This is the year to try to home school our kids.

Ever since the lockdown started, I was sure about how I wanted my little boy to spend his day. While, I didn’t home school him every day, I did plan a few activities, I wanted to do with him. These activities involved recaps of his school curriculum. Some of these daily activities also included his favorite movie characters and cartoon characters. Here is what we practiced to ensure it was not just work but also play.

These activities are also listen on my Pinterest Board

Activities we practice regularly while trying to home school our 6 year old

•  I draw his favorite characters and sometimes get him to draw them too. He loves to color these characters. We usually take help from Pinterest for drawing these images.
• In order to help him with language, I practice the vowels and the consonants with him. I refer to his previous year’s school book and make my own activities based on the concept
• While learning language, we also brushed up on consonants and word building. We use different blends to build words
• I also get him to write 3 to 4 sentences about himself every few days. While he writes these sentences, I also encourage to write about his feelings.  This way he also understands how to express his feelings too.
• Moving onto doing Math as a part of homeschooling. This is easier because little boy likes numbers. We start with writing numbers in a sequences
• We also practice missing numbers or making a simple number trail
• Additionally, I also make him write the spellings of random numbers.
• He has learnt basic addition and subtraction too while he was at school however I use his toys to reiterate the concept to him
• Our homeschool schedule also includes fitness exercises, story- telling and Lego building.

Conversely, the lockdown is now being eased slowly and the schools are beginning to prep for the new academic year. Nevertheless, as a parent, I am not yet sure if I would ever be completely ready to send my son to school this year.  There are many reasons why one would consider homeschooling in these times of the pandemic.

Here are some reasons why, I personally think home school is good options for younger kids until the pandemic is completely subsided.

Individual Attention

In most international or private schools, the class strength is upto 30 students in one class. Considering the attention span of younger kids is short lived, helping your kids learn at home means, they have undivided attention.

Pick topics of their interest.

My elder nephew who is almost 15 has decided to home school this year. The best part, he gets to pick subjects he likes. With younger kids too, you can choose to teach them about their topics of interest. For example, along with language and math, we are learning about planets, dinosaurs and volcanoes.

Balance it out

While we are home schooling our kids, we can balance their positives with their negatives. I have the flexibility of tweaking his schedule based on his good and bad days. There are days when I extend his study schedule and days when I reduce it. Along with enhancing his reading skills, I can also help nurture his inclination towards sports.

We spend more time together

Getting to spend more time is definitely not the reason why one decided to home school their kids. Home schooling needs a schedule and discipline as much as much as being outdoors does. As a parent, I am more aware of what my child is learning and ways I can contribute as a parent too.

Teach him concepts that are relevant

There are times when children pick up concepts at school that you don’t really want to propagate. For example, my son picked up the concept of, “pink is for girls and blue for boys “, when he was in the kindergarten.  Along with, teaching him concepts from school, I can also teach him about his surrounding and the world.

Home schooling is not an easy concept to adapt to. We are learning and definitely making some mistakes too. While, this year has been an year of challenges, we are indeed taking this up as a challenge too. We are referring to sites like study.com , khan academy, varsity tutors etc.

These websites have a curriculum for each grade. In addition to these, you also have various kids channels on youtube. You have multiple platform such as Playydate offering a great blend of classed through various educators that make learning fun.

Besides using online platforms for help, one must also make sure that you have schedule you adhere too. You have a specific room where or corner where you home school. There will be initial challenges that you will have to battle however it’s a concept worth trying.