With the sudden call to self-isolate due to the novel CoronaVirus (COVID-19), a virus sweeping around the globe, families across Canada with school aged children are in the unexpected position of homeschooling their children. I am by no means an expert (it’s day 8 for us!), but I thought I’d share what we are doing as a way to show what I was able to put together fairly easily as a parent who isn’t experienced in homeschooling. (Although, over the past few years, out of personal interest I have read about homeschooling and discussed different approaches to it with homeschooling families). Apologies in advance, this post is long, as I’ve kept adding to it as more questions have come my way from enquiring families. 

As a disclaimer I would like to say that parents shouldn’t feel pressure to homeschool their children, this is a stressful time and the most important thing is to maintain physical and emotional health. In our household, maintaining a solid routine helps with our overall mental health, and enables my husband and I to work from home while the children school.  

Establish a Schedule

The first thing I would recommend is establishing a schedule each day, for each child. The schedule will help children feel grounded and know what to expect as the day goes on. They will also get a sense of durations of time and time management (a useful life skill!). 

I establish a different schedule for each of my children, since they are 6 years apart and have different interests and school subjects. However, I assume that even if I had children very close in age that they would likely have their own schedules — in my view, schedules should suit a child’s interests and personality, because I think this will make it easier for them enjoy their schedule and stick to it. 

For example, my youngest child needs a lot of physical activity in a day, so his schedule usually alternates between seated learning and movement (for example, building with lego, karate, household chores). Whereas, my other child likes long blocks of time (even a whole day) on one subject so she can really get into her work — for her, weekly balanced schedules are more suited to her learning style. For her, movement is best reserved for the later part of the day, when she needs to take a break from book learning. As her English teacher said “the brain can only absorb what the buttocks can endure”!

Here’s a little tip: Something that I have found very useful for gaining buy-in from the children is asking them what they want to see in their schedule, this way they feel they have agency in their learning and also don’t feel surprised by their schedule each morning. 

Subjects and Work Blocks

For my younger child, who is in Grade 3, I am focusing on the core (essential) skills that are needed to progress through school. In general at this age, reading, writing and mathematics are essential to continued success through conventional schooling. We include these subjects in the schedule each day. I incorporate 2-3 other “work blocks” or other subjects that I think are important and that my son has identified as interesting, these include: science, illustration and art, art history, philosophy, geography, French and other languages. His movement activities include a rotation through: karate, yoga, free movement, outdoor walk, baking, kettlebells and meditation. I include household chores in the schedule every day, to ensure the children are learning “practical life” skills in the vein of Montessori teaching. Practical life is generally well-loved by children, they feel productive, get to do “adult” things, and get to move. Some example are: folding laundry, vacuuming, dishes, raking, hand sewing and so on.

My older child is in high school and was mid-semester through her geography, English, French and drama classes. As such, we ensure that she includes at least a day’s worth of work on each subject over the course of the week. The fifth day can be free learning based on her interests which so far have been: Korean and typing.

Here are a few examples of a Homeschool Schedules for my 9-year old who is in Grade 3:

Day 1

• 9:00 Breakfast
• 9:30 Math
• 10:15 Chores – folding laundry
• 10:45 Silent Reading
• 11:30 Journaling
• 12:00 Lunch + Free Movement
• 12:30 Art and Illustration
• 1:00 Science
• 1:30 Creative Building
• 2:00 Storytime
• 2:30 Karate
• 3:30 End of school day

Day 2

• 9:00 Breakfast
• 9:30 Math
• 10:15 Spelling
• 10:45 Chores – vacuum (handheld)
• 11:15 Silent Reading
• 12:00 Lunch + Movement (yoga)
• 1:00 Science
• 1:45 Typing
• 2:00 Storytime
• 2:30 Journaling
• 3:00 Philosophy
• 3:30 End of school day

Day 3

• 9:30 Breakfast
• 10:00 Creative Writing
• 10:45 Spelling
• 11:00 Baking + Clean Up (movement and chores)
• 12:00 Lunch + outdoor walk
• 1:00 Art + Illustration 
• 1:45 Silent Reading
• 2:00 Storytime
• 2:30 Journaling
• 3:00 Science + Journal
• 3:45 End of school day

Here is an example of a Homeschool Schedule for my high schooler, although as mentioned above, we’ve adjusted it so that she mainly does one subject a day:

• 9:00 Breakfast
• 9:30 English – essay writing
• 10:00 Yoga
• 11:00 English – continued
• 12:00 Lunch + Movement (stretching, walk outside)
• 1:00 Languages: Korean or French
• 2:00 Typing
• 2:30 Silent Reading (novels, non-fiction)
• 3:30 End of School Day

Another day, she would substitute English for Geography, or spend an entire day on second language acquisition (French and Korean). 

Our high schooler attends an arts high school and is studying theatre / drama, so to continue this learning her teacher suggested watching classic films, iconic television shows, an oeuvre of a particular director / actor / screenwriter / comedy writer, and then journaling about what she has watched. We created some prompts to guide and organize her journaling: 

• Name of the show / movie
• Director, actors
• Genre
• Plot summary
• Which part would you want to play? Why?
• Why is this show / movie a classic or iconic?
• Other reflections

Learning Resources

A few friends and parents have asked me about what learning resources I am using for the different subjects and work blocks. I’ll probably do a separate post with more details on each subject, to keep this post a reasonable length, but here is a good start. 

Math and English (writing and grammar) 

In Canada there are really great work books based on the Canadian school curriculum by subjects. We are using the Math and English books for grade 3. You can search “MathSmart” or “EnglishSmart” by grade on Amazon and Indigo books and find the books you need which are usually $10-25.

• MathSmart Grade 3
• EnglishSmart series

Journaling

Each child spends a lot of time writing, either making notes on what they learned or writing creatively. For example, after silent reading my younger child has to one of the books read and write 3 things they liked about it. “For silent reading today, my favourite book was Here We Are by Oliver Jeffers. I liked this book because: ….” He is encouraged to write without worrying too much about grammar and spelling, but to use full sentences, and to date the page (which I always write out at the top of each day’s schedule). 

At the end of each week, I review the journal and make a list of misspelled words that form that week’s spelling list. I find this works well because the words are pulled from the child’s working vocabulary and feel most relevant to them, thereby engaging them in learning. 

For journaling, you could use random sheets of paper, or notebooks. For my son, we started a fresh blank (no lines) notebook, so that all his work was in one place and he could look over his weeks of work and feel accomplished. Which, so far, has worked quite well, as he loves to flip through his work and say things like: “I did all this in 4 days!” We chose blank notebooks to encourage drawing and to help hone his hand-eye skills by not having ruled lines.

Something we haven’t started, but my son wants to learn, is cursive handwriting, so we will start that soon.

Art + Illustration

For art, I am using a fantastic book published by Usborne called Art Treasury: Pictures, Paintings and Projects. The book explains various art movements and styles, famous works and artists, as well as the various materials (canvas, pastel, found objects, bark, etc), and provides mini art projects related to the lessons. It’s simple and accessible enough for young children, from Grades 1-6 I would say, and covers a wide variety of styles of art, and not just the European masters.

The other resource I’ve been using are the video classes (new ones uploaded each day) offered by best-selling author and illustrator, Mo Willems of penguin loving fame! He uploads a new video each day to the Kennedy Centre website. Each 25-35 minute video begins with Willems doodling and explaining how he illustrates, he offers drawing prompts and encourages children (and adults to doodle in their own notebooks). After this he usually teaches a step by step of how to draw one of his iconic characters, and encourages children to find their own creativity and expressive style. After this he will do a walk around his studio and show sketches and drafts of books, and how the drawings and story developed, how he chooses colours and so on. My children have been fascinated to see the behind the scenes of a professional artist, and have been in awe of how much revision goes into such seemingly simple drawings. 

Science

So far we have been relying on a Netflix show called “Brain Child,” which has a series of shows on fun and engaging real life science, such as hidden forces (gravity), dreams (what do our brains do when we sleep?), creativity, oceans, germs (timely!) and many others. I let my son choose which episode he wants to watch, then afterwards he is asked to journal about what he learned, to help him retain and reflect on what he learned (also encourage more “active” watching, since he knows he will have to journal). Like other journaling, he is asked to write full sentences and date the page. I usually give him a suggested opening sentence such as “For science class today I watched Brain Child and learned about ‘germs’. Six things that I learned were:…” I also ask him to draw something based on what he learned. After he finishes this series, we will probably start on the Planet Earth series, also found on Netflix.

For a screen-free science work block we are using the Natural & Earth Science flashcards, which are for ages 5+ according to the box, but I find they are good up to my age (I learned so much from them!) They have really beautiful illustrations and cover topics such as: birds and leaves, flowers and bugs, fossils and minerals, under the water, mammals and marsupials, weather and celestial. For the cards, I normally pick 3-5 for him to read and reflect on. He journals about what he found interesting or learned, and draws from the cards.

Creative Building

Building with lego, wooden blocks, cardboard boxes and household materials — the idea with this work block is to blend creativity and open-ended play with movement. I usually put this in the afternoon, when my son is getting restless and is less interested in book learning. I don’t give much guidance, except to say it is alone time and no screens are involved, but he can refer to books for inspiration or to tie his building back to something he learned.

Storytime

We use this block for reading aloud, so I will read something to my son that is maybe a bit challenging for him on his own, or he will practice reading a book aloud (to his imaginary and stuffed friends, or me if I’m not busy with work), or (and this is his favourite) we tune in to Oliver Jeffers live story time each day at 2pm EST. If you have access to Instagram, all you need to do is log in to @oliverjeffers and he will read one of his stories aloud. He also explains the moral of the story, the evolution of the book, and answers questions. My son absolutely LOVES this. If you aren’t available for the live reading you can access the videos archived on Oliver Jeffers website.

Another fantastic live storytelling account is by author, historian and literacy advocate Christine Platt, also known as ‘The Afrominimalist’. She reads from her book series Ana & Andrew. 

Spelling

As mentioned in the journalling section, for spelling words what I’ve been doing is making a list of misspelled words from journal entries and forming a spelling list from those. About 20-30 words a week, which so far has not been a big challenge for him to learn. He writes out the list of words in a column, once a day, each day of the week. (One page with four or five columns, to save paper, and visually see the repetition). 

French

We are working on vocabulary building, so I am putting together groups of 6-8 words that he then translates (using Google translate). Then he practices reading and saying the words in French. If you aren’t fluent in your child’s second language you can use the function on Google translate that will say words out loud (look for the icon below the translated word that looks like a megaphone, click it). My son is really enjoying using the laptop for this. 

Groups of words are usually based around verbs (run, eat, walk, sleep, think, play), nouns (fruit, bread, chair, table, shoes, car), and adjectives (yellow, red, small, big, happy, sad). This way he is also learning about different types of words by group.

We are also starting on a work book called French 1: K to 5, which is fun and has nice pictures and activities to make learning enjoyable — and less burden on parents to come up with exercises.

Korean

Both children have an interest in learning Korean (thank you, sincerely, K-Pop). They are using a free app called Duo Lingo (I believe there is also a laptop version available online). The app, through small steps and fun exercises, teaches anyone of any (reading) age how to read and speak in Korean (and many other languages). My children are really enjoying it and progressing well.

Typing

The ability to type quickly is a real time saver in high school and higher education, which in my experience alleviated a lot of unnecessary stress when I was writing exams and essays in university, as I could type almost as fast as I could think. This was not the case for my partner, who really struggled unnecessarily due to a lack of typing skills. Our high schooler has already started to find frustration in how slowly she types, so she identified typing as a skill she wanted to develop. She found a free (and fun) typing skills website called Keybr, that she’s been loving. Our younger child also enjoys it.

Silent Reading

For silent reading, our high schooler reads a novel from her English curriculum or our home library, or else some non-fiction book of her choice. We try to maintain silent reading for books or reading that is more effort than magazines.

For our younger child I usually lay out 3-5 story books each day, or about 8-10 over the week based around a theme, and he can choose which books he wants to read. Some of the themes have been: water, plants, and Oliver Jeffers. I will make a separate blog post about my book recommendations, but feel free to ask in the comments section at the end of the blog post.

The objective for silent reading is to have quiet time, and for both children to see what they can achieve in terms of reading when they really focus. After silent reading, they write or journal about a book or something they learned (as explained in the journalling section above).

Baking

An example of one practical life work block is baking. We usually bake or cook something twice a week as part of school. I take the opportunity to teach things like units of measurement (math fractions, like ½ cup), as well as learning the names and uses of different kitchen tools (teaspoon vs tablespoon, spatula vs. wooden spoon), temperatures (different units used for stove settings and oven settings). 

Sometimes we use the ingredients as a word list for translation in French class. There are all sorts of ways to bring conventional school subjects to life through baking (math, chemistry). 

To decide what to make I usually ask the children what they’d like, or we look at what fruits and veggies need to get used up and we research a recipe on the web (for example, “recipe carrots, beets, turnip” turned up a delicious balsamic-glazed roasted veggies recipe). Part of baking is also clean-up (household chore), so the kids have to wash up the dishes, wash the counter tops, etc.

Philosophy

We are using a fantastic book called Big Ideas for Curious Minds to work through key philosophers through the ages and continents. The book explains very well what philosophy is, key questions in philosophy and is illustrated in an engaging way for children. The book can be used on many levels and is probably appropriate for grade 2 and up, but is probably targeted to 10-12 year olds (even adults would likely learn a lot from it). I usually read a section (for example, Aristotle, Buddha, Seneca, Descartes), we pause and discuss points that he has questions about, and then he journals 3 things he learned. I also ask him to write the name of the philosopher studied and indicate their years of life (for example, Seneca 4 BC – AD 65).

Yoga + Karate

For yoga, our children have a few books (this one, this one and a few others I can list in another post) and card decks with yoga poses and sequences, that they have been using for years. As well, for videos we are using the instructional videos available from Douvris (our son’s karate dojo), the videos include karate, yoga, meditation and other exercise challenges. You need to be a member to view them. 

Cosmic Kids Yoga is a great YouTube channel with fun yoga videos for children. The videos are colourful and include stories, as well as mindfulness practice. The videos range from around 10 minutes up to around 40, so you can choose something that fits your schedule.

Meditation

We mainly use podcasts as well as the audio recordings (voice led meditations) included in the Global Guardian Project homeschool bundles. Full disclosure: My partner and I worked for Global Guardian Project and wrote and researched the majority of the educational content. The learning bundles are available for FREE (more about this below). The audio recordings included in the GGP bundles are amazing! My children love them! They feel like an adventure, have story or animal / nature elements are engaging.

The free podcasts that we use for children’s meditation are: Deepak Chopra’s Daily Breath (each Friday is a guided meditation episode, and while this is intended for adults, all the meditations have worked perfectly well for my kids). The other one is called Kids Meditation and Sleep Stories. These are great for calming a child. Both are available on Apple Podcasts, but probably on most podcast platforms.

If you want to try a screen-free meditation you can teach your children the Sa Ta Na Ma meditation, which I have a tutorial for on my blog here.

Geography 

We haven’t begun any dedicated geography work blocks, so I’ll be figuring that out this week. Most likely, we will begin with the maps in the Global Guardian Project learning bundles, since they have a whole set of linked activities and exercise built around the maps.

I’ll update this section as I develop more resources.

Canadian and Indigenous History

Similarly, we haven’t done much in terms of focused history lessons, aside from cursory discussion of it in art and philosophy blocks. I’ll be developing some plans and share my resources here when I’ve figured things out better. For now, we are reading storybooks by and about Indigenous people, such as We Are Water Protectors, Ancient Thunder, and Birdsong.

We are also using educational colouring books, such as Explore the Animals: Northwest Coast First Nations and Native Art. I picked up our copy at the National Gallery, but I’ve seen it sold online. If you search on art gallery and museum gift shop websites there are usually a few colouring books available.

Global Guardian Project

My last recommendation is to access the free online learning bundles produced by the Global Guardian Project. Each learning bundle (capsule, packet, magazine, call it what you want) is organized around a country (Canada, Iceland, Colombia, etc) or a theme (Zero Waste, Endangered Animals, Leaders and Changemakers, etc). The bundle includes all sorts of educational content with activities, printable colouring sheets and art projects, recipes (related to the country), vocabulary, games, maps, yoga and meditation, personal challenges and content for adults too. The bundles are fantastic and can provide a week to a month work of learning, depending on the speed of your learner. The bundles are probably best for age 7 and up, but some activities suit younger ages, and some provide enough challenge for ages up to 13.

What’s different about the GGP content is that it has a sustainability focus, environmental stewardship and social justice are woven gently through the content. I have written a lot about (and for) the Global Guardian Project and I hope you will love it. If you search “global guardian project” on my blog, or click the ‘global guardian project’ tag at the end of this post you’ll find more information on it.

A note: The content is digital, but some families print out the content as it is formatted in a PDF like a magazine.

Please comment below if you have any questions, I’ll try to update this post often and make separate posts elaborating on the work blocks and best practices so far. 

Thank you for reading this far down the post. Good luck and enjoyment with your homeschooling adventures!