Thanks for all the info. We are thinking of home schooling over the virtual learning for my 5 year old son. It sucks to think of skipping kindergarten, but this zoom environment is not conducive to kids, at all. Way to much overhead for parents as well. I could easily get my kid up to speed and well past the learning goals stated on my local school's web site.
I think that there are ways to do meaningful social interaction online, but not in the way it's being handled in most places. I think that for this to be successful academics and socialization need to be compartmentalized. We should use zoom for activities like cooking, give kids the opportunity to talk about their day, discuss current events and share feelings, but not for lectures on academic subjects - and these group zooms should be short. There's a big need for innovation in this space, but it's not impossible to create meaningful social interactions online for kids.
Alexis Buckley (who is also our is doing incredible work fostering social interactions online with Early Childhood Matters and the Little School. Definitely check out her classes. http://www.earlychildhoodmatters.org/
As you said, there are so many great tools for learning and little evidence that leaning on academics in the early years is even that important (look at the Finnish education system that doesn't start until age 7).
However, the in-person social interaction is the tricky part. We're generally recommending that families focus on building healthy social attachments with their own kids. That's the first and most important bond. And if you have a good relationship with your child, a healthy attachment, that will extend to a group setting. This kind of socialization can also be done by buddying with one other family that's rigorously practicing social distancing. Socialization does not have to happen in a huge group to be impactful.
Happy to chat with you more if I can be of any help whatsoever.
Same here, but with a 7 yr old and 9 yr old in 2nd and 4th grades. Remote learning in the Spring was nothing but time filler and extremely stressful as a parent.
The sight might look dated, but it's a curriculum written by one teacher who you can actually reach via email. My wife and I have looked at a bunch of different math options and this one seems like the best option:
- Mastery-based, with minimal repetition
- All instruction is written for students, with no separate materials for parents, so older students can self-teach
- Materials are organized by grade level or topic, it's your choice which you use
- Can buy printed books (including spiral bound!) or PDFs
- Companion instructional videos by the author
- Dirt-cheap, probably because it's self-published with a single author
