Tricks for Making Being a Home Into a Routine
Stuck at home with young children…yes let’s face it, this is really hard. How can we make the most of this time with our kids. It’s all about balance and routine! I teach early childhood special education in a classroom most of the time. I now am finding myself figuring out how to reach my kids virtually, which is a challenge. Young children should not be learning virtually; we all know this. Here are some tips and tricks that I am using with me students and with my own kids to help stay consistent and sane!
- Daily schedules- my own children love that I am a teacher/mom…NOT! I have a high schooler, middle schooler, and a first grader. Every morning I give them a schedule. They know that they have activities/e-learning to complete before they get their “free time.” Code for video games (for my older kids). They also have to do physical activity and something creative. They don’t necessarily like it, but it works. They know that I will not cave and it’s the same everyday Monday thru Friday. For my students, I give them a picture schedule for their e-learning. This helps them have a clear beginning and end. You can use a picture schedule for young children for a daily schedule as well. Make copies of the daily schedule or have it pulled up on your device for the kids to refer back to after each activity. You can even mark it done using a check mark. The more consistent you can be the better it will become a routine and the kids will not think twice about it.
- Happy Slips– My first grader has been obsessed with “blue slips” that he receives at school for exhibiting positive behaviors such as being respectful, responsible, and safe. He comes home with these blue slips and is so excited that he earned one at school. At home, he sometimes does not always “work” for me as well as he does for his teacher, so I made up something called, “happy slips.” The idea is the same. It’s literally a small piece of paper with a big smiley face on it that says, “happy slip.” When I catch him doing something responsible, respectful, or safe, or frankly finishing his e-learning before noon, he receives a happy slip. He loves these and he loves that after he collects 10 we do something special or get a special treat. It’s nothing fancy, see below or you can make your own using tiny slips of paper. It’s the little things that helps with our sanity, right?
- Recess- Send your children outside for recess. Set a timer and they can run around like wild animals. We usually go for walks, bike rides, rollerblade, and more, but recess is when they have to play on their own doing what they can think of outside. I give them recess halfway through e-learning so it gives us ALL a break.
** I try to remember that when my kids look back at this time, I want them to have good memories of all the time we spent together. Even on the hard days, I try to keep this in mind!
