Remote Learning + Homeschooling: Tips and Supplies

With the Covid-19 Pandemic still persisting and school in our state cancelled for the rest of the school year (and maybe longer), average parents have been thrown into the role of becoming teachers too and most of us weren’t prepared at all. While I have a degree in Art Education, I went a different career route after graduation and my teaching/classroom management skills are now quite rusty. So I pulled from my own classroom and remote teaching experiences - as well as polling many teacher friends, homeschooling parents, and regular now-remote-teaching-parents for ideas on what’s working for them and what supplies have been lifesavers as they navigate this new remote learning world. | This post contains affiliate links |

Give Yourself Grace

This is probably the biggest takeaway from everyone I’ve talked to…. remote learning during a Pandemic is definitely uncharted territory and everyone is trying to figure things out - readjusting roles, schedules, expectations, everything. Most of us weren’t cut out to be teachers, and it can be incredibly hard to motivate and focus your own kids as well as their teachers are able to. Ultimately, it’s a matter of doing the best that you can in the circumstance you’re currently in… and don’t beat yourself up if everything isn’t perfect.

Communicate with Teachers and Administrators

If you have a lot going on at home (working from home yourself, several kids schedules to juggle, other personal hurdles to deal with, etc) or if the teacher’s expectations for remote learning are just unrealistic, definitely reach out to them to voice your concerns and come up with a plan. Maybe deadlines can be extended, or the workload can be reduced to the essential assignments. Maybe the big group Zoom meetings are too overwhelming and frustrating for your young child and they need a one-on-one meeting instead. Maybe the schedule the teacher came up with won’t work for your family with your own work and other school schedules.
The point is - if you or your kids are feeling overwhelmed and stressed about about the whole remote learning process, it’s worth discussing with their teachers and administrators so that you can come up with something that works for everyone and still meets all the learning requirements.

Come up With a Schedule that Works for Your Family

This will take some trial-and-error. And if you have older students with a heavier workload, their home school day might just look very similar to a regular school day schedule-wise and time-wise - especially if they can work pretty independently. But for us with younger kids, mom or dad needs to be there to walk them through each assignment, activity, and online meeting.

If you’re also working from home or juggling other kids schedules too this can be particularly challenging and exhausting... if you need something to buy periods of occupation from your kids (maybe so you can do an uninterupted confrence call, or you can concentrate helping one child with an assignment while keeping the other kids busy), consider giving them something they will enjoy doing and keep them safely occupied (but always under some parent supervision of course). Maybe it's educational games on the Kindle, or perhaps low-mess craft projects, or an hour of TV time, or reading a book series on their own that they enjoy, etc. Or maybe you find school work or office work done in fragments at unusual times is what works best for your family.

For us personally with younger kids, we’ve fallen into a good rhythm and schedule over the last two months of remote learning. For our family we’ve found it best to buckle down in the mornings and get the work done first thing when attention spans are at their best and everyone is well rested. So our daughter works through her assignments one-by-one every morning with breaks for snack and classroom meetings. Our goal is to have all her work completed for the day by lunchtime, and while some days that doesn’t happen and things need to be finished after lunch, most of the time she’s done by noon which leaves the afternoons for “free choice fun.” Typically, spending the whole afternoon outside if the weather is nice or inside playing legos or watching a movie if it’s raining (and while the kids are playing I can chip away at whatever work I need to get done too). Our days have consistent expectations and a nice rhythm to them now which helps a lot.

Set Snack and Meal Times

As anyone with kids home 24/7 can tell you, they can and WILL eat you out of house and home if you let them. By having set snack and mealtimes it will help your pantry and wallet by not blowing through all your quarantine snacks in 2 days flat. I’ve seen some parents even pack their kids lunch box every morning, just like they would for school, so the kids have a finite amount of snacks and lunch food for the day.

Designate a School Space and Stay Organized

Having a designated “school space” that has all the supplies your kids will need to complete their assignments at their fingertips can be crucial to success. Ideally having a desk or separate workspace would be ideal, but any designated space can work. For us, we set up one end of our kitchen island - it has a laptop where our daughter completes most of her assignments online and a small basket where we store paper, workbooks, flashcards, and a few ziplock bags containing different supplies that she uses often (markers, counting chips, etc). By having everything ready to go each day, there's no excuse when it's time to get to work.

I polled many friends, both teachers and regular parents who are now remote teaching, and compiled a list of things they have needed or found to be extremely helpful during this time. Younger kids definitely tend to need more learning aides so the list has many items geared to younger students but there are also some items that can be useful for older grade levels listed too. Click the button below to browse our picks, which I will be periodically adding to as I get more suggestions:

Shop Remote Learning + Homeschooling Finds on Amazon

Is there anything you’ve found to be helpful during this time? Please comment below or send me a message.

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Preparing for the Novel Coronavirus

Whether you believe the extent of the hype about the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) or not, you should still take it very seriously. This is unprecedented for our generation and a lot of people are in denial that something may be so out of our control.

I wanted to share this link to a post by Scientific American that I found - I felt like this was a really calm and helpful perspective on why we should prepare now - and no, you don’t have to go overboard. We personally bought extra groceries this week, along with diapers, dog food, and the OTC medicine our toddler takes daily. I'm also planning on taking this opportunity to potty train her so we hopefully don't run out of diapers.
I pray this virus doesn't become a widespread issue but it's best to prepare now.

The whole point of being cautious and complying with “social distancing measures” is to keep our hospitals and medical personnel with their heads above water - because if this outbreak becomes large it will overwhelm our capabilities, which would be bad for everyone but especially our vulnerable populations (elderly, those with chronic illness, etc). So please, I ask you to take it seriously and prepare - then hope and pray for the best. Stay healthy out there! <3

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Emergency Preparedness: Preparing, Sheltering in Place, Having a "Go Bag," and Evacuating

God forbid you or your family ever encounter an emergency situation, evacuation, natural disaster, etc. But if you do, it’s best to be prepared. Now, you probably can’t prepare for everything but even some level of preparedness is much better than none. In this post I’m sharing some general ideas on ways you can prepare your home and your family if you’re stuck or need to evacuate, but please do your own homework and contact local authorities for the best advice on what situations are most likely to arise for you. | This post contains affiliate links |

Emergency Preparedness ideas for your Family and Home.

Disclaimer: I am not a survival or emergency expert, but just sharing my opinion on ideas and discussion points on how you might prepare. Do your own research and contact local authorities on the best way to prepare your home and your family for any emergency situation which could arise.

Prepare Your Home

First let’s talk about the home front - it’s a good idea to make sure you have a generator (correctly installed and well ventilated) and extra fuel (safely stored) in the event you’re without power for awhile. Make sure you have shovels, flashlights, extra food that doesn’t need to be cooked (like crackers, canned goods, etc), pet food, water, blankets, matches, and candles too. Some people recommend filling bathtubs and sinks with water prior to bad weather coming so that you have a supply of water for cooking/drinking/washing/flushing toilets. Make sure phones and electronics are charged and you have extra charging packs.

Whether you have a generator or not to run your refridgerator or freezer during a power outage, it's a good idea to keep thermometers inside both fridge and freezer to monitor the temperature for food safety. Do not open the doors unless you really need to (opening them lets the precious cold air out), but by having thermometers in place you can make sure your food is still safe to eat after a prolonged outage.

Have a battery-operated or crank radio on hand - if the power or cellphone/internet services are disrupted you’ll want to be able to listen to the radio to get updates.

It’s also important to have a First Aid Kit and enough medications on hand if someone has a pre-existing medical condition, as well as general medications that you and your family may need like fever/pain reducers. If someone in your family has an allergy or restricted diet, make sure you have a backup of enough “safe” foods in the house for them to have. It’s also a good idea to have medical information for your family posted in the house for first responders if needed.

Make sure to also have working smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and fire extinguishers in your home. Keep important documents in a Fireproof Safe.

In the event of a local outbreak of illness (flu, stomach bug, - edited to add COVID-19 too), it’s a good idea to have basic over-the-counter medications on hand as well as disinfectant supplies and face masks.

Decide Where and How You May Need to Shelter In Place

Think about different scenarios that could ever happen, which is probably most dependent on where you live. If you live in tornado or hurricane-prone area, maybe you need to have a plan in place to quickly bring in lawn furniture and other items that could go air-born, shut your storm shutters, and shelter in the basement or bathroom. If you live in a city, maybe a scenario that’s more likely is you may have to shelter in place due to violence or riots - where would be the safest place in your home or apartment to do that? If you live in winter-storm prone area, maybe that’s making sure your heating vents stay clear from snow and you have a roof rake and shovels ready to make sure your roof doesn’t get overloaded and you can shovel your way out of your front door. If you live in an earthquake-prone area, maybe that’s being aware where the safest place in your house to shelter would be (maybe a strong doorway), or know if it would be safest to evacuate the building entirely and wait it out outside.

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What is a “Go Bag” and Why Your Family Should Have One

A “Go Bag” is something you have packed and ready in the event you needed to evacuate your home immediately and potentially survive outside (in the woods or on the road in your vehicle) on your own for several days… situations that may arise where you may be put in that situation could be quick moving storms, flash floods, wild fires, etc. A Go Bag is something that is ready to go with emergency supplies including food, water or a water flirtation system, survival blankets, first aid kit, personal medications that you/your family may need, medical ID cards, masks (to help filter smoke/dust/germs), etc. It’s also a good idea to have local maps in there as well, as phones and internet may not work.

You can put your own Go Bag together or order a pre-made Go Bag and add what personal things you may need to it.

Have an Evacuation Plan

First, it goes without saying you should have plans for things like Fire Drills. Consult your local fire department for tips, but in general make sure you and your family (including kids) understand what a fire/evacuation drill is, how to safely and quickly exit the building, what to do if you get trapped, and where to meet outside afterwards. Practice this a few times a year so it’s second nature, but hopefully you never ever need to do it for real.

Now to take that one step further - take some time to think through different scenarios that could happen where you might have to evacuate your area/town (God forbid they ever do), and plan how you would react. If a wild fire or flood was happening nearby, how would you and your family evacuate your area? Take some time to familiarize yourself with area roads and which ones would be the best to evacuate by - make sure you also come up several backup plans too as your first choice exit plan may be blocked off. Also be aware of which roads may be most prone to fall victim to a natural disaster - for example, a low-lying road near a stream would be likely to flood, and probably shouldn’t be counted on as an exit road in a weather emergency. Keep maps in your car too as phones/GPS may not work and it would be beneficial to have a paper map to consult. It's also important to have cash on hand as ATMs/credit card machines may be down as well.

Always try to keep your car gas tank fairly full too, that way you’ll be ready to go anytime and won’t have to worry about running out of gas or being able to buy gas (as gas stations may be out of gas or there could be long lines) wasting valuable time for your family to make an efficient exit.

Hopefully you will never fall into a scenario where you’ll ever have to use any of your emergency supplies or shelter/evacuation plans, but it’s best to be prepared. Make sure to re-evaluate your plans and supplies regularly as roads and situations can change and supplies will expire over time (check those expiration dates on medicine, first aid items, and food/water). May you all stay safe and well!

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Back-to-School Amazon Picks

It's almost that time! Are you ready for back to school yet?
I've put together a list of some of my favorite Amazon back-to-school finds for all ages and grade levels. | This post contains affiliate links |

Get Ready for Back-to-School!