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The Silver Lining of School Closures

In response to all of the parents who are asking what they are supposed to do all day with their kids just remember we have all been given something we always complained we didn’t have enough of: TIME. We now have plenty of time for the foreseeable future to spend time sitting down together and using time to get back to the basics. You don’t have to set up a rigid schedule, but if that’s helps you then do it! Right now we have the time to teach table manners as we sit down to meals together. We have time to talk, question, and discover. We have time to practice new hobbies, dreams, and skills.  

       
If you are still looking for resources there seem to be an unlimited supply of online resources which we will be wholeheartedly using, but I challenge you to look beyond that. Practice the basics. 

Math: Numbers, adding/subtracting, patterns, fractions, multiplying, long division, percentages. All without a calculator. Practice telling time with an analogue clock. Open a pretend store and work on making change. Play fun card games like War (and multiplication war) and Divide and Conquer. Strengthen the basics and it will always help them in the future. 


     
Reading: Fiction and non-fiction. In their levels and way out of their levels because it’s fun. Practice reading books out loud together, and individually. Cook a meal or re-enact an especially exciting scene from that book. Do a geography research lesson on where the book was set. Write down all the books you read and the kids will come back to school with a million AR points! 
      
Writing: Seriously! With the constant use of electronics, our kids are severely lacking in writing skills. Basic capitalization, punctuation, and grammar are awful because they rely so much on autocorrect. Especially with creative writing, our children’s imaginations have been limited and expect us to tell them what to write about. They can be given a prompt but try to let them loose. If your child needs guidelines, at least one sentence and one paragraph per grade they are in is a good place to start (i.e. for a third grader they should aim for three paragraphs with at least three sentences each to start with). This is also a great time to practice good technique; whether it is printing, cursive, or typing, expect them to do their best on the final draft. 
     
Research: Find one subject they love and research the heck out of it. Design a short video presentation and send it to a loved one.     
        
Create: Art of any kind! Watercolor, paper collages from cut up old magazines or other recycled crafts, basic crayons and markers, playdoh or sand, mazes and other activity books, writing secret messages to siblings, stamping, making and mailing cards, origami, etc.  
     
Life skills: Older kids can help you check your oil or other car fluids, come up with a budget or balance a check book, help write a grocery list, learn new chores, how to sew on a button or use a sewing machine, work the washer/dryer/dishwasher independently, they can help cook or menu plan, practice a musical instrument or art technique, or even how to repaint their rooms.      
     
And finally and most importantly... PLAY. Unstructured. Child-lead. Outside if possible. Let them get dirty! Play games and teach your kids it’s ok to loose. Let them be bored.      
     

Find way to enjoy the time we have been given and remember to stick to the basics. 
       




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