There’s a reason why you never signed up to be a home schooling parent, but now you have no choice. Here are 12 ideas from Andy Wood, Green School South Africa’s Head of School:
1. Support your child to set their routines and stick to them. There is a sweet spot between doing absolutely everything for your child and leaving them to figure things out themselves.
Age permitting, sit down with your child and help them plan their mornings, afternoons, days and weeks. In addition to time on the curriculum, plan for exercise, reading, gardening, screen time, chores and, just as valuable, non-screen time.
The important lesson is to empower your children to take charge of their learning, manage their time and learn self-discipline. These are life lessons that will enable them to get through university.
2. Be intentional about looking out for teachable moments. Baking recipes are fantastic mathematics lessons. How would you double or halve the ingredients? There’s fractions for you.
Now take it to the next level with thirds and fifths. How many grams in a tablespoon? That leads to abstract concepts such as weight, volume and capacity. What are the metric and imperial units? What happens during baking? There’s physics and chemistry.
French crêpes , Thai curries and Italian pizza bring geography and culture into the discussion. Out in the garden talk about photosynthesis, respiration and cell division. Why is the sky blue?
3. Create simple projects and experiments. A sourdough culture has all sorts of scientific processes at work. Make an electrical circuit with a battery, switch and bulb. Plant a bean in cotton wool and watch it blossom.
4. Make time for the fun stuff of schooling, such as art, music and drama. Plan some simple, fun art and crafts ideas that don’t require high level art skills.
Then extend such activities with drawing or painting. Spend some time travelling the world and history using music. Cuban jazz, Bollywood, West African sounds, reggae, baroque, and so on.
If you are musical sing together – source YouTube songs with lyrics and you’re away. Teach your children to dance the sokkie and rock and roll. You’ll laugh together.
5. Teach some important life skills. How do you change a flat tyre? Replace the plug on an electrical socket? Drill a hole in a wall to hang a picture? Top up the radiator and oil in the car.
6. Play games that require concentration and logic. Rummy and simple card games for the younger ones moving up to chess, Uno or monopoly for the older kids.
7. Reach out and connect with others. Write an email to the grandparents, or create a WhatsApp group that includes the great aunts and uncles. Initiate video visits to friends and classmates who they haven’t spoken to for awhile.
They miss their friends and the funny kids in class. Find a feeding scheme that needs volunteers.
8. Read stories together. There is clear research that shows that this is probably the single most educationally beneficial thing you can do with children aged 2 to 8, and older.
9. Many theatres are offering free concerts. Take your children to one. Start simple, but move up to classical, traditional, South African and contemporary music performances.
Then take it up a level and introduce them to musicals (The Sound of Music is a great place to start). It’s not a big step to ballet and opera . . .
10. There are some amazing virtual tours. Sunset drives through the Kruger National Park or Smithsonian Museum tours. Head for the National Geographic education site.
11. On a clear, moonless night take a blanket, binoculars and a sky guide out into the garden. Lie on your backs, close your eyes for a full minute and open then. Why does the moon’s shape change? What is a day and a year exactly?
12. We are bombarded with news and social media. There is a vital place for healthy cynicism. Take time to discuss the theory of knowledge. How should we critically assess the validity of news? What is propaganda, bias and opinion?
Consider issues where there is no black-and-white answer, but a number of difficult choices. For the younger children Aesops’ fables are a great starting point. Re-read the story of the lion and the mouse.
Andy Wood is principal of Green School South Africa, scheduled to open next year in Simondium near Val de Vie.
