Tackling online school, with elementary children, can be challenging. Especially, when you’ve never done it before. We want to provide some helpful ideas to stay organized and create fun memories during this unique time with your children.
Getting Organized:
- Each Sunday or Monday (whenever it’s posted) go through your child’s online folders and print each page of weekly assignments. Keep all of these weekly assignments, plus the daily schedules, in one spot. Your child’s take-home folder is a great spot.
- Each evening or morning, before school starts, go through the assignment pages and pull out all materials you will need for the day. Label each page with a post-it (especially helpful to bookmark pages in the workbooks.) Stack up all of the day’s materials and put the rest of it away!
- Find a file folder to store all completed work. It will pile up!
- Make a file folder for Art, Science, and each of the subjects to store upcoming worksheets so they are easy to find when you need them.
Helping your child work independently:
You are in the process of training your child how to do online school. Normally, a teacher takes the first week of school to teach routines and processes. This is your time to do the same thing! Don’t expect them to get it on day one or two. It can take a full week or two for the kids to get the hang of online school and independent work. But keep at it, your training will pay off!
- If all of the daily work is labeled and there are certain subjects you know your child is capable of doing alone, put them in a pile and give basic instructions. Let your child know that you’d like him/her to work for 20 minutes alone and if he/she has questions, to set it aside until you come back to check on him/her. (of course, this may not work as well for the youngest grades)
- Set a timer for 10 minutes. Ask your child to stay focused for the 10 full minutes, and then you’ll have a snack, break, iPad time, etc. Some kids work better in short spurts, and you’ll be surprised how much they can get completed when they know there is non-school work coming soon. Start with 10 minutes and every few days you can increase the amount of time by a couple of minutes.
- Write each subject on a post-it: Math, ELA, Spelling, Science, Bible, Art, PE, Spanish, online Storytime with the teacher. Put the post-it on the wall or table and let your child choose the order to work through the school day. When all of the post-its have been removed, the day is complete!
Taking Control of your Day:
- Many of you have other children or are working from home. If you need to adjust your child’s schedule to fit yours, do it! Help your child get into their online classes on time and then if you need to do school work early in the morning (before online class starts) or after work hours, do it! Make this work for your family!
Fun Ideas:
- Facetime Lunch: Facetime a classmate while you eat lunch together
- Facetime Games: Facetime a friend and play Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, Guess Who? or charades
- Wear a spirit shirt or uniform to get mentally prepared for the day
- Pack lunch in a lunch box to make it feel like you’re at school
- Do classwork outside, picnic lunches outside
About the author: Kelley Sawyer is an FBA parent.