Jack's a five. Everybody knows that song. A, B, C. This is one of those when we're glad you're not watching us.
I know, cause we can have all the fun. We want to be bringing it home with Sarah and Sunil. Yes. Things are different in the country now.
In the world now. Just in general. Yeah, they're very different. Yes, a lot of kids are being homeschooled.
They are talking about ABCs in one, two, three, but, but I'll be honest. Some of the stuff they're learning now is beyond the ABCs in one, two, three. Now, now we can teach that kind of stuff ourselves. Right.
But the stuff we're on now. No, I can still handle what my kids are doing, but it's still, I'm not a teacher. So we have brought in a friend and an expert today. We need a teacher.
We need some help on this subject. We have Sherry Ingram with us today. Hi, Sherry. Hi, I'm Henry.
Oh, we're good. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Now you're a classroom teacher.
I am a teacher with fifth grade reading and social studies. Alright. Now how many years have you been teaching? This is my 27th year to be teaching.
Okay. So she's got some experience and she's also raised two children. So she's helped at home with homework and she's done the whole gamut. Right.
Right. So we need some help. Okay. We know as people have transitioned to happen to do some more work, not just homework at home, but actually do some lessons at home.
We did a little research and one of the things that I found said, you know, don't just go in and throw paper, work out your kids. Sit down and talk about it. Right. Have a family meeting and discuss, you know, what's going to be happening regarding.
This is giving parents time to understand what the children are going through every day and what they do. And I know it's stressful for them, especially the parents that are working outside of their home still right now to have to do this, but we're trying to keep them motivated and in work because if they don't, we're right now. We're scared to come back April the 3rd. That's three weeks.
We're going to be out of school and we don't want them to get so far behind. Sure. And who knows what's going to be involved with testing and stuff moving forward, but we don't want there to be a large learning deficit. Right.
So, okay. Explain what's going on and how family meeting. We're not going to say, okay, I'm your teacher now. We're doing this.
I saw something so funny online where this teacher made this mother, made them put their school uniforms on it. They were sitting at the dining room table wearing their uniforms, doing their classwork. I kind of get it. They could still feel like this is serious, you know.
Was that a little too structured? Everybody's got to do it their own way. Yes. That's true.
And speaking of structure, you know, we know children need structure. They cry from structure scheduling is an important thing. It's cool because there's a certain time that you do this, certain time that we do that. So, how do we kind of handle that at home?
How do we know how much time they need to spend on learning? Normally, homework should take like 15 minutes per subject, but since we're doing everything from home now, I'm going to say at least one to two hours because reading, before we were dismissed, we sent passages home. So, they need to be able to read it and understand what they're reading and it's going to take a little bit longer than you just going through and say, oh, I had 10 math problems today. And so, I would say about one to two hours normally at home with the child.
I don't think that's unreasonable, honestly. And you don't have to do it all at one time. You know, they can't. And it is good to break it up.
And maybe you can do reading for the first 30 minutes because I always try to teach reading at school first thing in the morning because they're more than large with the reading than they are with numbers. And reading takes a little bit together. Read more than one time to get a full understanding to comprehend what they read. So, I would say, let's do reading in the morning or do that first and then take a break, let them do something on the computer or let them watch a little fun show or be creative at home.
Let them do something in the kitchen with you, have some fun with you, and then come back and do something else that they're just not doing. So, we're not just going to work for six hours straight. No, that would be a good idea. Because that's really scary.
So, do you think some subjects take longer to work on than others? I know he's reading reading too. Reading takes a little longer because especially the reading passages and looking for main ideas or they're trying to find the cause and effect. They're going to have to read it carefully.
So, there's comprehension. Not just calling off the right words. Reading is not just calling that word. Reading, you have to understand.
And that's what comprehension comes in. And there are a lot of things that we cover in reading that is so hard. You have to understand inferences. They have to understand figurative language.
There's so many different things. Types of reading. So, it takes longer to understand it. And as parents, we may have to go over it before we get it.
I was going to say, I've got a bunch of parents just went to Google right now and put in figuring too late because I brought them in it. Yes, definitely. So, we definitely need to hit also. Yes.
Not just reading or just math. A lot of our passages now are science and social studies. They are science and social studies passages and that way they're getting science and social studies incorporated in reading. Oh, that's cool.
All I want to know. So, is P.E. Part of what we need to do in our homes? Children should have about 30 to 60 minutes daily of activity.
Okay. Even if it's, I know it's been raining. You can't go outside. I saw a parent yesterday that said her child was taking a break in between the rain and she made a zip line with her slide board.
She made a zip line. She was out in the rain. It's okay. You know, when we were kids, we went to jail.
We went to jail. We paid more time. I did not play the rain. I did not do the most.
We were the last time. Now, we were the last two or three or four. We were the last two or three or six minutes. We do it P.E.
everyday at school because they need that activity. They do. They need to do that at home too. If we're home, quarantine with them, we need to get out and get some pressure.
So what about screen time? Does it be pretty easy to just say, oh, here's all these educational apps. Just look at the screen all day. It's good to incorporate screen time.
Yes. And I'm going to article on this site called Very Well Family. And they said that we should have at least one to two hours of screen time. But it needs to be something that's going to be educational and you need to monitor what your children are on.
Don't just let them. You can't just take an app and you'll be on the right thing. You know, you need to make sure that they're on the right thing. Okay.
And they're not getting on something that they don't need to be up. And so we can't do our sites or monitor where they can't get on those things. But when you're at home, they can't Google just about anything. So you want to be sure that they're on something that's good for them in education.
Okay. I agree. Well, like I was all about music. You know, I was a singer.
So what about music? And are we incorporate those while we're in home? Yes. No, we don't have a lot of schools now don't have art and music in them.
But that doesn't mean you can't do that at home. Oh, we're going to sing. Creativity is very good for them. A lot of kids don't know how to use their imagination because we don't have art and music.
So that gives them a great time to use their imagination to finger painting with them. Anything put on some music. I love music even when I'm like Mr. Neil.
When I'm in my kitchen cooking, I'm going to have some music. Right, leaning like a clean back. Oh, yes. So it doesn't hard to have that.
I think it's creative. Yes. And you can probably work some of your lessons, work some art and things that easily. Yes.
So, you know, most of us that are in this role now are not classroom teachers. What is some advice from a teacher to a parent? We're just also scared. Reach out to your teachers.
Okay. Reach out to your teachers. Reach out to other parents. And there are some other children that can help you.
Well, then you may have a parent or child that's really good in math. You just say, I don't call up and see what she's doing on this. Reach out to the teachers. We're there for you.
I've seen a lot of my coworkers post on Facebook that they've taught grade, K through six. And if you need help, just message us. We have what we call remind 101 and parents can message me and I can message them. So they're free to message me anytime they get to something that they don't understand and I can help them with that.
And you know, I want to shout out the teachers that I'm friends with on social media because I've seen several messages like that that say, Hey, I'm back in the ground as in business. I'll talk these grades and just email me if you come across something. You don't understand. We can FaceTime.
You know, they're just willing help me. I really truly like, I know, you know, when y'all got out for spring break, that's one thing, but you won't have it with your students. Exactly. I'm much better now what they're doing.
You're working on it. Yes, I'm going all of that. We've worked on stuff all the way through. Sure.
You know, you really care about these kids and you want the, I'm glad that you suggested that reach out to your teacher. Exactly. So, do you have some recommended sites for online learning and for places families can get printables because some people don't have internet access at home. Okay.
Some of the sites that I use a lot in their free, it's called turtle diary.com, soft schools. Soft schools. Soft schools. Soft schools.
They're shepherds, shop software, and for the young ones, they're starfowl. And ABC Mouse is another one that you usually have to pay for, but right now, because the kids being at home with the grown virus, they are giving free subscriptions right now. If you type in the word school, seven, seven, one, three sevens in one school, seven, seven, seven, one ABC Mouse. That's very good for those younger kids.
Another one is the nuzzabum.com. That's M-R-N-U-S-S-B-A-M.com. And that's a lot of math on there. And he has other things, but all kind of math with his Addy's attracting multiply, ABC, Y-Y-A.
So all of those are on site and they're free. Oh, like free. Yes. So all of these websites, but what if you don't have the internet at home?
There was also a company I saw from Spectrum, who's offering free access to internet by calling this number, 844-888-8393, 844-888-8393. And if you still don't, or not able to get internet, please go to a local Walmart, Dollar Generals store and find workbooks that their children can do something in instead of just sitting there and don't do nothing. They have all kind of things. I went to the Dollar Tree this morning and I can tell some people have been doing that because those hells are pretty empty over there.
So good. Even dry-race boards where they can write their numbers or the ABCs or anything. So take advantage of those things as well. So I was joking about the woman that made her kids put the uniforms on.
How formal do we need to be with this education? I mean, can we lay across the bed and work on the worksheets or do we really need to be at a table as if we were in the classroom? I would say you could do a little boat. I took keep them a little relaxed and don't make it feel like they're just in stress mode.
Do some things at the reading table. And then if you're reading a book and I recommend reading A-R books. I love to read, read A-R books and my children know that they can still take those A-R tests online as comprehension. So they can sit in a big chair with you or sit up on your bed with you and read to you.
Ask them questions about what they've read. Who are the characters? What are the characters like? Just different things like that.
Then if they're doing math or something like that, I may say do it a little more structured place. Or if you're doing your worksheets at a more structured place. But make it more comfortable for them so they don't feel like they're just throwing out this down their throats. Right.
And I think it's just a weird time for everybody. It's all a little unsettled. And I thought it was good, Sarah, that you mentioned that the teachers are all unsettled. They're routine.
They just are a lot of them. I was trying to help you out. We don't know what those teachers are all over the place. The parents are all over the place.
The main thing I guess is for us to try to keep calm so that the children feel that somebody's in control. We're going to get you through this. You know, the stuff that we always have to do when something's going on. Yeah, they fade off of us.
Exactly. Exactly. Now one last thing we want to talk to you about. One thing we read in a resource was to give yourself grace.
That was advice to the parents. You know, many have never done this. Many are afraid. Many say they can't do this.
So, you know, what final thought would you be able to parents and caregivers as they kind of venture out into the unknown? I'm going to say parents just hang in there. These are your children. You know your children better than we do.
You know what they can and cannot do. Don't stress yourself out because you're going to stress them out. And be encouragers and just, you know, hang in there be tough. And anytime you have a problem or a person, please reach out to an educator anywhere and let them try to walk you through it.
And then if there's something you can't reach a teacher, Google it. You can find anything on Google these days. If you need extra worksheets, Google worksheets and certain areas and you can find those. If you need help, you can find that out.
It's available to you and please reach out to anybody. We don't want anybody to be stressed through this time because we're stressed enough. There's a lot of unknowns. We don't know.
We don't want them to be sitting at home for three weeks doing absolutely nothing. They're going to regress instead of progress and we want them to be working on anything. So whatever they can do at home, it would be helpful. Don't stress yourself because you're going to stress them.
Really good advice. And something just popped in my head. 1-800. Ask the teacher or something like that.
You know, you could dial up a teacher. I need to know that. I need to know that. I need to talk to you about that.
So go ahead and end this podcast. So I can go ahead and get that trademark for somebody's deal. Thank you so much, Sherri. Thank you.
Thank you for listening. And thank you all for listening. And in the words of Mr. Bob Marley.
I wonder how he would have been as a home school teacher. Probably pretty chill. Yeah, I think he would have laid back with the reading materials and teaching that way. But he would advise us to live the life we love.
And love the lucky lives. Take care.