Celebrating the kids being back at school? Never again for homeschooling, or keen to keep it going? We take a look at why we’ll be carrying on with it, and the kind of things we’ll be doing
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“Come on, pay attention…”, “…leave your brother alone…”, “…how do you know you can’t do it, you’ve not even tried yet!”
Sound familiar? The ‘joys’ of homeschooling.
However, despite all these stresses and strains, it’s something I’m eager to keep going. Here’s why…
Background
What a crazy year it has been for so many reasons. For anyone with school-age children, this has likely included a good chunk of homeschooling, as schools have opened and closed periodically in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As schools now reopen and restrictions begin to ease (in the UK at least), parents/guardians everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief and cracking out the champagne to celebrate the end of their teaching ‘experiences’.
While I completely understand this sentiment, particularly for all those who have had to maintain a full-time job from home while also being expected to homeschool children (you are the heroes!), for some, the end of their venture into teaching may also be met with a little sadness. Being able to influence and be responsible for your children’s learning can also be a rewarding experience.
Why I’ll still be doing some homeschooling
My experience has been different to most. Having left the UK with my husband and 3 young children for a year of travel (back when the only ‘Corona’ I knew was a beer), I actually chose a life of homeschooling, long before it was thrust upon everyone else. In fact, the chance to homeschool was actually one of our reasons for becoming a full-time travel family. Crazy, but true! I enjoyed seeing the impact that I could have on my children’s development, even by just doing an hour or two a day with them. It also gave me a daily focus – something that was essential with 3 active children and living on the road. I’ve also learned the importance of not only focusing on my school-age children, toddlers also really benefit from some forms of targeted learning.
Since being forcibly grounded by international lockdowns, our travel life has been temporarily put on hold. We have instead been living in Spain, sending our children to a Spanish school and nursery. We have been lucky that where we are, the schools have remained open since our kids started there in October 2020. However, in Spain, education is designed to progress an entire class of pupils at the same rate, regardless of their starting level. I’ll concede that this has some advantages but, for brighter students, it presents a lack of challenge in the classroom. Consequently, I have been keen to continue my own extra schooling at home, particularly in English.
Don’t let this enthusiasm for giving extra tuition fool you into thinking my children are somehow angels. Far from it. I can honestly say that in my experience of over 10 years of full-time teaching of moody teenagers at a gritty, inner-city school in Nottingham, I have never come across a pupil that has frustrated me as much as my own 6 year old! I believe this has been a sentiment shared many times since the first lockdown began so, if this also rings true with you, trust me, you are definitely not alone!
The homeschooling I’m going to keep
I have tried lots of different learning resources and methods when homeschooling over the last 2 years. As expected, some have been more successful than others. My children all definitely respond differently to each other, when faced with these same mixture of challenges as well. See my homeschooling resources for lockdown, for more ideas and details of the kinds of things that I’ve been doing.
Now that they are back at school though, I am less concerned about my kids doing too much additional formal writing work or workbooks when at home. Besides continuing to learn some Spanish (essential in our case), I am now tending to prefer letting them use an iPad for their learning at home. In particular, I can recommend 2 of my favourite online resources:
Reading Eggs
Named as one of my top 5 apps for early years homeschooling a year ago, this brilliant and comprehensive app remains my absolute favourite resource for homeschooling. Reading Eggs is an app-based product (available for iOS or Android), designed to teach and develop literacy and numeracy in children aged 2-11. I know that I am not the only fan of the app, proven by the ever increasing uptake amongst primary schools all over the UK.
The teaching within Reading Eggs is delivered via a series of bite-size lessons and games, designed to be both varied and progressive, so as to keep children interested. Completing these lessons is also incentivised by earning rewards and a series of new animal characters. There are always inevitably a few lessons that my children don’t like doing but, for the most part, this system is well designed and pitched at the right level to allow for predominantly independent learning. The app is divided into separate sections for English and Maths, with hours and hours of programming for each, as well as new modules still being added all the time.
Savannah, my eldest aged 6, has just started on the new, advanced ‘Eggspress’ section, Aurora, my second aged 4, is working her way through the main body of lessons, while Easton, my third aged 2, enjoys watching the library of educational and fun videos that is included for younger children. They can all have their own login areas within the app, so their progress is always individually tracked.
Even after a year, it is still undoubtedly the most used app in our house. In the case of my children (particularly my eldest), it is good for keeping her challenged beyond the level that she is currently being taught at school. For other children who may be behind or need some extra help, it would be equally effective for helping them to catch up and gain confidence, all presented via a fun and interactive environment. I honestly can’t recommend the app enough.
Reading Eggs costs £6.99 per month, or an annual subscription can be bought for £54.99. This allows access for up to 4 children. Best of all though, you can try it completely free for the first 30 days!
The Night Zookeeper
Another online resource that I have only recently discovered, but am having success with, is The Night Zookeeper. It is a browser-based online learning tool, designed to help children aged 6-12 develop their English skills through a love of writing. As the user progresses through the levels, from using words, to sentences, right up to full stories, both technical skills and creativity are encouraged.
The theme is based around a zoo, with users able to explore further and collect new rewards, as lessons are completed. The beautiful way in which this theme is presented really helps to make these lessons motivating for children.
While we haven’t had chance to use the program extensively just yet, from what I have seen of my eldest (Savannah) using it, she seems to be really enjoying the interface and design. As she continues to gain confidence with her independent reading and writing, I can imagine this enthusiasm will grow further.
While being browser-based makes the system more accessible to a greater diversity of devices and users, a downside of this is that it is inevitably less easy for children to access the system on their own, when compared to something app-based. If being picky, that would perhaps be my only criticism.
The Night Zookeeper costs £9.99 a month, or £89.99 for an annual subscription. It can also be tried completely free for the first 7 days.
In Summary
While we all breathe a huge sigh of relief that our kids have been able to return to school, there will always be a part of me that still wants to contribute some of my own input into my children’s education. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, maybe I’m just a control freak. In reality, it’s probably a bit of both!
That said, despite voluntarily removing my children from a school environment to homeschool them while pursuing a life of travel, this does not mean that I am not a fan of schools. Far from it. For the majority of children they are overwhelmingly positive places for not only academic learning, but also for wider, rounded social development. I’m glad that mine are currently back in school (a bit of me also loves the time off!).
I still like to keep a bit of a watch over what they’re doing, though. For me, that has increasingly meant using online and app-based resources to help with this. If nothing else, it is good to see my children spend a bit of time using an iPad for something useful, rather than watching the usual rubbish on repeat that they would otherwise be glued to if given the chance.
So, a little extra learning at home is something I’m going to stick with for now. How about you – never again, or will you be joining me in a little homeschooling of your own?
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