Families with kids that are home from school....

[Bianca and Bernard]

DS is 16, so no, he's not keeping to his usual 'get up at 5:30 am to get ready for school, leave @ 6:30, come home @ 2' schedule. He's staying up later, hanging out with friends online. When the school district gets his classes up online (next week, this week is spring break), he'll most likely do his classes later on in the evening. Less internet traffic and fewer people will be on those sites, since most kids will do their work earlier in the evenings. Just as DH is now working overnights from home, because his company's servers can't handle all 4000 employees on them remotely all at once.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Just an FYI for those who feel their children aren't engaged enough in school/aren't being offered remote learning during the current times.

Here's some links that might be of use:

Seems to be geared more towards grade school but they do list by school grade up to 9th I think

http://mediaroom.scholastic.com/pre...al-hub-help-keep-students-learning-while-scho
Been using this DGD was in 2nd grade. Great for explaining math concepts and practice

https://www.khanacademy.org/
Mostly learning games for younger games with characters they are familiar with

https://pbskids.org/
A podcast of worldwide folk stories. Great for entertaining younger children when you are multi tasking

'https://www.wbur.org/circleround

HTH!

 

[daisy2013]

I need recommendations for a cheap tablet for my son to do some school work on. He has special needs and gets easily frustrated with academics, so there is a high likelihood that it will be thrown, cracked, broken, etc. He has a 3 year old Kindle and a 1st gen IPad mini, but neither are able to do much any more. I can work directly with him some, but I'd like to be able to plug him in to some more educational games when I am working from home or helping DD15 with her schoolwork. I'm thinking a newer Kindle, Galaxy Tab A, maybe a Chromebook. Any advice from those who have tried to work with one or more of these?

Our daughters have Samsung Tab As. We got a substantial otterbox type case for them. They don't throw them, but they are pretty rough on them and so far no issues. They use to have IPad minis but they needed more memory and the Tab As were much cheaper than a new Ipad and they have expandable memory.

 

[Rory607]

Keeping any sort of a schedule is really rough in our house.

Hubby and I work full time @ jobs we cannot do from home. He is a firefighter and I am a nurse, both in NYC. So not only has work been extremely stressful (understatement of the year) for us, but we come home completely mentally and physically exhausted only to have to home school the kids.

Plus our baby-sitters are usually our parents, who are now not leaving the house. So add in child care issues also.

Thank you to both you and your H for your service! I don’t know how old your kids are, but try not to stress about your kids’ schoolwork right now. They will be okay. You can only do so much in a day and you are both on the front lines right now.

 

[Orionreplay]

I need recommendations for a cheap tablet for my son to do some school work on. He has special needs and gets easily frustrated with academics, so there is a high likelihood that it will be thrown, cracked, broken, etc. He has a 3 year old Kindle and a 1st gen IPad mini, but neither are able to do much any more. I can work directly with him some, but I'd like to be able to plug him in to some more educational games when I am working from home or helping DD15 with her schoolwork. I'm thinking a newer Kindle, Galaxy Tab A, maybe a Chromebook. Any advice from those who have tried to work with one or more of these?

My 10 year old son has needs as well and devices do not tend to last long. He is also frustrated by school and it doesn't help that in this current crisis, he's not getting his daily speech therapy from the therapist assigned to his elementary school for him. On top of everything else no 10 year old should have to deal with, he was also diagnosed with Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

With that said we recently spent the $49.95 and got him the "deal of the day" 8 inch Kindle Fire HD. I can't speak to the specifics, but I know my wife has been finding things on there for him to be involved with. With all his needs, he still learned to read, but operates at less than his age group. He now carries this protected Fire tablet with him to read his various favorite books. I see him with it every morning before I go to work.

My wife asked him to do a "book report" on a book and he chose a junior version of the life of Walt Disney. She thought for sure this would tank, but he read the entire book and then asked for another about Walt. The local library is closed due the virus, but they initiated an online service and this Kindle interfaces with that too.

 

[NYCgrrl]

The BBC is opening a study online site to supplement students in grades 1-12. It will also include downtime fun that will incorporate concepts learned. Coukld be useful for parents to compare what children in this country are learning as compared to the UK. Site opened April 20th:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/learn

 

[Pesky]

Yes schedule! I tried without and it was terrible. Roughly 9-2:30 for elementary and 9-3:30ish for the middle schooler. We are supplementing with some exercising and workouts especially for DS10 who can be squirrelly. We supplement in his school work with some khan academy or things like the live safaris some schools are having.

 

[KenHutch]

Well the college freshman has turned into a vampire get up early afternoon and doesn't go to before 3AM the 11 year old really does not have a schedule her school still has not made up their minds on what they are going to do about school. The school board is still infighting.

 

[siren0119]

We had to put a schedule in place from the start, because my DS13 has ADHD and without a structure he goes a little feral. It also has gone a long way to help us track days and not get lost in the whole "staying home" thing. I work from home and that can be a tough balance, but basically we do breakfast at 9am, and then at 9:30 we have academics in half hour blocks from 9-12 with a 30 min exercise break (the boys usually just throw on Just Dance unless it's nice outside) and then 1-3 or whenever they get done with their work. For the first couple of weeks I had to come up with subject matter for them, which was really tough. Two weeks ago the school started providing digital enrichment curriculum so now they can go on Google Classroom to get their work. It's not perfect, but they're reconnecting with their teachers and classmates and that's been great. I still round things out with some art/music but it's taken a lot of pressure off me to come up with things they can learn. It's still hard to keep up with as my DS13 isn't an independent worker, but my boss has been very forgiving and loose on when/how long I'm actively logged in. It helps that she also has young kids and gets what a struggle it is to balance everything.

 

[MudQueen22]

We are on spring break this week, but we keep to a schedule when we aren't.
I still teach online, so I create videos when they are doing their independent seat work.

Each morning, they wake up, get breakfast, and brush teeth. We don't always make them put on real clothes.
They each have academic tasks they work on. My younger one isn't required to do as much; he completes everything before lunch, and that's with recess included. Sometimes, my older one has to finish up after lunch when little one is down for nap.

We also have chores, PE, recess, music, and online field trips. We have also taken a WDW field trip. Older child has also made dinner.

 

[Disneylandmuggle]

Just curious.... Are you maintaining a schedule with your kids? Making them get up at the same time as they would for school and keep them on a schedule, or are you doing an early summer type deal where they can sleep as late as they want? We are taking a rest day today and I am going to try (fingers crossed) for a reasonable schedule. I am also wondering what we should do for daily activities.....

I am it’s the only thing keeping us sane

 

[Darcy03231]

We're maintain a schedule. We start schoolwork around 8:30 am, take a break around 10 am and then work until lunch time. She's in kindergarten so usually we're done by then. After lunch is go outside and play time, as long as the weather is good. We usually have her read to us in the afternoon, just to reinforce it and that's one of her weaker areas.

 

[sponica]

It was too much work to keep my 3 year old on a schedule. The goal here is to survive, if she ends up watching too much PBS or coloring on every scrap of paper she can find, that's fine by me.