We are preparing for the 2021-22 school year, during which we will be homeschooling yet again.
Pessimists are rarely disappointed. I’m a cynical pessimist with a veneer of optimism: I doubt things will work out, while persistently telling myself that I’m wrong and things will be okay.
“Our girls will be back in school this fall,” I kept repeating, but not quite believing. “This pandemic will fade away!”
The COVID-19 pandemic did not fade away. The novel coronavirus stopped being novel a long time ago.
The girls are now eight and nine, entering second and fourth grades.
We expect this year to be more challenging. We wanted the girls back in school. They wanted to be back in school. The pandemic won and all four of us are still at home.
Last school year I taught part-time, online. This year, I might be consulting full-time in the tech industry. That means Susan and I will be juggling two full-time jobs and teaching two elementary students in different grades.
I know many families face similar, or even more imposing, challenges. Single working parents don’t have the luxury of trading off duties during the day. Parents without teaching experience have been asked to become tutors or teachers in every academic subject.
We’ll have no choice but to conduct some lessons in the early mornings, after work, and on weekends. We know the girls need free time and physical exercise, too. We want the girls to have art and music time, too. Children need art and music, which research suggests improve skills in math and language.
Susan and I will do our best to spend some creative time with the girls. Neither of us is a great musical or artistic talent.
Things are much easier when children go to school… until you discover they were falling behind in some subjects. Even if the girls were returning to campus this fall, we would be supplementing their lessons.
Once again we are relying on workbooks to reinforce lessons. I understand objections to workbooks. The majority of prepared sheets are lousy. “Drill and kill” only makes a student dislike learning. Good workbooks feature hands-on activities and creative exercises.
However, research has found that repetition of some basic skills helps students. Basic math does require solving problems independently until there’s some level of automatic recall. I do not like sheets of 50 or 100 problems, but ten or so seems reasonable for reinforcement.
During the summer, we used workbooks and materials from Evan-Moor. I like the eBook editions from Evan-Moor, which allow us to print copies of materials for both girls. Evan-Moor publishes multiple lines within each subject area. We used the “Daily Practice” series, which worked well. I also purchased two U.S. Facts & Fun books, which use fun activities to reinforce U.S. history and geography.
The Shell Education “180 Days of…” series remain my favorite workbooks. These are short 10- to 15-minute exercises. Rarely should a page require more than 20 minutes. We have eight books for each girl and assign only four pages daily.
I did not like some workbooks we tried, which fell into the “drill and kill” category. Teachers know, sometimes you have to abandon a bad idea and chalk it up to learning a lesson. Good teachers constantly discover what does and doesn’t work, often admitting to students, “This wasn’t a great activity. Let’s try something else!”
The IXL workbooks? Disliked them. Yet, we like the IXL.com website. The difference is that the online IXL system quickly moves ahead if a student demonstrates mastery. If you get ten questions correct, why answer another 40? This adaptive model of computer-based testing works well. Sadly, the IXL workbooks were of the drill and kill variety.
Subscribing to IXL.com wasn’t cheap, but it was something we considered last year. Unlike some of the online services, IXL’s content extended beyond math and language to include science, social studies, and even Spanish. The nine-year-old wants to learn Spanish, so she’s excited to have extra practice.
In addition to Khan Academy, Adventure Academy, and IXL, we purchased Amazon Fire tablets for both girls. The Amazon Kids+ service has already proved to be worth the cost of the tablets. I’ll post a longer reflection on the Fire tablets. When they are on sale, Amazon Prime customers can purchase two tablets for the price of one. We paid $130 each for two Fire HD Kids’ Pro (2021) tablets.
When the girls came home from school on March 13, 2020, I hoped they would soon return to school. Now, I am more ambivalent about their eventual return to campus.
Our daughters are learning more through homeschooling because we’re able to focus on their individual needs. Teachers have to guide 20 to 30 students, all with different needs and abilities.
No matter what happens, our girls will each receive the best education we can provide.