5 Tips to Survive Virtual School with Young Children

5 Tips to Survive Virtual School with Young Children

5 Tips to Survive Online Schooling With Young Children

  1. Color code your keyboard! Having to log your kiddos in and remember all the passwords, is daunting when your children can’t read yet. They sell color stickers to help people learn to type. You can purchase these and only use the ones that are the password keys. Or you can put them all on and help the older children learn to type as they learn.

               Write your passwords out in color codes.

                   Password is Bluedo1  Bluedo1  

                  (numbers are in order and don’t have to be color-coded) 

  1. Set timers  When each child needs to log on to different classes at different times buy a timer or alarm clock for each child. Set the timers to go off 10 minutes before class. Have them go to the bathroom then log on! Bonus if you can find timers with a different sound for each child. Practice with them and the older children should be able to catch on and do this easily. Younger children may need more help in learning how to use their timers.

 

  1. Set up an email address just for school notifications and homework tracking. Trying to keep up with your own emails, your work emails and now multiple teacher emails and notifications is a recipe for missed communications. The volume of emails and alerts coming through just for the kid's schoolwork is overwhelming. Create an email address that you only use for the kid's school. You can easily track communications and homework assignments, alerts, and so on.

 

  1. Make a box near the printer for each child. They can put completed work that has to be uploaded or scanned there to await help from mom. You can also print work and leave it in the box for them to complete. Make each box color-coded to each child if they are not readers. It also makes it easier for the kids to not mix up and put their work in a sibling's box.

 

  1. Have a snack pack near the school area. Hungry kids are grumpy kids. They are also easily distracted when they are hungry. Ideally, they would eat before class, but some of our children have longer sessions and may need a snack to keep them on track. Make sure it is not liquid, sticky, or powdery. These are all hard on electronic devices. It is way easy for kids to be busy at home and forget to do those basic things teachers keep them on track with. Potty breaks, snacks, lunch break, nap time, exercise breaks. At home, they get all involved with playing and suddenly it is time for class. They have no time to go to the bathroom, get a drink and snack. Then they just HAVE to these things while they are online with their class. We have to think like teachers to manage these situations.

 

BONUS

Many of you are not the ones home with your children doing online schooling. It is often a grandparent, aunt or uncle, older sibling, or even babysitters. To make life easier for both the adult on school duty and the adult who is away making a school communication notebook. Either of you can write in the book any details, concerns, or tips for the other. So if something comes up in the evening that your child remembers he was supposed to do or tell the teacher you can just write it int eh notebook so the adult supervising knows about it. They can remind the child or make sure that it gets done. If the child has homework or issues during the day, they can write it down for you to look at when you get home. This really helps both sides from forgetting important information.

 

Life is hard enough. Do whatever you can to make your life easier and simplified.

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