Homeschooling Tips For Students of All Ages
Los Angeles based educational consultant and expert, Jamie Bakal, shares her tips and tricks to help parents who are finding themselves suddenly homeschooling. Jamie is a mom of two elementary-aged girls, and she is experiencing her own at-home education journey with the rest of the country. Below are some creative ideas that range from virtually touring the Guggenheim to taking an online origami class in real time. Jamie will be consistently posting new information on her Instagram.
Jamie’s biggest piece of advice: be kind to yourself and take it slow. Take a moment to reflect on teachers who are amazingly trained professionals, who have years of experience. Parents and caretakers should remember this when they’re trying to recreate the classroom — it’s not going to be the same... but that’s ok! This is uncharted territory, and some days will be better than others, so take one day at a time.
Resources for Homeschooling Kids of All Ages:
Arts & Culture:
There are a bunch of Broadway musicals that are available online for streaming, including classics like Rent, Cats, and Into the Woods.
World class museums are offering virtual tours, and Google has provided access to over 2500 art institutions around the globe.
Math:
Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. They offer practice exercises, instructional videos, and a personalized learning dashboard that empower learners to study at their own pace in and outside of the classroom.
Prodigy is an engaging, curriculum-aligned math platform, for grades 1-8. It’s also free!
Science:
Mystery Doug is a platform with 5-minute science videos providing answers to the many questions children under 10 ask.
National Geographic Kids has videos, articles, quizzes, and other engaging tools for kids of all ages.
Reading:
Squiggle Park and Dreamscape offer online reading tools for kids ages 3-15.
Storyline Online streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations. Readers include Viola Davis, Chris Pine, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, James Earl Jones, Betty White and dozens more.
TYPING/Keyboarding:
Typing Club is a highly effective, web-based typing school. TypingClub is (and will always be) free for both individuals and schools.
Typesy includes animated story-based teaching, effective exercises, and fun games.
Social Studies:
History for Kids has games, videos, worksheets on many historical events that will help you understand those that have gone before us.
Computer Science:
Code.org is a great site for teaching kids computer science at home. Students can try computer science tutorials, watch videos about computer science concepts, and even build their own projects!
Other Ideas:
Outschool is a great online resource for K-12 classes (they create zoom classrooms so all of the kids can interact with the teachers). In addition to classes that cover core curriculum (reading, writing, math, etc.), they offer a variety of science, social studies, art, music, and P.E. classes. My girls are signed up for classes like Solving a Rubik’s Cube, Creating a Digital Escape Room: adding and subtracting fractions, Character Creation, Calligraphy, Origami and Self Discovery Art Journaling.
BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. sites are great for self-guided academic lessons.
Create a crossword puzzle and email it to your friends using sites like The Teacher’s Corner.
Create a scavenger hunt outside for your kids. This has the benefits of your children being outside, getting exercise and fresh air, while getting to use their brains.
Cook/bake with your kids to teach math and science. There are great family friendly recipes on Weelicious.
Podcasts:
For Kids:
But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids - But Why is a show led by kids! You ask the questions and they find the answers. On But Why, they tackle topics large and small, about nature, words, even the end of the world.
Brains On - An award-winning science podcast for kids and curious adults from American Public Media.
Tumble - Tumble is a science podcast for kids, to be enjoyed by the entire family. They tell stories about science discoveries, with the help of scientists!
What If World - Each week, Mr. Eric takes a "What if?" question from a kid and spins it into a story for all of you!
The Past & The Curious - A history podcast for kids and families.
Smash, Boom, Best - A debate show for kids and families from the makers of the award-winning podcast, Brains On!
For Teens:
This American Life - A weekly public radio program and podcast. Each week we choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme.
Welcome to Night Vale - A podcast presented as a radio show for the fictional town of Night Vale, reporting on the strange events that occur within it.
Stuff You Should Know - An award-winning podcast and video series published by Stuff Media and hosted by Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant, both writers at HowStuffWorks.
Wow in the World - Hosts Mindy Thomas and Guy Raz guide curious kids and their grown-ups on a journey into the wonders of the world around them. They go inside our brains, out into space and deep into the coolest new stories in science and technology.