How to Help Your Children During Homeschooling

The still severely restricted school operations due to the corona crisis turns everyday life (which is already challenging) for parents with children of school age. Homeschooling is still about.

Here we would like to give you tips on how to support your children in learning at home without having to take on the role of the teacher themselves.

The difficult starting point: children have no school but no holidays

Until after the Easter holidays, the requirement in all federal states was: It is school-free, but not free of lessons. Should be learned at home. In the meantime, some of the students are back at school at least temporarily, but it is becoming apparent that the switch between face-to-face lessons and learning from home will continue to accompany us for a long time.

This presents working parents and especially single parents with the great challenge of balancing work, childcare, and the new task of a learning coach.

Even with older children and adolescents, who could already have the self-discipline to learn independently, this task offers sufficient potential for conflict.

Learning together is not always so harmonious.

For children of primary school age, it is even more difficult to understand that although it is not a school, it is not a vacation and should now be learned at home. They also often ask for a lot of support when processing the tasks.

On the other hand, the situation is also far from easy for schools and teachers. Within a very short period, they had to provide concepts for bridging the time, suitable materials and communication options. These cannot be perfect (especially due to the hesitant digitization of schools).

This also means that parents sometimes have to deal with different distribution channels for information and materials. Some teachers send emails, others use the school homepage or messenger services and school clouds. Or the provision of the learning material is carried out similarly via collection dates at the school.

Homeschooling and the role of parents

At home, many parents are faced with the task of taking on the role of teachers and teaching their children.

In many places, this leads to pressure to want to do everything right so that the children do not suffer from the situation. The pressure often turns into frustration because the multiple loads quickly reach your limits.

Spatial confinement and underutilized children who lack social contacts can make the situation even more difficult. And let's not forget: parents are usually not trained teachers. You shouldn't have to either, because learning together often leads to arguments and can put a strain on family life. This is also the view of the majority of the educators currently interviewed.

The frequently used term "homeschooling" does not fit the situation in this country perfectly. At least if you understand homeschooling as home lessons. Instead, learning at home should take place, more like “home learning”.

This means that the students should be given tasks that they can solve independently. For primary school children, this means practicing, deepening, and consolidating what they have learned. The older the students are, the more research tasks and the acquisition of new knowledge can be added.

But even if you, as parents, do not have to become teachers who teach new teaching material: there are ways in which you can support and accompany your child or children. So, parents can follow different blog articles on learning printables for kids.

Printable Board Games as Kids Homeschooling

1. Fortune Teller or Toy

Download and print Fortune Teller or Toy template which is one of the most popular learning printables for kids, cut and fold where indicated, and write your message behind each number. The messages can be what you decide. For example, "jump 10 times on one leg" or "you've won a candy." The important thing is that they are things that they decide to put together.

2. Memory game

This is one of the downloadable board games with which you can work on children's memory. And, why not, yours too! It is indicated for children from four years old.

First download and print two copies of this template. Then cut out each shape and stick an ice cream stick in the middle.

The game consists of arranging the ice creams on the table with the print face down and the pink part facing up. In turn, they must lift two ice creams until they find the pairs with the same drawing. The key is to memorize the position and the drawing of each ice cream to locate more pairs than the other player.

3. Professions puzzle

This game is especially indicated for preschoolers. It is very simple and will help them learn to recognize professions. Download and print Professions puzzle template, cut out the cards, and find which body corresponds to each head.

4. Domino

We've come across this classic in downloadable board games, with object silhouettes instead of numbers. Perfect for playing with children from the age of three.

Download and print the front and back template of each of the cards. Distribute seven tiles to each player and put the rest face down. The first player places a tile and the next player must place a tile with the same figure on one of the two ends. If you do not have a chip with the figures on the table, you must take a chip from the pile.

5. Bingo

Print and download the bingo template that includes 6 cards and the cards with the different figures. Use candy or small toy figures to mark the figures that appear on your card until you get a line or bingo.