16 Practical Tips for Successful Schooling at Home
We Want to Help
As contractors and part of this community we never really thought about back-to-school as an opportunity to help our community. This year has been just a little different for all of us and we’ve found a few ways to make this season easier for your family.
You need a workstation, a place to study, a new bathroom, and possibly an oasis where you can get away from it all.
3Rs Construction & Remodeling can help! Of course, we have designed and built hundreds of bathrooms and this year we are offering to design study stations complete with charging drawers, floating shelves, keyboard trays and drawers to store all your “school supplies”.
We can make this as fancy as you like and we'll match your homes' current decor. Or, we'll deliver it to your home and let you assemble it yourself if you want to save a little and explore your inner furniture builder!
While we are at it, maybe it’s time to update your bathroom, claim your private oasis, update your Wi-Fi or put in music system to pipe peaceful bliss house wide. Whatever you need to get your home ready we are here to help.
We want you to be encouraged so we are offering these 16 practical Tips for SUCCESSFUL Schooling at Home.
LET'S GET STARTED!
1. Get a Comfortable Place to Sit
If you do not have a good desk chair and study station find one that will assist with comfort and posture. I am sure you have heard the adage; your altitude affects your attitude. Good posture and orientation to the monitor will help keep your kids engaged. Have 3Rs Construction build you a custom study station or purchase the components and you can assemble it yourself.
2. Create an Environment to Promote Focus
Minimize distractions, where-ever you set up your study station do your best to remove distractions and temptations to daydream. We have found setting up study stations in a spare room is best followed by bedrooms. Out in the open provides a lot of opportunity for distraction.
Tip: Keep doors open. Too much privacy can be a temptation to drift off task.
3. Schedule Breaks
All age groups need a break for physical activity. Any movement is good for the brain and body. Blood flow and fresh air are essential to the brains ability to efficiently process information.
4. Focus on Focus
Your eyes need to focus on items near and far or the muscle that controls the eye will lose tone. Constant focus in one direction can affect your eyesight permanently. Find reasons to search the skyline, focus on clouds, birds, trees, or even planes… anything further away than the screen!
5. Schedule Time with Other People
School is more then what you learn in the books. Social development, relationships, sports, and human interaction is important to learn good behavioral skills that is core to human development.
6. Offer Healthy Snacks
Keep fruits and veggies available to help the mind sharp! Fun, fatty snacks may feel like a reward but the effect of a poor diet on the ability to concentrate is well documented. You are all working too hard to make this work to sabotage your efforts accidentally.
7. Work Classical Music into the Schedule
This may be easier than you think! Early morning while making breakfast or getting ready, or late in the evening are two good times to introduce this mind-calming, focusing tool. The rhythms in the classics match the normal brain wave patterns of an alert human brain. This little trick will expand their horizon and they won’t even know you are helping them focus.
8. Be Consistent
Consistency and boundaries are very important to the learning process and to succeeding. It won’t always be easy or fun but a little discomfort to develop good lifelong habits of studying and learning will impact their future, career, and relationships.
9. Determine the Learning Style of Each Child
Nothing you will do will affect any two children the same, so make adjustments to the schedule to accommodate their uniqueness. Find out what interests them and do what you can to tailor your efforts around their learning style (not yours).
10. Praise and More Praise
You can do this! Everyone wants to feel like they are special at something. Help your child find out where they excel and build on that! The more they earn your praise the more they will work to earn more. Notice the word EARN… if you lavish them for no reason, you remove their motivation to improve and grow.
11. Don’t Be Afraid to Push Them to Excel
They are your children and they are capable of doing greater things than we have. If you don’t motivate them, how will they ever realize how amazing they can become!
12. Learning Comes from More than Book Work
Study skills, time management, social interactions, manners, and even fine motor skills are learned through a variety of opportunities. Spending time with and learning to care for people is at the core of humanity.
These skill can also be learned through interaction with other living creatures such as caring for a pet, garden, or bee-hive! Being responsible for something that is depending on regular care can provide a wealth of experience! These are skills your child will take with them into adulthood.
13. Integrate Life and Learning
For example: if your child is interested in bugs, then use bugs as a theme to learn about math, science, art, music, poetry, history, culinary arts, etc. You will be surprised how easy and interesting it is and when you finish that unit you will all be expert entomologists!
This teaching style (life hack) has a lot of big advantages. It keeps learning fun, and they will not get bored. We encourage parents to make a list of topics the kids are interested in so you can be prepared to transition from one to the next when they are ready. One parent of a particularly difficult student put it this way, “Listen… I know this stuff seems boring to you. How about picking something you are interested in and lets tailor your classes around exploring that.” (Worked like a charm and school became fun again!)
14. Be Engaged
Wonder and excitement are contagious! It’s OK for your kids to see you learning right alongside them. If you are showing interest it will spark and they will want to know why.
15. Ditch Your Pride, It’s OK to Ask for Help
Identify those people who are a resource for you, such as friends, teacher groups, online learning and google. Remember you are still teaching them while you are figuring out how to do this. Maybe the more important lesson is that there will always be things you don’t know. Truly intelligent people take time to ask questions.
16. Do Not Overdo It
On a normal day, your kids are only getting 2-3(ish) hours of concentrated teaching. You can get a lot more into the day, but consider the cost. Keep the homework schedule, class time, and social time in balance. Homework is a terrible baby-sitter. Decide now not to slip into that trap.
Be Encouraged!
Every day will not be a win… just like in life.
Do the best you can with what you have and don’t be afraid to ask for help! Communicate with grandparents, extended family, learning pods, other parents, church, or Facebook groups! You may be surprised at how many resources are at your disposal. The big take away for everyone… at the end of the day, if you have done the best you can with what you have to work with, then it could not be any better.
Tomorrow is a New Adventure!
3Rs Construction & Remodeling can help you get the office or study space you need for a successful school year. We can talk about your unique needs and develop a plan that work within your budget.
Give us a call today!
503-363-1059
