Due to COVID-19, the world has changed in unimaginable ways in a short time. For weeks now, families across the world have been forced into the situation of homeschooling as the schools have been shut down. This is not an easy time for anyone, and here are some tips to help your children and you during this period.
1) Make Everyday Agenda It is important to structure your children's days, ensuring that their schedule is balanced. For example, follow a math time with a reading time. Don't forget to include playtime and personal activity time. You can follow for example this type of timetable: Monday:9 -9.55am: Mathematics; 10-10.55am: Reading; 11-11.55am = History; 1-1.55pm - educational videos or educational games; 2- 2:55 pm = French; 3-3.55pm = Sport / Meditation; 4-4.55pm = Art / Sciences / Reflection 2) To-do-list The first 5 minutes of each class should be spent defining what we want to achieve during that period. It is important that you are present at the start to define their agenda. Then you can gradually distance yourself and let children also organize but make sure that the work is always done. Try to start with a simple schedule. For example: "To-do list" (5 mins)> revise the lesson (10 mins); do the exercises (20 mins); compare with the correct results (10 mins); summarize what you learnt and write down what you did not understand (10 mins).If you can... check that everything was well done in the last 5 minutes of each lesson. If this is not possible, take a moment in the middle of the day to check that everything has been done. 3) Develop children's curiosity and creativity It is important to keep children's curiosity high and work on their creativity. Start with creating different projects for them. You can also do our Open Mind challenges. The one for May is to create a poem with a theme "courage". Another example of great creative projects is an experiment in sciences, such as recreating a lava lamp or solar system. It is also very important that students write at least once every two days: f.e. the great topic to spark their creativity is what life could be like on another planet or report on the death of Caesar. These topics involve complex tasks: 1) the search for information 2) the structure of a story 3) the verification of the style of expression, conjugation, grammar and spelling. If you have some particular hobby, involve your child. It can be cooking or if you are an aviation enthusiast, take a moment to make a model and explain how an airplane works and what role this particular airplane has played in history. 4) Use technological tools There are so many digital tools in the educational field that you can benefit from. "Khân academy" is a great tool, especially for subjects in which you have to train a lot like mathematics. Just 10 mins doing these exercises will help! "Kahoot" is another excellent one to take a quiz about different subjects. You can also play the educational version of "Assassin's Creed". Even if the game itself can be violent, the educational versions are kid-friendly. The character walks in ancient Egypt and can interact with surroundings. It is a form of immersion that you can further explore with Virtual Reality and your Oculus.If your child needs a teacher and interactive environment, Open Mind is the right platform for it. Suddenly, even being home a child becomes a part of the virtual class, find friends and have a teacher that will pay attention to him. The platform has particularly interesting “live masterclasses” where students learn how to write short stories, poetry, film scripts, create music, produce movies or do graphic design. They will be introduced to theatre, philosophy or public speaking.