School are closing left and right due to Coronavirus precautions, and parents are scrambling to start teaching their children at home. We don't know how long these measures will last, and we don't want our kids to backslide in the meantime. Luckily, many programs are making their services free during this state of emergency. But what about the schedule you and your children follow? Setting a schedule is extremely important for children and adults, especially in a time like this where minutes can turn to hours and hours to day and then you look up and a week's gone by with nothing but TV and children running around, playing. Loudly. With zero structure.
Sure, free play time is very important. But so are other, more structured, more sanity-inducing aspects of learning. Don't get me wrong! Your job is not to recreate school for your kids at home. That would be an impossible task. And there are other things you can do with your children that don't mimic school but that can still help them learn about the world around them! I'm just saying that schedules are important.
The first thing I did was find an example schedule. This one came from my daughter's old pre-school. Schools and daycares are experts at scheduling and transitions, and your child will be used to following this kind of routine. If you can recreate it, at least to some degree, you can achieve some sort of sense of normalcy for your kids and (hopefully) avoid the constant "can I watch a movie/TV?" demands. If you don't already know it, talk to or email your children's teachers and find out their schedule.
Example Schedule:
6:30-7:30 free play
7:30-8 wash hands, table time
8-8:30 breakfast
8:30-9 clean up, free play, potty
9-9:30 circle time
9:30-10 outdoor gross motor
10-10:30 drinks, potty, art
10:30-11 outdoor gross motor
11-11:20 potty, wash hands, table time
11:20-11:50 lunch
11:50-12 clean up, potty, books on cots
12-2:30 nap
2:30-3 wake up, potty, table time
3-3:30 snack
3:30-4 outdoor gross motor
4-4:30 sensory time
4:30-5 drinks, potty, movement
5-6 free play
Now that you have an example schedule to follow, pour yourself a glass of wine and serve yourself a big heaping pile of grace. Your schedule is not going to look like this, and not only because this is an example schedule for a 2-3 year old.
I repeat, this is NOT what YOUR final schedule will look like. In fact, you probably won't reach a set daily schedule at all, but you can have a general idea of what your day should look like. Schools have all sorts of helpers. They have people to cook and clean, elective teachers and recess helpers. Lunch, including prepping, eating, and cleaning, will probably take you more than 30 minutes. You will need extra time to work on your own. Again, this is only an example, a template to tweek and modify as you need.
After you have your example schedule, try out a day. See what happens. Try to add in some of these activities, but make sure you're giving yourself grace too. Write down the schedule you actually followed.
Here's mine from my first day:
1st Day Actual Schedule:
8-9 - woke up, got ready
9 - made JK breakfast, put away dishes, load of laundry, phone
10-11 walked on treadmill, phone, JK watched TV
11:15-11:45 TV off, workbook, I wrote, planned
11:45-12:15 made lunch
12:15-12:45 ate lunch, TV back on
12:45-1:15 cleaned kitchen, prepped veggies
1:15-1:30 JK finally finished lunch, I sat down and wrote, put laundry in the dryer
Literally, I have no idea from there because I didn't write anything else down. We went outside and played for a while, I cooked dinner, and JK watched a lot of TV.
Not exactly the perfect day filled with crafts, play-doh, puzzles, workbooks, coloring, painting, gross and fine motor skills I was hoping for. But that's ok!
Day 2 was a little better. We woke up earlier, and we relied on the TV less. Sure, JK threw an absolute fit about it (which I saw a good sign that I was making the right choice.) We went on a 40 minute walk. We played Go Fish. She helped me make lunch and (sort of) dinner. Okay, she stole tortillas. But it's about the baby steps.
I'm on Spring Break right now, so hopefully we'll be doing a little better by the time I have to actually start teaching online on Monday. I'll keep you all up to date. Wish me luck. Send me messages. We're in this together!
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