Parent Resources #2: Three is the Magic Number
Ain’t nobody got time for a long anecdote right now, so a quick pointer from our experience this week: if you can, find 10 minutes in the evening to either reflect independently or discuss with your partner what went well and what small tweaks you can make for tomorrow. This is an iterative process, and small changes will add up over time.
• Go Noodle - this is for those who are cooped up inside the house and need to get the energy out. Most videos are 5ish minutes long and take the kids through a pretty high energy dance routine, sometimes with an academic focus. Fun for ages 2-12 (and there’s probably a great genre of YouTube videos of parents trying to convince teenagers to join as well).
• Teach Your Monster to Read - a household favorite in these parts, Teach Your Monster to Read is a legitimately fun game for your emerging and early reader (ages 4 to 8). They’ll guide their monster through a bunch of phonics and sight word challenges, earning coins and outfitting the monster in all kinds of accessories.
• Crash Course - file under “time well spent on YouTube” as well as “constructively tapping into intrinsic motivation.” Crash Course has playlists on all sorts of topics that basically act as animated course guides. Topics range from world history to artificial intelligence to video game design. The main content is probably best suited to older learners (10+), but they also have Crash Course Kids, which is more focused on traditional academic subjects.
One bonus resource, but this one’s for you parents: those geniuses at McSweeney’s have put together the “Homeschooling While Working From Home During a Global Pandemic” Bingo card. Ours looks like this:
