My inbox is flooded with questions from concerned parents who have been left hanging by school districts that have closed and offered no guidance for at-home learning during the Coronavirus outbreak. None of these parents ever wanted to homeschool nor were they given a homeschool schedule, but now here they are. Some were promised at-home learning but then told that the district is closed and will not be able to accommodate distance learning. If you are in this situation, before you do anything, take a deep breath, we are going to get through this.
If your school has sent home or will be sending home learning, please follow it carefully. Teachers are stressed and doing the very best they can. If you are doing this entirely alone, this post about how to homeschool during the Coronavirus outbreak is for you. This is a sample at homeschool schedule for PreK and kindergarten. You may see different ones floating around, just like parenting, there are lots of great ways to teach that look a little different. What I do know is that if I were homeschooling my kindergartener right now, this is what it would look like.
How To Homeschool During Coronavirus School Closures
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Now you need specific activities – my tip for you is to try to choose themes that your child loves. One benefit to this time is we can tailor learning to our specific children. Use that to your advantage! Scroll through these ideas, check out Pinterest, and don’t feel bad about repeating activities. Children need repetition; Repetition provides security, and goodness knows we all need that right now.
Homeschool Activity Search
Fill your homeschool schedule with fun ideas like these ones. Click through and find ideas any parent can use!
MORE LITERACY IDEAS
If you want more super simple literacy activities that you can use at home or in an early childhood education classroom, you have to check out my newest book Setting The Stage for Rock-Star Readers. It is packed with activities that work and help early educators lay the sturdiest foundation for literacy as possible for their students.
This is a general guide – my hope is if you follow this most days, you will feel like you are doing something in a time when we as individuals are pretty powerless. If your school sends a routine or checklist, please follow it. If they don’t and you need more specific help, send me an email, I’m here every day now that my school is closed and happy to help!
Stina says
As a homeschooling mom of ten years, I love that you offer this. It is quite daunting in the beginning when you have chosen this path for your family, but I’m sure even more so when you haven’t. Pre-K and Kindergarten are such fun years. We focused more on play and learning through exploring our environment, with a bit of math and reading thrown in. This list is great and definitely where I would direct friends in this situation. Thanks for putting it together. 🙂
Marissa says
Thank you for posting! It is overwhelming at the moment. We do a lot of play based learning already, but don’t really have anything structured at home. Love your suggestions for activities too.
Emily says
I am based in Austria and we are staying home due to the risk posed by Corona. Ordinarily my 3yo is in a German/English kindergarten but now I am needing to homeschool her – I stumbled across your site and am so glad that I did! Thank you so much for sharing your ideas and clear guidance, I’ll be relying on this heavily as I homeschool her in the weeks ahead 😉
Katy says
My son’s in kindergarten and his teacher sent home 70 work sheets and we have to go through 4 chapters in his reading book.. That’s two weeks of work. 70 work sheets.
Do they do anything but worksheets? ♀️♀️
Allison McDonald says
I’m so sorry – I think a lot of teachers had limited time and put together a bunch of things thinking parents would need them. I hope they don’t just do worksheets, I can tell you with certainty it’s not the best way to learn.
DKDRinc says
Here is a great video on homeschooling with links to recourses! https://youtu.be/WLyOkPXAXRE
Nadine says
Thank you for all your posts and great ideas. I’ve been following you for a while, just picking and choosing a few activities. I was intrigued by the fact that you weren’t promoting flash cards. But honestly over the past 60 days I have been working with my grand girls (3 and 4) daily. We don’t use screen time with them. We have been having a blast. Not sure what direction we will go when the world opens up. For now though, it’s days of fun learning through play and exploration.
Thanks again for you ideas, keep them coming.
Granny nanny
Deyra M Baez says
I literally have tears in my eyes! I know I have to do some developmental activities with my daughter! But breaking my head of what to do, and how! Thank you so much! You just save me!