As the weeks go by, parents are feeling more stressed than usual. These memes use humor to highlight the reality behind the frustrations and emotions that many parents are feeling with the sudden closure of schools.
If you are feeling the stress as well, then before starting to plan for your kids, take a few minutes to organize your own time and tasks. If you are a parent who needs to be working from home, then create safe zones for your kids where they can be left unmonitored. If gadgets are a big part of your plan to keep your kids safe and indoors, then research on apps and services that best suit the needs of your kids.
In my home, we’ve established schedules where kids work on small tasks that they are comfortable to do on their own (I get to complete my work without distractions). And we have dedicated times that I spend with them individually. Even my 13-year-old prefers the individual time where she and I get to do a project together as it is time devoted to just me and her.
We have homeschooled in the past. It took us 6 months to get into the new routine and establish plans that would best suit the needs of our family. So, don’t be too hard on yourself if you’re unable to juggle right away. Be ready to try different routines and tasks. Join other parenting groups on social media where there are a lot of free tools being circulated by teachers and educators to help during the self-quarantine time. Here are some activities to try this week with your middle school child.
DAY 1: MINDFULNESS
The Greater Good Magazine published by U.C. Berkeley defines mindfulness as maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.
Tweens and teen benefit greatly from cultivating mindfulness. Studies show that mindfulness and meditation improve concentration, test performance, and empathy in adolescents. Here are some activities that are easy to incorporate into your daily routine.
- The Five Senses – By PositivePsychology.com
This activity engages your five senses to build awareness of your surrounding. Daily practice can greatly enable your kids to continually assess their own needs and the needs of those around them. To begin with, spend at least 5 minutes, dedicating at least one-minute to each of the 5 senses. Finish by taking a minute to reflect on the observations. This activity allows your middle grader to slow down the myriad of thoughts running through their mind and focus on the essentials.
- Mindful Poetry – By Left Brain Buddha
This is a really good activity to equip your teen with the emotional vocabulary needed to navigate their adolescent years. The poem suggested is The Guest House, by Rumi. This can also be turned into a writing or journaling exercise where you both share your responses to the following questions:
What it would be like to welcome each emotion. Have you ever had emotions that felt like unwelcome visitors that trashed the place? Have you ever had difficult experiences that you ultimately learned something from? What things do you do to avoid feeling your emotions? What happens when you avoid them? Can you try to welcome even your unpleasant emotions?
DAY 2: REAL WORLD MATH
More than teaching math concepts, the challenge for a math teacher is to convince learners that math is not boring, not to be feared, and not obsolete. It is very relevant and is integrated into several fields making it versatile and exciting.
One of my favorite resources for integrated teaching material is Facing The Future created by Western Washington University. This simple math exercise is adapted from their Real World Math – Foundational Algebra and Geometry integrates real-world global issues and scientific investigations that bring math to life. Print the worksheet and get started.
Once the learner has tried to solve the problem, you can give them data from other news or research article and have them create their own questions and prediction models.
DAY 3: COOKING WITH YOUR KIDS
The first thing to keep in mind is to keep this as simple as you want it to be. It could be just making PB&J’s with a twist. Or easy juice popsicles. If you’re feeling ambitious try making pizza from scratch.
In any case, watch this Exact Instructions Challenge video that was first published over a year ago and yet never grows old!
It’s a great teaching and learning tool for kids. It helps build clear communication skills too. My biggest take away was allowing kids to get frustrated and say what they felt without feeling judged. Hope you get to try it with your kids.
DAY 4: MAKE A MINI-SERIES PODCAST
Creating a podcast may sound daunting, but this activity from start to finish keeps kids completely engaged. This activity improves confidence in public speaking as well.
Podcasts have no fixed time frame. Each episode can even be 5-minutes long. They can be an interview format or thoughts being presented by one speaker. This would be something fun to do together as parent-and-teen-duo as well.
Start by reviewing the different steps and then print the outline that the learner can complete on their own:
STEP 1: Identify a topic – Help with selecting a topic that is relevant and is of interest to the learner. It could be reading passages from their favorite books, or discussing the news, talk about cooking or exercising, discuss science-related topics and experiments, highlight trends in social media, etc.
STEP 2: Identify the tools – A phone, a tab, or a computer to record and upload the podcast.
STEP 3: Script the podcast – Listen to a few sample podcasts and outline the script.
STEP 4: Production – Record, edit and upload the recording. Sharing the podcast is simple as uploading it on sound cloud or any of your social media pages.
For more support, check out the article on creating podcasts
DAY 5: PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Many PE coaches have been trying to do videos or creating daily calendars with workout routines that can be done at home. One of my favorite video series this season has been PE with Coach Wood. He’s funny and makes it interesting for kids to keep doing PE at home.
Here’s the first video of the series
If you are looking up several ideas for your kids and are getting overwhelmed by the options, check out this easy to use Google Spreadsheet created by Milwaukee with Kids.
Do share your ideas and things you’ve tried over the week!
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