Temporary Homeschooling

Parents as temporary teachers: How to facilitate your child’s homeschooling

In the last few weeks, we’ve looked at the benefits of online tutoring, resources to keep kids busy at home, how kids can create new habits to help them adjust to online learning, how parents can manage their kids’ home schooling, fears around online learning, how to juggle working from home and teaching your children, and how to use mindfulness to help you and your kids cope with COVID-19. But what about homeschooling?

Today we’re getting down to the essentials of what to focus on to ensure your child doesn’t fall behind, while ensuring that you aren’t placing too much pressure on your child or yourself. Different schools have different requirements in terms of the work they expect your child to complete, and it’s important to speak to your child’s teacher if you feel these are unrealistic or if your child isn’t coping. It’s also important to realize that your child does not need to complete a 5 – 6 hour school day. Homeschooling means personalized learning, less fillers, no teacher or class related delays and certainly no time spent walking between classes! This means your child’s learning can be condensed into 2 – 4 hours per day, depending on their age. If your child grasps a concept quickly, it’s fine to move onto the next. Conversely, if they’re struggling, spend a whole day on the topic to ensure they understand it before moving on. 

Foundation Phase

In the foundation phase (Grades R – 3), the most important skills for your child to learn are the basics of literacy and numeracy. The most important thing for your child to be doing is reading, often! This can include you reading to your child, and asking questions about the story, to helping your child read themselves, and checking their understanding of the story and characters, to developing cause-and-effect understanding: asking why that character did that, or what they think will happen next. 

You can also work on basic numeracy skills by having your child count aloud, having them read numbers off a recipe or cereal box, or playing easy card games where numerical order is important, like Uno.

Intermediate Phase

In the intermediate phase (Grades 4 – 6), reading and numeracy are still very important, and can be practiced in the same ways as in the foundation phase, at a slightly more complex level. Bring in some addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as well as fractions: If we’ve already added ⅗ cup of sugar, and we need to add 1 whole cup, how much do we still need to add? 

Subject content also becomes more important in the intermediate phase. Your child is at a very curious stage: make use of this by having them spend time learning about what interests them. Planets, plants, animals and energy are common themes in Natural Science at this level. Local South African history and geography are the focuses of Social Science. Get your child to engage in conversations about these topics, have them read books or articles on these topics to you, or watch instructional videos and recap the main concepts to you. 

Senior Phase

Language and Maths are again a major focus of senior phase (Grades 7 – 9). Practice your child’s comprehension skills with books and articles in topics that interest them. In Maths, your child will begin learning algebra and geometry – if these aren’t things you can assist with, focus on the sections that you are comfortable with, even if this means recapping fractions and telling the time. For Natural Science, look up some fun home experiments to do with your child, or get them to explore a resource like the National Geographic Kids magazine. As in other age groups, capitalize on what your child is interested in. For History, have your child read a historical book aimed at teens or older kids, or watch an age-appropriate historical series. Geography again focuses on the climate of South Africa – watch the weather forecast together, and discuss the various towns, their different climates, and what each weather system means. For EMS (Economic Management Science), involve your child in your budgeting (read this great article from Old Mutual on this topic), or help them set up a savings account. 

FET Phase

In Grades 10 – 12, your child should be able to manage most of their own studying. The most important things here are to ensure that your child is actually sitting down to do the work, and getting the educational outcomes from your child’s teachers to ensure this is what they’re focusing on. Comprehension skills and knowing how to answer exam questions are equally important, and going through past papers can help your child with these, as well as cement in content. At this stage, your child will be focusing on very specific subjects, which you may not have focused on in your own life. Speak to other parents who have this subject knowledge to arrange classroom-style question-and-answer Zoom or Skype sessions. You can also engage an online tutor to assist. 

Childminding

If you’re finding it difficult to balance your own work and your child’s school needs, or can’t remember how to do long division, a BrightSparkz in-home childminder can help. Our facilitators can spend a few hours 3-5 times a week with your child, going through their school set work, backtracking the curriculum and tackling problem areas to keep your child on track. Childminding differs from tutoring in the frequency and duration of the lessons, and is allowed, with a permit, under Level 3 and Level 4 restrictions. Find out more about how we can help here. 

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be another stressor in your already-stress-filled life. This can be a fun experience with an online tutor or in-home childminder, that can allow you to focus on the well-being of your family. Use this time to create positive memories for your child!

Written by Tessa Cooper, BrightSparkz Staff & Blog Writer