How to Homeschool Your Kids in the Midst of a Pandemic

How to Homeschool Your Kids in the Midst of a Pandemic]

When a pandemic strikes, life as you know it will be altered. You’ll be forced to make decisions that could impact the health of your family. While certain things may cease to function, you can’t ignore a child’s education.

If schools are still operating, you’ll be forced to send your child into the school. During a pandemic, this could be a bad thing for your child and your family because wherever large groups of people congregate, the germs can thrive.

This is why when one child gets sick in a school or daycare center, the illness spreads so quickly. This is one of the reasons that during the H1N1 pandemic, approximately 600 schools closed down temporarily in an attempt to stop the virus from being spread among the children.

Learning online

That wasn’t the first time the swine flu caused massive school closures.  Some of the schools reacted by allowing the students to learn online at home, which is a form of homeschooling.

Making the decision to homeschool is not an easy one to make – especially if you’ve never done it before. However, in a pandemic, it can turn out to be what’s best and safest for your family.

Knowing when to homeschool should depend on the outbreak numbers you see as reported by the news and other media. You need to stay on top of how many families with kids are calling in sick.

For example, in the swine flu outbreak, almost half the students at one school called in sick. Before it reaches those proportions, it’s time to keep your child at home for schooling.

You can find out from your child’s school where your student is in the learning process of each subject and you can pick up from there so that he doesn’t lose out on any schooling.

Purchase books for your children

You want to be prepared now for homeschooling. You can purchase books online in your child’s grade level – including teacher workbooks, answer keys and lesson plans.

Look specifically for subjects your child is currently taking. Find matching quiz and test booklets or make your own tests from the text your child is reading. You can buy field equipment your child will need for biology such as microscopes, slides and specimens.

Anything you can buy that will give your child a hands-on experience will help his education. You can buy books at bookstores and at thrift stores. The local library also often has textbooks on sale for pennies on the dollar.

You can find algebra books, foreign language books, science, psychology and more. In fact, there’s so much information available, that your child could end up better prepared educationally when he is able to return to school.

Start now printing off any materials you think you’ll use. Some homeschool websites will list resources and you can print off lesson plans as well as lesson samples.

Some online sites – such as Amazon – list some homeschooling digital books for free so that would take care of a portion of what you need. You’ll want to have a lesson plan book and keep meticulous records of what your child learned so that you have a way to show accountability to the state that you live in.

Each state has different laws about homeschooling, so get informed now. You’ll also want to keep records of the day and hours your child worked on schoolwork so that you have attendance and time records.