My top 5 Tips for working from home + homeschooling at the same time.

1.ONE

F irst things first, set up and establish dedicated (or at least dedicated for a specific time of day) ZONE. You need a work-zone, each child needs a learning-zone.

This will a) limit distractions, b) keep resources in one easy to find location and c) make it easy to tell others to bugger off when you need time in your space without hurting their feelings or interfering with what they want to do.

2.TWO

Next, set a time frame and use a timer. No one likes the never-going-to-end feeling of work. This will establish a get-it-done attitude and help everyone stay respectful of the time and space allotted for work or learning. Be sure to allow for snack, lunch or stretching breaks.

3.THREE

Create a schedule. If you don’t love the idea of a hard-core curriculum or the thought of making a lesson schedule makes you loose your mind then this tip is for you. I personally use activity books from my local Dollar Tree (I have a pre-schooler and a first grader). I also use ready-to-teach curriculum from www.teacherspayteachers.com OR www.education.com

These are a wonderful resource. I have more resources below that can help.

4.FOUR

The next tip is to not be afraid to use tech or tools to help you teach. I have found that when I talk to other people who tried homeschooling (I did homeschool for 2 years and I’m at it again due to the Coronavirus), but I always felt like I was failing to do a good enough job. When I finally let go of how it was supposed to look the process got a whole lot more fun and productive. Remember, you are homeschooling, not at-shchool-schooling. This will never resemble school at a school so stop trying to make it so. Instead, sit down with you kid (of any age0 and ask them what they want to learn and do and try. Also, think about the aspects of school you really liked when you were their age and add those to your day. You can add math, science to art. You can add PE to play. Make it fully your ideal learning concept and make it your own.

5.FIVE

Finally, I highly recommend you make a time-in space. This is not just for young kids, it works well for older children as well as adults (because sometimes we have tantrums too.)

Much like a time-out space, but this space is designed to calm the person and re-direct any anger or frustration into a positive or at least constructive frame of mind. This helps because when you are working and teaching at home, feelings are bound to get hurt, someone is bound to get upset and someone is inevitably going to get frustrated or irritated by those in the home.

Did you know that you can actually phase out tantrums in your home by creating a Time-In or Reflection Zone? It’s amazing how this really does work. Basically, it diverts the attention of the person or people fighting, arguing, tantrum and get him, her, they to focus on a singular task. It makes the brain literally change gears. Do you want to create your own Time-in Reflection Zone in your home? If so, it’s easier than you may think to implement this space and effectively transition to it rather then sending kids to time out or to their bedroom.

Kids are naturally going to over react, melt down, tantrum and generally drive you crazy at some point during the week or even all in one day. But what if you could preemptively counter any of those scenarios with a simple trick of the mind. No, I don’t mean reverse psychology or redirecting. I am referring to a safe, time-in or reflection space designed to teach your kiddo how to deal with their BIG feelings before their brain gets overrun with the series of fight or flight hormones.

You know your hold best. Trust your own intuition and instincts and when you start to see the writing on the wall head him or her or multiples over to the ‘zone’ for some safe reflection time.

I personally like to use our space as one of the stations our kids can utilize during the day. Instead of treating it for only a disciplinary reaction to a situation that has already happened. Sometimes I’ll have my older or younger Little head over for a quick reminder. This also works because I can start to remind them about the choices hey are about to make or remind them to think about the good choices that are alternatives to whatever my Little’s are focusing on in the moment.

 By allowing them to make a choice it given them the control. Instead of feeling pushed to do the right thing or apologize. We don’t have forced apologies in our home. We tried that early on and realized hat it just caused resentment and the apologized didn’t really have any form of significant remorse for the situation at hand. Now, if we remind our Little’s of their choices more often not they each make a good choice and end up apologizing all on their own if they rush into a bad choice.

I find that having a quiet activity that lives next to the zone helps with nervous, anxious or angry excitement. I say excitement because most kids don’t really want to cause any harm; they just don’t know how to control their excitable feelings and the lack of control can manifest itself into anger and rage really quickly. I use glitter jars (glitter, gel and water), sticker sheets, a marker for creating a hand person (draw a face on your hand so it can talk and tell mom about your feelings), stress balloons (a ballon with flour and water tied) or the choices binder (a 3-ring binder with a few pages of what kind of alternative hood choices that can be made. See ideas below.
Ideas: Glitter Jars, Rice Bins, Sticker Sheets, Squish Balls, Stress Balls, Play-Doh, Origami, Coloring, or Small Puzzles

Finally, we come to the apology letter reserved for when a situation gets out of control and one of our Little’s actually hurts the other (oh siblings…). Once the Little in question is calm, relaxed and has reflected on whatever happened we’ll have him or her sit down and write out an apology (with help since they are only 2 and 5). This helps reaffirm our rules and teaches consequences.

My printable pages that I show here are all from TeachersPayingTeachers Social Story When I Feel Angry
What do you do at home? I would love to hear from you. Comment below and share.