Ditching Traditional Homeschooling During Crisis

Can I confess something? We haven’t used our curriculum for weeks. We’re ditching traditional homeschooling during crisis, and it’s ok. We’re going through something hard and we all deserve a break.

We stopped our traditional homeschooling about two days after the Covid-19 crisis escalated to a pandemic. If you’re a veteran homeschooler you know that in different seasons of life, homeschooling may not happen. Homeschoolers often take breaks in the wake of tragedies or during times that have circumstances difficult to learn in. I’ve seen many people take several months off after deaths in the family, pregnancies, or newborns. So I decided that during this difficult time learning through traditional lessons and workbooks just wasn’t going to happen.

Honestly, we’re all stressed and anxious and a little bit on the edge right now. If I taught my daughter all of our planned lessons about Europe, I’m pretty sure we would be doing so in a weird daze and not be retaining any information.

We’re still learning. We’re learning a lot that we never thought we would have to.

We’re learning to be more responsible with our resources, everything from conserving laundry tabs to eating every little bit of leftovers.

We’re learning to improvise on dinners (it turns out we were pretty terrible at panic shopping at the beginning of all of this.)

We’re learning all about chickens, as when we found out that we were going to be stuck at home for the unforeseeable future we decided it was a great time to raise baby chicks, and build them a coop.

We’re learning to take advantage of every last bit of good weather, and that you can still buy sunscreen online from Target.

We’re learning how to spend more time as a family, and when we need some independent moments apart.

We’re learning how to communicate with those we love from afar.

We’re learning how important it is to support small businesses.

There are so many life lessons right now that you don’t have to sit down and have traditional schooling. She’s still working on things like reading, I bought an arsenal of books before things got too bad, but after the library shuttered it’s doors. We’re working on fact fluency. We’re doing a little bit of bible study, because we could all use a little more faith in our lives right now. Other than that we’re basically unschooling, and adjusting to the new normal, which might seem ironic when I literally wrote the blog post about failing as unschoolers in the past.

How are you dealing with homeschooling during this trying time?