I may be a home educator at heart but I really feel for the children who are missing school and contact with their friends. It’ll be a hard adjustment for them, for all the family.
Of course, it is also the same for the home educated kids who are also now isolated. Because despite what most parents generally think, home educating involves being out as much as in; seeing friends, going places, using resources in the community, etc. In fact they probably do that more than school kids who are stuck in one venue all the time.
Everyone will be adjusting. We’re all stuck at home – well – if you’re taking your responsibility seriously.
So maybe now’s the time to rethink the value of home based things.
Obviously we have wonderful digital connections to fall back on. But life shouldn’t be all about staring at your phone. Instead it’s a good time to connect with those in the house, find things you can enjoy together, use your resourcefulness to make your home come alive by the things you do in it. Become ingenuous with whatever’s to hand. It’ll bring a homely flavour to your house which may have become jaded. It’ll restrengthen connections (although it may take a while).
As for ‘education’; as I said before everything is educational as it stimulates and increases skills, mental and physical. You may not be aware of the educational value of cooking for example but it involves maths (weighing, measuring, calculation, understanding temperatures, computation and understanding scales, calibration, estimation, time etc.) language (reading, interpreting recipes, following instructions, language, abbreviations, vocabulary etc) science (changing states of substances like cake becoming solid, heat conduction, food stuffs and materials which can withstand it, etc) As well as all the conversations. All these skills can be transferred to academic learning later on, will be better remembered as they’ve been experienced, and more importantly they’re useful for life!
So don’t think domestic things are separate from educational things. It’s all valuable. So get doing, using ideas online if you’re stuck.
Here are some things you might do or encourage the kids to:
Cook or bake something.
Discuss something – especially topics you wouldn’t normally.
Create something – be creative with whatever stuff you have to hand. (A blog on its value here)
Read something.
Make something you haven’t made before.
Try and mend something.
Write something.
Debate something.
Draw something.
Construct something.
Film or record something.
Rearrange something.
Research something.
Re-purpose something.
Explore something. (Probably online at this point!)
Get moving (physically in the house if not out)
Grow something.
Do something you haven’t done before.
Doing a variety of these things will be purposeful and developmental in ways you’ll not even be aware of. So get busy, enjoy your home time, and forget trying to ‘educate’ for the time being. The kids will be learning all the time!
Ross Mountney's Notebook 