What you need to know to make it through school closures

With school closings happening to prevent the spread of  COVID 19, many parents are scrambling to figure out how to teach their children from home.  Sound familiar?  Feeling panicked?  Take a deep breath and read on.

First, YOU CAN DO THIS!  You taught your child to eat, walk, talk, and use the bathroom, and you were probably sleep deprived when you did all that.  While juggling how to teach your children along with all the other things in your life might not be ideal, this isn't permanent, and you can do it.

Next, remember that you don't have to introduce new material, figure out which Common Core State Standards (or other set of standards) to cover, or document it all.  You and your child just need to stay afloat academically, and there are many simple things you can do to make that happen.

1. READ
Reading is the most important thing to keep practicing, and it should be fun.  Unless your child's teacher has sent home a list of requirements, this is the time to let your child read for pleasure.  If that means reading their favorite book for the umpteenth time, so be it!  Bored with the books or magazines you have at home?

- This article suggests 7 websites with free online books for kids. 
- If you hop over to YouTube.com you'll find many books read aloud. 
- A quick search of TeachersPayTeachers found more than 20,000 FREE printable books including this one for young children from me. 
- I have 27 free resources for preschool - 3rd grade in my TeachersPayTeachers store - and you don't have to be a teacher to use the site!
-Try reading and preparing recipes.  There's nothing quite as motivating as food, and as you and your child cook together they'll also practice counting, measuring, and time (math skills), and experience changes in matter (science).  Bonus points if they want to start cooking regularly!

2. WRITE
Think of all the times in a day when you pick up a pen and jot something down - writing with your child can be as simple as making a grocery list or brain storming activities they'd like to do.  As adults we write for many different purposes - making a list, texting or emailing, writing a story, making a photo album, recording a recipe, journaling our thoughts... they are all valid forms of writing and will keep your children learning and thinking.  Here are some things to consider:

 - Younger children might not write the same way you do - they're learning to listen to the sounds in words and to translate those sounds into letters - and that's okay for now. 
- Writing can be on a device.  Letting your child type an email or text message as you dictate it can be very motivating for some children, as is emailing a grandparent or other family member.
- Everything is more fun when they do it with you.  A reluctant writer might not get anything down on paper if left by themselves, but if you take turns adding a sentence to a story you make up together, it's infinitely more fun.
- Write down family stories together and let your child add illustrations. Bonus points if they want to read this over and over!
- Mix it up by letting them write with fancy pencils, markers, pens, etc, or pull out the magnetic letters, building blocks with letters on them, or cookie cutter letters or letter stamps if you have them. 
- Break out the scrabble and other word games and play - they're still making words and it's waaaaaay more fun than following a journal prompt!
- Print out this free observation journal, then head outside and find something to focus on and observe for a few minutes each day for a week.

3. PRACTICE MATH FACTS
Depending on the age of your child, they may be working on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division or all of them.  Their teacher may have already given you suggestions for which facts they need to work on, or ways to practice at home.  Here are a few learning games you can do with a deck of cards or a pair of dice:

- Deal a deck of cards to you and your child(ren).  Agree on the skill you're working on (largest / smallest number, addition total, difference, multiplication).  Count to 3 and both flip a card over.  The first of you to say the correct answer takes both cards and adds them to the bottom of their pile.
- Play a memory game.  Make a set of cards with 2 of each number.  Shuffle, then deal them face down in a grid pattern.  Take turns flipping 2 cards over to see if they match.  If they do, the player who flipped them takes them and gets another try.  If they don't match, flip them back over and the other player gets a turn.
- Play the memory game above, but make a set of cards with pairs that add up to 10.  The goal is to flip 2 cards that total 10... or any other number you agree upon.
- Roll 2 dice and tell the sum or difference.
- Need to work on harder skills like adding or subtracting 3 digit numbers?  Remove the face cards from your deck of cards, and have your child lay 3 cards side by side (to represent a 3 digit number), then 3 more cards side by side below them.  Can they add them?  Subtract them? Multiply them?

Is this everything?  Goodness no - but I hope it gives you a place to start!   I'll be back again soon with more suggestions and resources.  If you haven't yet subscribed, go ahead and do it so you get notified when new posts go live.  Is there something specific you'd like to see?  Let me know in the comments!  We're all in this together, and we WILL get through this!