremely easy to follow. Here are my Ravelry notes.

The cardigan progress was closely watched by all my children. We "oohed & aahed" together as the sweater design took shape, and they were so excited when it was finished. Of course, Isia's been closely involved since the start. The pattern recommends Madeline pashmina, which I mistook for sportweight (details, details). It still worked great- although I'd like to knit a future one in pashmina to see the difference. Since I'm planning on including knitting in homeschool this year, I'm hoping my needles will inspire her own! The one who's enjoyed this knitting pattern the most is Esther. She's squeaked to try on her cardigan every step of the way, and didn't want to take it off after our quick photo session- even in our hot summer weather (smile). 

 Now that it's done, both older kids are vying to be next. Of course, our leaves are far from changing & the swimsuits are still in full rotation, which means it's probably time to cast on another!

It's also time to plan my monthly goals. Such a simple exercise, but it really helps me to stay mindful as we move through the year. Here were my June goals, and here are some things I'm planning for August:

• Get homeschool up & running: This includes the smaller subset goal of getting up earlier. We all slept in this summer, but it's important to get back into our school rhythm. An earlier start makes the day go much more smoothly!

• Finish the basement: Construction is almost done, so we need to put it all back together. There will also be a good dose of minimizing & organizing.

• Weekly updates: I'll be checking in each Monday to share our previous homeschool week. You can also catch our adventures on Instagram, including the sleepy ones.

• Soak up Summer: This includes a visit to the fair- one of my favorite summer rituals! 

Using white pencil on black paper is an easy, multi-age drawing prompt! This post is an easy introduction, with still-life ideas to use right away. 

I also recommend a good source of light for little ones! Traditional pencil drawing focuses on leaving the paper white for highlights, and darkening it for shadows. This exercise flips that- so that the highlights are drawn, and the paper is left black for shadows. This can be a challenging concept, so I present it in different ways for different age groups:

Toddler Billy drawing one of his many monsters!

• Toddlers: Still-lifes are optional with this age- the most important thing is to give them supervised access to materials! The discovery that white pencil shows up on black paper is a fun one. 
• Pre-Schoolers: While I like to use still-lifes with this age, I also expect drawings to go in different directions. A flower line might become a monster, etc. This is a tactile age, so letting children pick their own object to draw can be helpful. This age also benefits from a multi-step introduction where they are first taught how to contour draw the object first (the outline), then shown how to color in the highlights & leave the black for shadows. This is setting the stage for drawing later, whether or not they actually understand how to use those tools yet (smile). 
• Elementary-Age: Still-lifes are great, although individual objects can increase interest with active kids since they can intimately interact with them without bothering someone else's drawing! This age also benefits from the multi-step introduction (see above). Older students can also experiment with creating objects through form, with no lines at all (re: the picture below) Drawing with the side of the pencil's lead- instead of how you write- is helpful to do this. 
• Middle-Schoolers: This is a great age to work on contour drawings, which is following the lines of the still-life with your eye while drawing it without looking down. Students during this age struggle with wanting to make their drawings more realistic, so they can become easily frustrated. Contour drawings can build confidence, and help teach how to work  "mistakes" into compositions instead of relying on erasers.
• High-Schoolers & Beyond: All of the above techniques are helpful, as well as showing students how to build up a value scale (re: the picture below) to increase the realism of their pictures. Gradation is used the opposite of pencil- moving from highlight to shadow. While black construction paper is suitable for early explorations, I recommend black fine art paper for final compositions. 

Other still-life ideas to explore:

• Self-portraits- Very fun with all ages! 
• Draw an item of clothing that represents who you are.
• Trace the same object over & over on one piece of paper, then color in the overlapping areas with white (or with different values of white for older students).

Fun variations:

• Draw on other dark colored paper (purple, navy) and see the difference.  
• Experiment with white pens on black paper (via Tinkerlab).