Homeschooling has been around for a long time, but the recent pandemic has pointed out how efficient and beneficial homeschooling can be. More than ever, parents are looking for virtual or in-home education options for their kids.
And the best time to start homeschooling is right at the start, that means the first grade. But you need to put a great effort into managing the workload.
You’ll need to maintain order and an efficient framework that’ll lead to a healthy learning environment. First graders are naturally full of excitement, so you’ll need to make the learning experience interesting and fun for them to hold their attention. The complexities will grow manifolds if you have multiple children.
So, here are a few tips on homeschooling your first grader to make things a bit easier:
1. A space for learning
Homeschooling should be fun and something that your kids look forward to. But as far as first graders are concerned, everything related to them has an uncanny tendency to end up being messy.
In that regard, you need to eliminate this chaos to be clear in your head and maintain your sanity! Keep all the study materials neatly organized and designate a space that’ll be used for their education.
This fixed place helps the children to prepare themselves too. They start to think that entering that space is time for a bit of studying. It helps them concentrate.
Also, you can attach a schedule in this space. This way, they’ll know what they should do, and when their favorite things come up, they’ll look forward to that. It helps in growing their interest naturally.
2. Make a schedule
Homeschooling offers an incomparable amount of flexibility to your children’s education. And the spontaneous nature of this system goes well with young kids, especially first graders, as their attention span is at its lowest.
But you’ll need a proper structure to avoid distraction and remain on track to complete the learning objectives. That’s where a schedule helps.
The kids also thrive when they are accustomed to a routine. So follow a daily schedule that will give you a sense of direction and progress and help build the kids’ focus.
For an efficient schedule, you can consider color-coding every sort of activity and various subjects. It looks good, draws attention, and works well with kids.
You can use swimlanes if you have multiple children. A simple flowchart can help focus, too, as it pinpoints a particular activity assigned to a certain time period.
You can make these schedules any way you want, based on the characteristics and personalities of your kids. But unfortunately, a standard schedule won’t help every child.
3. Set some learning goals
Homeschooling provides a great opportunity to fruitfully direct your children’s education, and you can personalize the learning for the best assimilation. And creating learning goals is an essential part of this process.
When you know what you want for them, you can plan it, which is likely to be much more effective in achieving the targets. Of course, it helps to stick to a certain curriculum as well.
Tell the kids what they’ll learn beforehand to keep them interested. The objectives should be selected based on age, capabilities, philosophy, and national requirements. Then, after fixing the broad ones, you can also ask for input from your kids.
And, if you feel it’s getting too much for you, you can take some help in the form of a tutor for 1st grader.
4.Learning beyond the books
Homeschooling lets you take advantage of its natural flexibility. You can incorporate many things that fall well outside the traditional means of education but are as effective, if not more.
Especially for first graders, who’ll benefit from audio-visual aids, practical life skills, and more interesting mediums than textbooks.
You can take them to a library and introduce them to the world of books, you can go to the farmer’s market and local stores where they’ll talk, absorb and know things as they are, and you can play board games that’ll deepen your bond and let them develop their logical reasoning, or you can let them help you in simple household tasks like cooking, laundry, etc. which may make them interested in developing these life skills.
5.Involve the whole family
Share your interests and passions with your first-graders. It’ll inspire them immensely. And if there’s any subject or a particular activity that everybody in the family loves, then take them in the fold too.
Quality family time can help them learn things that aren’t taught in schools. And there are thousands of ways you can involve the whole family. For example, take family trips to zoos or natural wonders to teach them about animals or give them some food for thought.
Include them in your basic budgeting, or let them write the grocery lists. Then cook together. Not only do they make happy memories, but they also build their personality bit by bit.
You can also try reading storybooks together, making crafts, visiting museums, going for a hike with the entire family, exploring your own town, and many more small things like these.
CONCLUSION
Homeschooling opens up a new horizon full of new possibilities. And young kids like the first graders will benefit from the whole host of options only if you select the tools rightly.
also read: https://newstimeusa.com/schoology-fbisd/