(friendly music)
- Hi, everyone. I'm Shelli Kurth, and I'm here today
with my colleague, Dr. Nicole Assisi.
We are going to be talking to you about how to stay sane
in these times of unprecedented parenting.
Many of you now have a new role of both parent and teacher,
and probably feel a little overwhelmed.
I get it. I am a mom, too, and I'm feeling
that same pressure. Let's take a second right now
and take a deep breath. We've got this.
In fact, I want you to remember that you've actually
been a teacher your whole life with your kiddo.
Everything you need is really right there in front of you,
and together, we're going to rock this.
What do you think, Nicole?
- I couldn't agree more, Shelli.
You know, all of us are in this together,
and all of us are parents, and we're parents first.
And we are going to help you leverage
your amazing mom and dad or granny and grandpa and auntie
superpowers to become sane homeschooling connoisseurs,
and Shelli and I are going to leverage what we know
in our collective 30-plus years of working in education.
We've both been teachers, we've been principals,
other school administrators. We've been parent coaches
and have helped families deal with all sorts of challenges
and turbulent moments in their time as parents.
But never before have we, as a collective,
all been together in our homes, responsible
for our children's growing learning opportunities.
And so, our goal today and in the coming weeks
is just to help you tap in to what you already know,
provide you with some tools and opportunities
of how you make the best of these moments
and how to support your kid. And we're going to start
today by talking a little bit just about
how to set up your homeschooling space.
In addition to what we're going to talk about,
we will provide you, both on the UCTV website
and on the YouTube channel with some additional resources
and links that you can refer to, and we're always
just a click away to help you make the most of this.
So, let's dive in. Shelli, do you want to get us kicked off?
- Yeah. We're going to be talking about five elements
of this homeschooling process,
or homeschooling in your home.
The first one is setting up your dedicated space,
curating your materials,
creating realistic and flexible schedules,
establishing some ground rules
to make things a little more harmonious,
and probably my favorite is celebrating success.
So, let's start by diving in to the dedicated area or space.
I know this is really tough, to find a dedicated space,
a place that you call your learning area, that is quiet
and free from distractions and ready to go
every day for learning. I live in a small house,
I know some of you do, too, so this might even
be communal space. Mine is the kitchen table.
And that's okay. If you have a home office
or a spare bedroom, that might be the place that you choose.
The most important part is that you've decided
that this is where the learning's going to take place
and this is where the teaching is going to happen.
That way, you'll have your tools at your fingertips
and that your mindset will be about learning
in those moments. I know people who
are using their kitchen counter. I also know a family
who's doing their learning in a playhouse. It's okay,
so long as everyone knows, when you're in that space,
you're learning. Just make sure that you find
those agreements within your family,
and use them to make your learning happen.
- And we'll talk a little bit more about those agreements,
but before we do, I wanted to show you
my homeschooling spot. I have a six year old kindergartener,
and we actually homeschool in the garage.
We call it, very cleverly, "garage school."
And we've actually built a tent, and so what you see here
in this picture is the space where my son and I
do our learning. And again, it meets those three points
that Shelli talked about, right? It's a dedicated space,
it's away from distraction, and the materials that we need
are close by. So what do I mean when I say materials?
I don't want you to overthink this at all,
but I do want you to really think ahead
on what materials you might need,
because any time you get up and move away from your space,
that's another distraction. And what we know as educators
is that any time you interrupt the learning
and move to another space, it takes you that much longer
to get back engaged in the work that you're doing.
And for some of us, even getting started in homeschooling
our kid and getting into the flow is hard enough.
So, we don't want you to break that flow and get distracted
or give your child one more reason to sort of sneak away
into another space. Pencil, pens, markers.
Maybe you need a glue stick if you have a younger learner.
Maybe some colored markers or crayons, maybe a stapler.
And if your dedicated space is one that is used
for other things throughout the day,
put everything in a little box so you can pack it up,
move it away to the side. And if your school
has provided you with some lessons, you may just want to
take a peak at what is required in those lessons
so that you can have it right there with you
when you get started on the work.
And if your school hasn't sent you information,
again, I mentioned this earlier: we have provided you
with a couple of quick tools of how you could
be spending your time. Reading is super-critical,
so you've got some reading tools and free places
to get books. You have some online field trips
that we've provided you, as well as some ways
to exercise and keep moving. But Shelli, why don't you
talk to us a little bit more about schedules
and what else our day could look like?
- Yeah. You know, that has been the biggest question
that I've had from families who are calling me right now.
There's so much time in the day,
and if you don't structure that time
the days can feel really long.
So, my first rule of thumb is always
be flexible and be realistic.
You're not going to have a seven-hour school day
like the kids do at away school.
Home school, you might have a shorter learning time.
Three hours for little guys. Maybe a little more
for our kids who are older. You can do a lot quicker
learning at home school, and it takes a lot longer
with those 25 kids in a classroom.
And be flexible. You've got a whole house at home.
There are things that are going to come up.
While having a schedule is important,
keeping that schedule isn't as important every day.
If there's an emergency, it's okay. Let it go.
If you need a little more celebration, it's okay. Let it go.
Build, co-create a schedule together.
Look at that schedule, try to keep it,
but be flexible and be realistic.
Remember, you and your family are all in that together.
One of my favorite things to do with a schedule
is to use a timer. It helps with little kids
and it helps with big kids. But knowing that you have
a chunk of time and then a break is really important,
so we use a timer at home all the time to keep us focused
on the learning, and also to know that
we've got a break ahead of us.
And I think that that's really important for me
and it's important for my daughter, and it's important
to know when my husband can enter the learning zone.
So, remember to use a timer if you can.
I just use my phone timer. Get creative on that schedule.
You can add household chores. You can add art, tinkering.
I know my teenagers like to add "me time."
So, go ahead and be creative and co-creative
with your child, because they'll have a lot of ideas
of things that they want to do,
and there's a lot of learning that can happen
that's not the assignments coming from schools.
So, maybe make a list about what that might
look like for your family.
- I've included my list of what our home learning is,
and you see in here, because my son is in kindergarten,
you'll see some different pictures in here,
so that he can be cued on what is next.
And the rule in our house is that he can actually pick
what order we do these things in, but all things
need to be checked off by the time that the day is done.
And so, even though the list is really long,
many of these items take no more than five minutes.
So, we work our way through it. He keeps track of it.
We ended up putting it in a clear sheet protector
so he can just check it off with a whiteboard marker.
And we work through the day. So, really trying
to give him some control. I think the challenging thing
with being in our homes right now is that many of us
are feeling really out of control, and that's hard.
So the more you can make things predictable,
the more structures you can put in place,
it actually helps students feel reassured and feel safe,
and it also gives you a plan to deviate from.
It doesn't mean that all things, like Shelli said,
need to happen in the sequence that they're on there
or that you can't veer from it,
but you need to have a place to start from.
And having a place to start from is really important
when you create some ground rules. Now, Shelli and I,
our kids are really different ages, right?
My child is in kindergarten; hers is a senior
in high school. So, the rules in our house
are a little bit different. For us,
it is work through the entire plan
and do it at your own pace. Come ready to learn
when we step into our learning space.
Take a break when you need it. And always do your best work.
So, those are our four agreements, but we really recommend
that you sit down and think before,
what are going to be your triggers?
What's going to be helpful? What are those rules and norms
that are going to be most supportive for you?
And as you think through that, think of questions
like, is there a choice on what work gets done first?
If you have a child who procrastinates certain subjects,
maybe that's the one that goes first.
Is there a specific start time in your house?
For many of us who are also working homeschool parents,
start time is sometimes less flexible
because we have meetings to get to.
How long will you work? Is there a general amount of time
that you plan on spending together?
How often do you take breaks? For my son, taking breaks
at least every 15 minutes is really important,
even if it's just a three minute stretch break
or taking a break to just pause,
take a deep breath and sort of get re-centered.
Is food allowed in your learning space?
Is that a non-negotiable for you? Some kids learn better
when they're chewing gum, actually.
Is that okay in your house? Are there rules
around technology? We know that technology plays
an integrated part in many of our lives,
and so, are you allowed to be on the phone
as a homeschool parent? Can your kid?
Is the phone a tool or is it a distraction?
And when problems arise, and they will and that's okay,
but when they do, what are your agreements
with you and your child of how you solve problems?
Will you first take a break from each other?
Will you talk it through?
And not to forget, how are you going to celebrate?
Good things will happen too.
My son read his first book today. He was reading a Bob Book,
and it was about, "Dot, you can do it!"
And he read the whole thing and he was so proud,
and so we celebrated with a dance party.
But Shelli, what other ways can we keep
students motivated? How else can we celebrate?
- Yeah. I think that this is my favorite part
of the day, actually. My daughter Elsa and I,
we go over the schedule every day,
and she sets some priorities. She's 17,
so she can do a pretty good job.
I like to know what they are. It gives me a thumb
on what her progress is and a check-in and a pulse
on what she's trying to accomplish, both at school
and in the other things in her life,
since she has a lot of extra time.
And when we get through those priorities
at the end of the day, we do a little celebrating.
Last night we had ice cream sandwiches,
but I try not to always do food. I think a lot of us
are really thinking about that. We've had dance parties.
We've had movie nights with families.
I think it's really important to remember
that different people and different families
and different kids need different things.
So, what can you do to make this fun
and to help your kiddo persist in their work?
Remember, these are really trying times for everyone,
and as you establish routines,
especially because they're all new, right?
You're going to be keeping these routines
that you're establishing now for a lot of weeks,
it looks like. So, think about what you want
your life to look like, establish those routines,
and then celebrate when you're doing the right thing,
when the days are going smoothly,
when you're checking off your task list.
Make sure that you're making time to do that.
Reward yourself, reward your kids on a job well done.
- And today's session really was just a primer
on everything, so our next part in this series
is really diving a lot deeper in your schedule.
How can you make that schedule fun?
What are different components? How do you lay it out?
So, make sure to tune in next time when we talk about that.
And please, don't forget, you are amazing
and you're doing the best that you can.
Give yourself some grace. Gandhi actually said
that every home is a university,
and parents are the teachers. You are teaching your kids
so much. Don't ever underestimate the lessons
that come from just being in community, being present
with your child, helping around the household.
So many students go off to college and don't know
how to do laundry, so get a start on that
and create a chore list. Remember from today
that you need to have a dedicated space.
You need to have your materials handy.
Keep a schedule, make sure it's realistic and flexible.
Lay some co-created ground rules
and have some fun and celebrate.
So, until we see you next time, we wish you all the best.
Be safe and try to have some fun homeschooling.
- Take care.
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