Homeschooling Tools While Quarantining

Many of you may be finding yourselves in a role that you have never had to fulfill before, that of a homeschooling teacher. Not that I’m an educational expert, but we have been homeschooling our girls for their entire educations (sometimes supplementing with brick and mortar schools) so there are a few educational resources that we have that we use and love.

I figured that in this time when many of us are now at home, solely responsible for our kids learning, that I would pass along some of these resources. Sharing the knowledge that I have, and the resources that we use that are Arias and Ellia approved!

Remember, keep it fun. Give plenty of breaks. And don’t feel guilty if it doesn’t all go to plan. Homeschooling may be new for your kids too.

The Curriculum We Use

These can be ordered on AMAZON and delivered to your front door!

For their core curriculum this year I decided to go with the FUNSCHOOLING program. We went with a literature/journaling style of program.

It’s giving the girls a lot of freedom in the general theme that they want to be learning.

Arias chose to go with a Mythology theme. Ellia chose animals. So with those themes, we get reading material along those lines, and then they must follow along in their curriculum journal, sometimes writing essays about what they read. Some times working on spelling with words out of their reading books. The journals have found ways to incorporate math, history, science, geography, world news, and even cooking into them.

I am really enjoying the program so far, although it is more laidback than how I was used to teaching them in the past. I have to keep reminding myself that they go to school and don’t need to be going to school full-time and homeschooling full-time!

Funny (not so funny) side note: I got Arias 3 mythology books. Children’s encyclopedia-style. Greek Myths, Norse Myths, and 50 Goddesses. So that she could use them for her core curriculum. They were meant to be for her semester of work. She read all three within the first two weeks of receiving them. Devoured them. I’m like…”Now what!?”

Supplementing

Supplementing the above, because of course, I supplement, self-proclaimed learning nerd here, I can’t help myself! We also use:

–Story of the World. This is an amazing resource for world history, geography, reading and reading comprehension, writing, map work, art, cooking. It covers a lot and I just love it.

–Singapore Math. Our girls both enjoy doing math, and both are good at it. We throw in some math work every now and again (on top of what they are learning in school) using these workbooks.

–BrainPop I love this app. It is paid, but the videos are well done and the content is very educational. The videos also come with comprehension quizzes at the end.

-During this time off of school, Scholastic has put out these fun FREE learning resources, divided into grade level, that we are really enjoying using daily.

–YOUTUBE: don’t underestimate youtube. There are a bunch of really good educational channels on there. Some of our favorites are: TedEd, Science Crash Course Kids, All Subjects Crash Course, SciShow, National Geographic Kids, and It’s Ok To Be Smart.