Balancing Homeschooling and Motherhood During Quarantine

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Hi there,

It has almost been a year since I last wrote a post on here, which I can hardly believe! I guess life got a little busy for me.

We are all going through such a strange time at the moment and some of us have had to go through things we would never had imagined. Suddenly I have gone from everyday activities of taking my daughter to school, running errands to the supermarket, having play dates and going for coffee with my friends. To homeschooling, not being able to see family or friends for weeks and now a thing called social distancing. I am not complaining whatsoever as my family are all healthy and all the key workers are working tirelessly through this pandemic. I’m just trying to get used to this new normal as I’m sure a lot of us are.

The main reason for this post is to share my tips and experiences of trying to balance motherhood and homeschooling whilst having to stay at home during quarantine.

Routine

My first tip would be to find a routine. Our family life thrives off of it. Although I know this is not for everyone, it tends to help us a lot as the children will know what is coming up next. We try to get up usually the same time everyday, although it is now slightly later than it used to be. I have a homeschooling timetable written on the wall, so Sariyah will know what work is planned for each day. We do try to follow it as closely as we can, but it is easily adapted.

After breakfast, that’s when we do our “take 5”. This is our warmup for the morning. Sariyah can pick a song of her choice and we can do some dancing and exercises to get our bodies moving for 5mins. After that we will go through the timetable and go over the work that either her teacher has set for that day or some that I have planned. As Khai is not at school as yet, I try to keep him preoccupied with flashcards or counting. He loves filling bowls with water and placing objects in it to see if it will float or sink and recently we made some homemade play dough, which kept him quite happy for an hour or two. If you guys would like the recipe, please let me know and I can put it in another post.

preparing the night before

I have only really started doing this for the pass week or so, but I can really see the difference. Although we have the timetable, it still helps me in the mornings knowing that the work has been set out for the next day. I now look online the night before for resources that we may need and print out anything that we can work on the following day. Doing this beforehand helps me feel more organised and the children don’t have to wait while I’m printing something out.

think outside the box

I know as mums we want the best for our children, and sometimes I think we can be too hard on ourselves if we don’t get things exactly how we had envisioned. But I think for the most part, our children are just happy that we are able to spend so much more time with them.

With that being said, our PE lessons can range from Joe Wicks’ (The Body Coach) YouTube channel; PE with Joe (love him!) to having an obstacle course. I set out different objects around the house which they have to jump over, crawl through, collect items, roll over or sometimes dress up! I use a timer and after every round, they then have to beat their last time. They absolutely love this, and we can easily do this for up to an hour.

But I sometimes I have to remember that all school work doesn’t have to be academics, it is also trying to show them life skills. So we bake, cook and sometime they help me put the washing on.

have fun

Lastly, just have fun! Yes, I know it can be difficult at times when the kids don’t want to do their work and you feel you are failing not only as a mother, but also now as a teacher. But I think we need to try not to take things so seriously (this is what I’m trying to work on currently) take longer breaks in between tasks, and just breathe. We have got this!

Thanks so much if you got this far in the post and hope my tips will help you with homeschooling your children in this difficult time. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed reading.

J x