Tour Our At Home School Area + Download My Weekly Lesson Plan Template
Our Weekly Lesson Plan Template - Click HERE To Download & Print!
It has been a few weeks now since we have fully jumped into doing school at home with Mila. I never thought we’d homeschool Mila and yet here we are! I’ve shared quiet a few peeks into our school area and our school routine on my Instagram Stories and a ton of you requested a full tour with links to where we bought everything. You can take a look around here and below find the links to all our items shown. I’ve also created a pretty simple and customizable Weekly Lesson Plan that you can download and print to use. I like using this to create a few extra learning activities that foster what Mila is currently learning within her virtual preschool classes.
Just to give you all an idea of what kind of system we have going on here…
We actually enrolled Mila into a virtual preschool program called BumoBrain back in May and have been slowly building out this little space to foster a school-like atmosphere. We decided to not send Mila back to school in the Fall, which was a difficult decision. Though one we knew we could manage for now. Since I work from home I could rework my daily schedule to fit in time to help Mila with her schoolwork. Also now with Dan’s gym being closed down, he is at home to help. We’ve sort of pivoted everything to foster Mila and make her school at home a priority. I feel like it has been a bit difficult but nothing compared to what Mila feels. She is sad she can’t physically go to school and talks about her friends daily. We try to combat that with lots of FaceTime playdates, and keeping a flexible school schedule to help ease Mila into all this change. As much as we try to keep a schedule, some days things don’t work and we end up tossing everything school related to the side for the day. I’ll share more about our routine and some things that have helped tremendously these last few weeks soon! I’ll answer any questions you have for us too, so just leave those in the comments!
I have basically transformed this small space into a school area. Here we do a daily calendar routine and store all our go-to school supplies. I’ve organized each drawer and have taught Mila where everything is. As well as how to put everything back properly. This has been key because when Dan does school with Mila she can grab the supplies she needs vs Dan having to rely on me to show him where everything is. ;) As I mentioned before, Mila is enrolled in a virtual preschool. Monday - Friday her preschool teacher sends daily morning videos, worksheets, learning activity lessons, and quick videos about whatever the kids are learning about that week. Twice a week Mila meets with her class and her teacher via Zoom for 30 minutes to go over everything the kids are learning about that week. I will say the class time with the other kids has been really great for Mila. She loves seeing the other kids! The preschool uses the platform SeaSaw and we turn in her assignments via photo or video. Mila’s teacher responds to each assignment via video or voice recording.
With that, I’ve also created a little Weekly Lesson Plan to foster what Mila learns during her virtual preschool assignments. I like to choose a letter, number and sight word that Mila may need extra help with and plan some activities to help her with that. As well as some hands on learning activities we can do together.
Mila is almost five years old and the way her birthday falls she would have been starting TK this Fall. I’m hoping with our Weekly Lesson Plan + the Virtual Preschool program Mila will be fully ready for Kindergarten next year. We are all hoping she can go back to school early next year but who knows at this point! We are all set to keep her home for now. I’m hoping that by sharing what school at home looks like for us it helps you. I know we are all in different situations and distant learning looks wildly different for every child. You can spill your heart and struggles out in the comments below. I’ll listen and I’m sure a lot of us feel the same.
This season is HARD. We are here for you. You got this mama!
I’ve added drawer organizers to help give each item a home. I’ve broken down each drawer to all your standard school supplies. We also have a drawer full of pom poms, googly eyes, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, rubber bands, and mini clothespins. Those we use for learning activities/small crafts. Also in the drawers we have construction paper, watercolor paper, sensory items like play dough + play dough tools, and coloring/activity books. I actually started with one set of drawers and ended up buying another to store more things. Since Mila is comfortable navigating the drawers she often comes over to do her own thing and plays school which I think is great! (So long as she cleans up afterwards ;)
At the top of the drawers I keep a bin where we keep her current worksheets and activities that were just made. At the end of every week we go through it and keep what we want, hang artwork, and recycle the rest. I also keep her sorting tray at the top, a small white board, and any activity books we are working on.
Take a look around …
