School at Home In Light of Coronavirus {Plus My Resources & Tips}

By Susan Platt from The Modern Mayflower blog

[Note: Homeschooling and school-at-home are very different things. When this was written, there were many families who had never experienced either one. It was/is our prayer that many families would see tangible benefits of having their children home to teach, and that they would become committed homeschoolers in the full sense of the word!]

School at home?

As you know, fear continues over COVID-19 and has forced many to do a school at home model.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely wondering how to make a smooth transition to schooling at home – OR – would it just be best to actually homeschool your children because you could do a better job!?

[Guest post by Susan Platt and myself because we want you to thrive despite these challenges!]

I remember when we began school at home many years ago, and I had so many fears, many unnamed, but some very obvious concerns.

I remember two young people sitting at my kitchen table many years ago, both with tears in their eyes. One was me and the other my oldest child who was five years old at the time. “I will never learn to read,” he cried. “He’s right,” I thought. “If he’s counting on me he is never going to learn to read.” 

You see, that’s what fear of the unknown does.  

Fear makes you doubt your own judgment and everything around you.  

Fear is a liar.

That is a fact.

Fear does not equip you to tackle the task at hand.

Fear whispers all the worst cases, probably never going to happen scenarios right into your ears until it consumes your thought life.

Evict it.

Immediately.

Do not rent out space in your mind, not for the Coronavirus, the economy, the homeschooling factor, or anything else.  

You were not designed to live in fear.

My humble advice:  

Be careful about how much media and mayhem you consume. 

You see every person, entity, or media platform in existence that shares information with you has their own views and presents that information through a particular lens.  

This includes me as well.

This newest virus, and the unprecedented publicity surrounding it, has us all in a pioneering kind of place.

People who have never had any inclination to homeschool are now without option as schools are closed nationwide and we are faced with the fact that our children will do school at home for the foreseeable future.

As a seasoned homeschooler who has been there and done that (that crying child graduated last year!) this seems like a beautiful opportunity to spread some calm and reassurance in these very uncertain times.

So I challenge myself (and you) to dispute is the mass hysteria, panicking and fear that is being consumed faster than the toilet paper.

Yes, we are living in uncertain times.

We already were – long before Covid-19.

So many things are not within our power to control.

However, there is a silver lining here!

There are so many other things that we do have a say-so in.

Do not forfeit your say-so.

We don’t get to choose what comes at us but we do get to choose our response to it.

If you find your children’s’ schools on hiatus until who knows when and your inner freak out alarm is ringing….just go ahead and hit the kill switch on that. 😉

I’m about to share some earth-shattering news with you.

You were already homeschooling.

If you are a parent, if you have children living in your home, YOU already school at home – you are a homeschooler!

Stay with me here…

Who taught your children to eat, sleep, talk, pray, tie their shoes?

You did.

You are the parent, the example.

You are, have always been, and for the better part of the future, you will be their primary teacher.

Academics are important…obviously.

But academics are not the sum total of raising children.

There is an opportunity here amongst the unknown: