Parenting

Planning for the First Days of School

August 2, 2020 /

Here in California, we will be doing distance learning for the foreseeable future. Andy and I will have four kids home and learning, which in the spring time was very stressful and haphazard. As the first day of school approaches, I am looking back to my time as a teacher and instructional coach to plan out for a successful beginning of the school year.

When I was a teacher, the rule of thumb that was thrown around was “Don’t teach anything the first month.” Of course, teaching and learning was happening every day, but the phrase was a reminder that the first month of school the reading and math are not the focus. The focus during the first week is on procedures and the teacher-student relationship.

We already have a good relationship with the kids. My number one goal during distance learning is to make sure our relationship does not suffer. I want the kids to look back at this time of learning at home as a time of togetherness and fun, not as a time when Mommy and Daddy yelled a lot about number bonds. I also want to develop a collaborative relationship with the new teachers. In the first few weeks, our focus will be on establishing a healthy working relationship with our kids and their teachers.

While building relationships, what we are really teaching during the first few weeks are the procedures. The routines of distance schooling are still up in the air, because I don’t know what the teachers will expect but some things I am designing right now are:

  1. Wake up and breakfast time
  2. Where each child will keep all their school junk
  3. Lesson plans for my preschooler
  4. Plans for when and where Andy and I will do our work
  5. Work spaces for kids – for working together, working separately, and online meetings

When the teachers start teaching in the beginning, we as parents need to pick up on their routines and procedures so we reinforce their rhythms and teaching methods. I will be watching for:

  1. Live meeting schedules
  2. When work is due and where we upload it
  3. What are the usernames and passwords. (There are so many user names and passwords.)
  4. How do we communicate with the teacher.