For teachers who are also parents, this can feel like the summer months but without any fun in the sun. Kids don’t take long to show you just how much school provides them the structure and routine they need in their daily lives. This past summer I implemented a schedule that worked well for our family. I have a fourth grader, a young fiver, and a toddler.

School Work

Prior to school closing I found several premade resources and worksheets on Teachers Pay Teachers. If you have access to a printer, this is a great option for any age group. You can filter by grade, subject, standards, etc.

There are also several promotions from educational apps and websites right now to help support online/at-home learning. We are considering ABC Mouse for our two littles, and then Khan Academy has put out lesson plans for all grade levels for our older daughter. But there are tons of other ones, too. If all else fails and that seems overwhelming, read lots of books or have them read to you.

Chore Time

In the summer my kids typically will earn small amounts of money for completing chores. Since we are practicing social distancing, they will get to earn minutes for screen time. I do not let my kids have any screens prior to the designated evening time. Once they watch a tiny bit of TV or tootle on their iPads, game over. It seriously ruins the schedule and mood the rest of the day. They turn into Screen Zombies, and anything you propose that they should do they will turn you down or be total grumps about it.

I try to come up with a new list each day that gets presented to them at the morning board meeting. Their lists reflect jobs that they can do fairly independently. Then they get to choose the jobs they complete from their own list and put a sticker next to them once they are finished. Sometimes I have to spontaneously add to their lists, but we really have plenty of chores to get done, so it’s not a problem. At the end of the day they can either cash in their minutes or save them for another day.

I’ll add more this week as we work through this schedule a few times.