Ma Bender’s Backwoods Homeschool: Go Easy, Newbies.

A few days ago, a friend of mine messaged me and told me her daughter is having a very hard time trying to homeschool her three young children. She had never planned to be a homeschooling mom and was feeling completely overwhelmed. I am not a healthcare worker, nor a grocery worker, nor a trucker, nor any number of other fantastic essential job holders who are keeping our society running right now. I am a teacher. I used to teach middle school science programs and for the past 10 years I have been a “one room schoolhouse” teacher to my children. That is where I can help right now. I directed my friend to the recent blog posts I have made about homeschooling projects. She messaged me back: “No, no, that’s not what I mean. I mean basics. How and where does my daughter start? She is worried her children are falling behind.”

Falling behind… I see that written in articles and comments everywhere. At the risk of sounding too morbid, if you manage to keep yourself and your children healthy in the coming months, you are NOT falling behind; You are ahead. Keep your family from getting sick and you’ve done well. Don’t worry too much about school. Children are sponges and they do not need to sit for hours with work sheets and work books and do rote memorization every day to learn. Homeschooling is not the same as classroom schooling. The other day, Arcturus (my 6 year old kindergartner), told his brother: “Kids can totally eat rum cake, because the alcohol in the batter bakes off. Alcohol has a lower boiling point than water!” How does he know this? I did not sit him down with a text book on chemistry. I baked a rum cake with him four months ago.

Of course we do have work books and the older children have online classes, but the vast majority of learning around here is done just by living. If you can’t get your kids to focus, don’t sweat it. Everything is going to be fine. Right now is the perfect time to actually teach your kids some life skills. We’ve all read the articles that many young people can’t sew a button on a shirt or cook basic food. That is an excellent place to start. Younger children can start with something really simple like a snack cup. Have them measure out equal parts of popcorn, chips, gummies or M&M’s and layer them.

Older kids can operate the stove and do more interesting things.

In fact, now is the perfect time to FaceTime grandma and have her teach the children that famous potato salad recipe.

Buy a bag of Randoms and have the kids calculate the percentage of each shape and graph it. Or the colors of M&Ms in a bag!

Let them play Dominoes, Snakes and Ladders or Monopoly; excellent for adding and counting. Older kids can team up with younger kids. We learn a lot by teaching others.

Let young kids write in shaving cream! Have older children write cards and letters to friends and family. Now they have practiced spelling and brought joy to the people they love all at once. There are penpal groups for teens online where your child can find a pen pal.

Watch the Star Wars movies. All of them. Binge that shit! Then ask your kids to write about it. They may write about who their favorite or least favorite character is, or which of the movies they enjoy the most. Maybe they have a fan theory that Jar-Jar is really a Sith Lord, or maybe the older kids might see a more profound theme. Here is something Orion wrote about Star Wars:

Star Wars is an epic saga about the Skywalker family, their role in the rise and fall of galactic empires and rebellions, and the descent into darkness and madness of some of the family’s members. It is told in the form of nine movies. The story of the Skywalkers was not told in chronological order. The first trilogy of films that were made is about the second generation of Skywalkers, Luke and Leia, and their role in the rebellion against the evil galactic empire. The next set of movies in the story are prequels and depict the birth of the Skywalker family through its patriarch, Anakin (and his subsequent fall to evil). The final set of movies is about the third generation, including Ben Solo. 

The overall theme of this epic is the balance between light and dark; good and evil. Both light and dark are present in all the characters, and they each have a choice to make about which path to take. There appears to be a pattern among the Skywalker family where every other generation chooses the path of evil. Anakin and Ben Solo follow an evil path, while Luke rejects the evil and saves his father, Darth Vader. The things that lead to the dark path are anger, hate, and self doubt. We can see an example of this many times throughout the Saga. Anakin’s path to the dark side begins when his mother is killed by sand people, and he lets his anger control him and cloud his judgement. Blinded by his anger, Anakin kills all the sand people, including women and children. Luke becomes frustrated and believes that he is not capable of lifting his ship out of the swamp, but his teacher, master Yoda, proves him wrong and encourages his potential. Ben Solo often lets his anger control his actions. For example, he let his fear and hatred for Luke Skywalker cloud his judgement as a leader, leading to the escape of the resistance movement. 

“Fear is the path to to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

-Yoda

Every day, after lunch and some fresh air, let the kids read. Let them read WHATEVER they want. I don’t care if it’s Hardy Boys or a graphic novel. Do they like the Mandolorian? Let them read the Bounty Hunter Code. I don’t care if it’s utter garbage! Reading is reading and is always good for the brain. Don’t worry if they aren’t up for Shakespeare right now. I’m not either!

When they finish a book, tell them to make a diorama about it!

For beginning readers, make fun reading puzzles.

Go outside and find out about your native plants. Which are edible? Medicinal? You can look up resources online.

Maybe you’ll find interesting tracks out there, or even an owl pellet.

Plan a garden. Order seeds. Learn about plant anatomy and life cycle. Even if you only grow a plant in a jar. Build a bat house or an insect hotel to help attract pollinators.

Pick something to learn about as a family, where everyone contributes at their own skill level.

These are just some ideas and if you need more, you know where to find me. It’s also ok if you don’t do anything structured. Remember that for the vast majority of human history, children still learned things without sitting at a school desk all day. We homeschool veterans are having a rough time too; our normal routines like swimming class, piano lessons, and museum visits are not happening right now either. It’s going to be ok. Your kids are going to be ok. Go easy on yourself and your children. Frustrated children don’t learn as well as happy ones do. Keep them healthy and keep them happy, everything else is secondary right now.