5 tips for remote learning success from a homeschooling expert

Due to the coronavirus, school districts are increasingly turning to remote learning this fall. Parents who are new to homeschooling may be wondering what this looks like for their family, as everybody's situation is different. Rebecca Spooner, homeschool mother of five, shares her top tips for successful remote learning-from finding balance to managing expectations to setting up your space and more. Although these changes may be daunting and unprecedented, Spooner reassures us that at the end of the day, you can be confident in the fact that you know your kids better than anyone else does, and all they really need is "a safe environment where they can learn and grow."

Video Transcript

REBECCA SPOONER: Hi, my name is Rebecca Spooner. I am a homeschool mom of five young children. I was home-schooled myself as well for most of my growing up years. For anyone who is just trying to navigate distance learning or homeschooling their children, I want to give you my five top tips to help make this as successful as it possibly can be.

The first tip is to adjust your expectations. Your kids are home, and you can tweak your school experience to fit that. You can make it more natural, more organic. So I encourage you to not look at expectations by comparing yourself to what you think it should look like, but really take the time and find what it's gonna look like for your family.

Tip number two is that balance is a myth. Instead of seeing it as I need to balance everything perfectly in this moment or in this day, see balance as something bigger and try to achieve overall balance rather than second by second. If you have this work deadline or someone got sick or whatever your situation may be, that's gonna tip the scales over here for a little bit. And you're gonna make up for it tomorrow or next week.

Tip number three is you are going to hit roadblocks. Expect them. Your kids, they're gonna wake up maybe with a bad attitude. Maybe they're hitting a roadblock and they're not understanding something.

Go for a walk. Take a break. Don't press through that because you're actually not accomplishing anything. Your kids aren't gonna all of a sudden grasp that math concept if you just hammer it in a little harder.

They're gonna need a little break. And when they come back, whether it's after a snack or a walk or whatever, it often all of a sudden clicks because that stress is no longer there.

Tip number four is routine versus schedule. So you sit down and schedule out your time. At 7:15, I'm gonna have all this time before my children even awake. But then the alarm, and you just keep hitting that snooze button, and all of a sudden that's all out the window. And now my whole day is ruined.

I really encourage you to set a routine instead. When I wake up, whenever that may be, I am going to do this. And my kids when they wake up, we're gonna eat breakfast together, and then we're gonna do some reading. An overall picture which now allows room for flexibility for those roadblocks that you know are going to happen.

Tip number five. I want to leave you something really practical and tangible. A lot of you are trying to figure out, how do I set this up? I have a room in our house that's dedicated to our homeschool experience.

I encourage you to get some sort of a caddy to put all of your pens and markers and scissors and glue into, and we take that with us everywhere we go. So if we want to do school laying on the living room floor because it's warm and cozy, then we'll do that. If you don't have the space for a home-school room, then adapt. Because everyone's situation is different.

So at the end of the day, remember this. You know your kids. You can be confident in that. You may make mistakes. You will make mistakes. Your kids are gonna make mistakes.

But you're gonna do your best, and that's really all they need. They need a safe environment where they can learn and grow. And I hope that you have an amazing year.