August 24, 2020

Keyboarding with TypingClub



When I set out to plan my first year of homeschool last year with a fourth grader, I didn't feel clueless about what had to be taught or learned. I had a sense for the upper grades and was on top of reading, writing, math, and even science and social studies and spelling. But something that was not so much on my radar was the need to learn keyboarding skills...

When W drafted an essay or a story or other piece of writing, I had him write with pen on paper, because I felt it was important to work on his handwriting and his stamina for the physical aspects of writing. But from time to time he would "type up" a finished, polished piece of writing, and it would take forever. I would have him work on it for fifteen- or twenty-minute chunks of time here and there and it felt like it took weeks to get an essay, not to mention something longer, typed. At one point I informally calculated his typing rate and found he was typing somewhere between one and two words per minute (WPM). Yikes. So then I tried to make a little more of a point of finding times for him to type, and I complimented him when it seemed his rate was getting fractionally better. He said he'd been taught about the "home row" in school, so I thought just reminding him of this fundamental principle of efficient typing would be enough. (When I was not much older than he is, my grandmother, one of the first people I knew to own a computer, sat me down one day and told me about keeping my fingers on "A-S-D-F" and "Semi-L-K-J." Because I was so excited about being able to use her computer for any reason, that tip alone was the only keyboarding instruction I needed; I latched onto it and became pretty efficient pretty quickly.) But this single tip for typing was not helping W as much as I remembered it helping me. He wasn't truly basing his fingers anywhere in particular when he typed and he wasn't getting much quicker or developing the right habits simply by typing things more often. It was finally in the spring of his fourth-grade year that I realized that he needed more and I looked into an actual program that could explicitly teach him and give practice in the skills and habits he needed. We found TypingClub, an online program, and have been really happy with it ever since.

I didn't do extensive research, but I found that a lot of teachers online recommended TypingClub and when I did some quick comparisons with other programs, the fact that it was free helped tip the scales in its favor. (I figure we can always try a free service and decide we need more, rather than the other way around.) It truly was free (not just a limited free version that makes you compelled to buy the full version almost immediately). We clicked that we were a homeschool (but maybe it is free for classrooms as well up to a certain number of students) and gave a few bits of info and we had an account. W uses it several times a week for fifteen minutes or so at a time, and his typing has improved a lot-- as well as his attitude and confidence in regard to typing.









When he logs in each time, the home screen shows time spent in typing practice last week, this week, and today. It also shows current average speed, as well as last week's and last month's average speed, in WPM. He chooses any of the levels he's worked his way up to so far (there are more than 100 he can choose from at this point, focusing on specific keys or the whole keyboard). It tells him his speed and accuracy in real time as he types, but those settings can be turned off if distracting. It offers a few different modes for support-- for a while he had a picture of the keyboard toward the bottom of the screen and it lit up the location of each letter as he was to type it (even though even then he wasn't supposed to look at the actual keyboard). After a while, we switched the level of support so now it only shows two hands and lights up the finger that should type each letter, but doesn't show a keyboard or where the key is. Every once in a while a session is interspersed with a one-minute video discussing the importance of posture or looking away from the screen to give your eyes a rest. As he finishes any exercise he chooses, he gets an immediate score and a rating out of five stars (it's kind of like a video game in that way and is very motivating). He likes to try to earn five stars on a level where he had previously only earned three or four, and enjoys revisiting earlier levels when he needs an ego boost.

There are some ads sometimes on the side of the screen (naturally, they are for whatever it is we've been looking to buy recently, so W had a chance to learn the big brother aspect of online research).



Beyond the screens he sees, if I want to, I can click "Stats" and see a surplus of statistics (more than I really need but it's nice to look at from time to time):
  • How well he has mastered individual keys 
  • How long he's practiced on which exact dates 
  • A graph of progress overview 
  • How fast and accurate each individual finger is 
  • Which character he's fastest (f), slowest (b), most accurate (f), and least accurate (w) at
From time to time, this stats page actually provides a great, concrete opportunity to sit and analyze his learning with him. He likes to pore over it and see the charts of his progress.

One thing the TypingClub lessons say repeatedly to the student is that the one rule is to not look at the keyboard. And yet. It's so hard not to when you are learning. Especially when you've made a mistake and want to be sure to find the correct key. Telling him not to look wasn't enough, so I used a trick I remembered learning in my student-teaching days-- a section of a cardboard box to cover the keyboard but allow student hands to fit beneath it. It feels a little mean, but this way they physically can't see the keyboard until they learn the habit of really not depending on looking. We transformed an old Kiwi Crate box for this purpose, adding fins on each side to raise the level of it off of the keyboard and it has worked great.


We've gotten well beyond the hunt-and-peck stage and I'm thankful for that; he's up to about a 20 WPM average these days. I think we'll keep up some regular keyboarding practice this year-- it certainly doesn't require a lot of dedication of time and I'd like him to get a little more efficient as a fifth grader (I've heard a rule of thumb of a goal of 5 WPM x grade level in school so that's the guideline we're using for now). Being able to type for real makes him feel grown up and he treats it almost like it's a party trick-- "Look, Dad, watch me type without looking!" I am optimistic that this year typing can become a helpful tool in his arsenal rather than a source of frustration.

August 17, 2020

Read Aloud and the Case for Picture Books


A lot of homeschoolers talk about family read aloud: gathering all the kids together-- from toddlers to teenagers-- and sharing great literature. This sounds lovely and I'd become curious about those perfect texts that would engage multiple ages at once.

We have always read to our kids a lot, and at bedtime, religiously. But we've mostly read to them separately, not together. I've got a kindergartner and a fifth grader, so they're at pretty different stages. (My 10-year-old reads to himself plenty all the time, but we still read aloud to him at bedtime-- I'll take it for as long as I can!) There are so many amazing books out there for big kids and it's always fun to choose what he and I will read together next. Currently my husband is reading a book from the 39 Clues series to W, while W and I have just begun The Phantom Tollbooth. While he listens, W likes to draw or color or, most often lately, work on pictures in one of his several Extreme Dot-to-Dot books. When I read to my five-year old daughter, on the other hand, we read High Five or Ladybug magazine or one of the seven hundred picture books we own. M is completely absorbed by the pictures and she sits in my lap or curls up next to me, scrutinizing every page and interjecting with questions.

But having both my kids home for the final months of this past school year helped me realize how valuable it is to find shared learning experiences for them-- things they can both access even with their age difference, even if they get different things out of them. I thought I'd try to make reading together a bit of a routine this summer and make an effort to find great read alouds we could all share. I tried reading a few classic novels aimed at a young audience to both my kids together. Here are a few thoughts on each of the ones we tried.

~ ~ ~

The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams: Written in the 1920s, it's a magical story with a nice message. I think it's nice to read kids some books like this one that are written long ago. It helps give them get a taste for what childhood might have been like before their grandparents were born, and helps them take in language they aren't familiar with. Even with words like "brigands," this one is a story about a stuffed animal after all.

Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne: Some sweet humor that you have to be a bigger kid to understand and we found ourselves explaining to M some of the jokes that entire chapters were based on (like the spotted and herbaceous "Backson" that lives in the animals' imaginations after Christopher Robin leaves a note intending to say that he'll be "back soon"). But it is still an extra-lovable story. Some of the situations those friends get themselves into are so funny. The games they play, feelings they have, and "expotitions" they go on are beautifully child-like and relatable.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Betty MacDonald: This was probably the biggest mutual hit with my kids. It was concrete (and formulaic) enough for my youngest but clever and funny enough for my oldest.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll: I have to admit we haven't yet finished this strange book. I'd never read it myself, though at many parts I can clearly visualize the Disney movie that I did see as a kid. Some of the strangeness is a hoot (following a rabbit down a hole one day out of boredom), and some is just strange and a little harder to follow.

A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond: My son loved Paddington (though he's also seen the very-good movie and it was a rare case where he liked the movie more) but my daughter got bored by the end. Sweet story about a London family taking in a bear who is always sticky with marmalade and gets into various innocent scrapes.

Pippi Longstocking, Astrid Lindgren: The sheer ridiculousness of it is fascinating. Here's a kid who lives on her own, plays with guns, doesn't go to school at all (not even remote or hybrid or homeschool!), who wins over burglars just by being herself, and is never afraid. But Pippi is so bold and fun. Maybe in some ways she embodies the inner wishes of kids-- rolling out cookie dough on the floor and living with a monkey and a pony and not having a bedtime. I'm glad we read it. While reading it, W was often making connections to some other favorite female protagonists I'm glad to say he's known and loved-- Anne (of Green Gables), Ramona, and Junie B.

Homer Price, Robert McCloskey: Like all Robert McCloskey books, it feels so very old-fashioned. W liked it. Each chapter is its own little story, entertaining and less than believable, with situations involving burglars and a pet skunk, a kid left in charge of a restaurant on his own, and prize-winning balls of yarn. There's a picture on every other page. M seems to like it and mostly follow along, but doesn't love it.

~ ~ ~

The only "chapter" books I'd read to M before this summer were things like Frog and ToadHenry and Mudge, and Mr. Putter and Tabby-- all of which she loves-- but each chapter is its own little story with the same characters and themes over and over, and the whole book can be read in one sitting.

W is always hooked by the novelty of any new story, and likes a good book, no matter what reading level it is. While he consumes big thick books like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, he will also laugh out loud over The Berenstain Bears if one is left lying around. I knew he would enjoy almost anything.

Aside from Winnie-the-Pooh, the longer books we read together this summer were new for all of us. W and I loved them all-- turns out there's a reason they are classics. M liked...some of them. There were certain bizarre details she tuned into in Pippi Longstocking (she demonstrates to us at bedtime many evenings now how Pippi sleeps with her feet on the pillow and her head under the covers). And I think she was engaged for a lot of Winnie-the-Pooh and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. But I found I needed to stop often to try to keep M on the same page in the longer, picture-less books (some we listened to as audio books so they may have had pictures but we didn't see them). Sometimes she asked questions, or I would tell her what words meant, or have W share a simple inference when she didn't get what was happening, or we'd explain to her what was so funny when we laughed. I was reminded that, at five, M needs a story that's fairly concrete, especially when she has to visualize it all herself. When she looked bored or wasn't able to answer a basic story question if I asked her one, I thought, what exactly am I gaining here by sharing this "classic" with her at this stage? There were certainly things she got out of some of them. But there were enough things she missed that she didn't fully absorb the magic of these great stories. I remain convinced that it is a small, special niche of novels that really, truly work for the under-six set. (Other five-year-olds may have loved these stories or even more sophisticated ones; every kid is different.) A few months or a year from now M will be at a different stage and the types of books she loves will grow and change. But there's no rush.

Summer outdoor bedtime read aloud with W


All this has renewed my love and belief in quality picture books for all ages.

As a first-grade teacher I would sometimes have parent-teacher conferences in which a parent would worry about the skills of their blossoming child, saying they thought he was using the pictures in books to guess what the words said. Some of these parents would even say they covered up the picture to make their child focus on the words! But there is a reason pictures are in books for young kids: pictures support the text and help with comprehension and word solving (it's a great sign if a beginning reader is using every bit of information on the page and multiple strategies to figure out an unfamiliar word, including looking at the pictures). Pictures also help engage them and get them hooked on books in general, pictures supply detail and richness to the experience and the conversations you can have, and sometimes pictures even (often comically, intentionally) say more, or say something different than, the text. (Think of Mercer Mayer's Little Critter books and how funny they are specifically because of this contradiction between text and illustration.) Pictures in picture books are a big part of the art form, and of the experience of coming to know and love books for young kids. When I was in the classroom I only chose to read one or two novels to my students in a year because there were just so many good picture books I wanted to share and so little time.

I also believe in continuing to read picture books to upper-elementary age kids. Firstly, plenty of older kids still need the support of pictures for reading itself or to aid comprehension. Also, picture books are a nice little package that you can read in one sitting; you can quickly accumulate many stories-- each with its own plot, setting, themes, character traits, conflict, resolution, writer's style-- that are not only pleasant shared experiences, but provide lots of opportunities to discuss, analyze, and compare. (I love the simple concept of reading a Book a Day for older-- even high-school-age-- students for these very reasons.) Beyond those benefits that any good picture book has for bigger kids, some picture books are specifically aimed at kids in 4th, 5th, 6th grade and beyond-- I am thinking of the clever word play of Miss Alaineus, the dark historical fiction Rose Blanche, Dr. Seuss's social commentary in books like The King's Stilts, or the opportunities for interpretation in rich stories like Roxaboxen.

For now, if I want to sit with my two kids and read aloud, picture books are still best for us. I pause a few times while reading-- but not too much-- for discussion. I might direct a higher-level question toward W and a more basic one toward M (though I wouldn't point that fact out to them). (This might include predicting what will happen next at a key point, inferring (why do you think she stomped out the room?), describing what a character is like, noticing details in the illustrations, or talking about what the characters learned.) And I remind myself that hearing stories isn't the only thing they can do and learn from together. Just as worthwhile are things like art projects, the blanket forts they build, the desserts they concoct together to surprise us, and the songs they teach each other on their respective instruments.


~ ~ ~

Multi-Age Picture Books to Read Aloud
Here are just a few favorite picture books that are rich and interesting enough for olders, but still digestible and engaging for youngers. There are so many to choose from!
  • Beatrice's Goat, Page McBrier
  • Toot and Puddle, Holly Hobbie
  • Fireflies, Julie Brinckloe
  • Too Tall Houses, Gianna Marino
  • books by Bill Peet
  • Leo the Late Bloomer, Robert Kraus
  • Tops and Bottoms, Janet Stevens
  • Mirette on the High Wire, Emily Arnold McCully 
  • Strega Nona, Tomie dePaola
  • Christmas Trolls, Jan Brett
  • Violet the Pilot, Steve Breen
  • The Empty Pot, Demi
  • Owl Moon, Jane Yolen
  • Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Mem Fox
  • The White-Footed Mouse, Willem Lange
  • Circus Ship and other books by Chris Van Dusen
  • Ish, Peter H. Reynolds 
  • and many more!
What are your recommendations for the best read alouds for multiple ages together, or for any age?

August 10, 2020

Homeschooling: How to Start

School districts are starting this school year in all different ways: all-remote learning, hybrid learning (specific days/parts of the day in-school and some remote), and some offering families a choice among these options. No matter how the school year starts, it could change at any moment depending on assessments of the pandemic. A lot of parents are understandably worried about the disruption in learning that the likely switching among these learning modes may cause. Many families are considering homeschooling right now, scary and unknown though that may be, because they want some control and consistency in their child's education. I get that.

We frequently marvel at the fate or luck that brought us to choose homeschooling over a year ago. Our family's experience last spring when all the children were sent home, and this summer as so many have been on tenterhooks, has been different from most. I decided to homeschool over a year ago because we actively wanted to. I had months to research math programs, think about how the roles of "teacher" and "student" might affect my relationship with my son, and to talk until late at night about what my schedule and approach should be. I'm no homeschool expert but starting any new venture is the hardest and where you find the most obvious kinks, and we're happy to have already survived that part! I look forward to our second full year of homeschooling with optimism and a greater sense of calm than I had last year at this time. If you've decided to go the do-it-yourself route and homeschool, here are some tips from my perspective a year in.


Homeschooling: How to Start

Consider your approach. Think about the big picture. You get to decide. What is your philosophy about what education should be? What do you wish your years of schooling had felt, and what is it you really want for your children? How do they each learn best? Like everything else, you don't have to have this all hammered out in order to start, but it's worth giving thought to and having conversations about. Answers to those questions will inform your overall approach and from there your schedule and day-to-day functioning.

There are several distinct styles of homeschooling with different names that families might choose depending on what they value. For me it comes down to a spectrum between "unschooling" at one extreme and traditional schooling at the other. Unschooling is essentially the idea that life is learning, that kids should be kids and free to follow their interests and learn in an organic way as things come up. Traditional schooling is replicating school at home. Unschooling vs. traditional schooling is a choice between little structure and a lot of structure, between kids having a say in everything about their learning or little, between having no schedule and having a rigid schedule, between seeing the world as your classroom and creating a classroom in your home. In thinking about where you fit along this spectrum, I think one key is to accept that it's reasonable to start where you are comfortable. (It was sort of inevitable that I started with a pretty traditional approach last year, coming from teaching in a public school for years. As I approach year two, I find myself edging a bit more toward the middle of this unschool-traditional school spectrum.) Think about what philosophy feels right for you and your family.

Find out what the homeschooling requirements are in your state. Each state is different. We live in New Hampshire. The main things I have to account for are a letter I send to the superintendent over the summer stating our intention to homeschool, which he signs and returns, and a choice among a few options for an end-of-year evaluation to demonstrate learning. Last year we chose a pencil-and-paper mail-order standardized test because it seemed easiest at that point. That's it. Our neighbor, Vermont, has more detailed requirements in comparison, but they sound doable. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has really helpful overviews by state. To double check and feel you have your bases covered, also visit your state Department of Education's web site (here is New Hampshire's) and find the link for homeschooling or "home education." There you'll find any rules and regulations that exist. Once you've gotten a sense for the things you absolutely must do, you can relax a little. Or at least, you can reassure yourself that any pressure you feel is self-induced.   

Choose a space. Do you want and have an extra space in your home where you can store the books and papers and other school supplies, where you will do school work, and where you will be able to post a few posters or visuals as needed? There are advantages to this. It keeps all the school stuff out of the rest of the house and helps to define school time and free time. OR, on the other hand it's nice to ultimately blur the lines between learning and life. Kids need to do quality work whether they're in a classroom or not, and maybe it's good for them to learn through trial and error that it helps to do certain work at the table rather than on the couch, or in the morning rather than the afternoon. If you do school in the lived-in parts of your home, they can be involved in those choices, and see their impact, and learn more about themselves.

Get a feel for what your child "should" learn this year. Regardless of what you may have heard about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), they're adopted by over forty states, and give a pretty comprehensive overview of reading, writing, and math by grade. Read through the CCSS for your child's grade (and glance at the grades above and below) and get a feel for the things your child would be learning if they were in school this year. That said, don't get stressed by it or bogged down in the nitty gritty. Save the link to the standards to look over from time to time as a reference. Also, recognize that it's okay if your child is in 4th grade but doing 3rd grade work in some areas and 5th grade work in others. You can provide work that's at whatever stage they are at. I think it's just good to be aware of.

List the subjects to be taught or studied. As far as academics, your child will need to do at least the "three Rs" (reading, writing, and math). Perhaps also science, social studies, spelling and grammar (upper elementary) or phonics (primary grades), art, music, sports or exercise. You could add things left and right because the possibilities in homeschooling are endless: foreign language, cooking, computer coding, dance, knot tying, learning an instrument, or just following your kids' lead based on whatever interests spark. You won't be able to do everything (it's amazing how the time fills up even when you have the whole day), but you will be able to have your kids do and learn things they wouldn't be able to in school and they'll be excited about that and you'll feel good about it. Don't let the possibilities overwhelm you. Start with the basics and add things in from there.


Choose which programs, if any, you will use to help you teach. Once you know the subject areas your child will study, you have to decide where the day-to-day lessons and activities will come from. You can design them yourself from scratch, research online and pull ideas and resources from different places, or a program-- or boxed curriculum-- can do this.

Sometimes "programs" get a bad rap. Maybe people imagine that with a packaged, store-bought curriculum teachers become robots just turning the page each day and parroting what the book says. But good programs are the result of a lot of research and testing. They incorporate good practices as well as the standards, making sure to "hit" all the things within a topic that are important. There is still plenty of room for putting your stamp on learning-- from how you present it to deciding what to use and what to skip. But they can provide peace of mind especially if it's not your area of strength or inspiration.

There are programs out there claiming to provide a year's worth of lessons and activities in every possible area if you just buy the books or subscribe online. You don't need most of it, and homeschooling doesn't have to cost much. For me personally, I feel it's important to have a math program (we've used Singapore Math). I like knowing my bases are covered with all the little skills and the sequence of skills the kids need to get experience with in math. I also appreciate having something to guide us through science. I couldn't dream up all the good, hands-on, inexpensive activities that Mystery Science guides us through even if I spent all my planning time on science. On the other hand, I don't feel a program is necessary for me to teach reading or writing or social studies or art or music in homeschool. But that's just me. Think about in what areas you have more confidence, and in which areas you have less. Shop for programs to help in the latter.

One other note: I find the idea of homeschool "all-in-one" curricula limiting and too risky. How does any company know "all" I want to teach my kids? I like to pick and choose each resource for the subjects I need. There are sites that review homeschool products and curriculum, such as Cathy Duffy Reviews. But I also don't like to limit myself to just homeschool-specific products. I do general searches for the types of curriculum I want and choose what's best as long as it's affordable and will work at home, whether it's marketed for homeschool or not.


Make a curriculum map. This is something my principal first asked my fellow teachers and me to do about ten years ago. At first it just felt like a lot of work. But now it's an ingrained habit that I can't drop. Essentially it entails making a grid (I use a Google Drive Spreadsheet) and mapping out when during the year you will teach/study what. I put the months of the school year across the top and subjects down the left-hand side. Then I plug in bits and pieces where they make sense throughout the year. Include your kids' interests in your planning, even though more interests will come up throughout the year. You could even add an extra-curricular row to keep track of the "extra" things you hope to do with them or make time for the to do on their own. Of course things will change. You'll get behind in some areas or move faster than you thought through others. But it gives you a nice broad picture of the year-- what you've already covered and where you're going. I find myself checking in with it regularly and glad I took the time to think it through before the year started. Here's a blank version of ours from last year:


Make a schedule or a routine. I started with a pretty intense, detailed schedule last year and I'm edging toward a slightly calmer, more doable routine for year two. As I think through which kid can be doing what when, I need to consider start and end times to be able to gauge what's realistic, but then I might erase them from the written routine we go by; I don't want any of us to get focused on exactly what time it is or on being ahead of or behind schedule. Some days math or science may take more or less time, but we'll always read for about the same length of time each day. It's more about accomplishing the goal or finishing the work for the day. Everyone benefits from some amount of routine. Some (kids and adults) in particular work well with predictable routine and clear structure. Think about what works for you and what works for your kids. Would they benefit from a schedule of when each thing should happen or can you let them choose when to do some things? Which things can they do independently and which do they need your time and help on to get started? Some principles I am trying to work into my plan for this year's basic schedule are as follows:

Do what we can together (art and music for sure, and I know many homeschool families do shared science and social studies as well or fun little community-building activities like memorizing a poem or listening to read aloud).

Do core subjects in the morning when energy is high and save the fun stuff (like art projects or whatever is seen as fun and easy) for later in the day.

Build in breaks in your schedule or have a routine of a regular 5-minute break between subjects.

Build in outdoor time before lunch to work up an appetite.

Consider regular mindfulness or yoga or meditation or other quiet time for a few minutes after lunch to refocus and resettle before the rest of the day.

You don't need to do everything every day, but for core subjects four times a week is important. For things like spelling or science, in elementary school three times a week may be enough.


Other tips/reminders/encouragement:

Be a parent first. When there comes a moment to decide whether to do what you think a teacher would or should do or say, and what a caring parent might do (and there will be those moments, every day), always be the parent. There are not hats coming on and off; you are always Mom or Dad to them. If your relationship is struggling, so will everything else about their learning.

Remember you don't need to try to replicate school. Homeschool is not the same as school, or whatever our memory or image of school is. Homeschooling is something beautiful and different. Nothing says math is best done at a desk. It may be best on a clipboard on a couch next to your dog. There are things about the traditional school environment that are not ideal. You can let go of those things. Embrace all the things that are great about kids being at home to learn-- the time you have with them, the ability to take breaks when needed, their developing sense of agency, the right to quiet when they want it. You can make sure you give your kids more help when they need it and more of a challenge when they need it, and give them whatever special tools or structures or visuals you find they need in order to do their best work. They can learn to get along with their siblings rather than be separated from them all day. Kids can be more involved in household chores and family routines because there isn't the daily rush to get out the door. They can spend time learning other things that are important to them or your family. 

You don't have to have it all worked out on day one. You can change the program you chose or your schedule or your rules and expectations or even your overall approach at any given time. The best you can do in the beginning is to come up with a starting point and agree to talk with your kids frequently about how it's going and be flexible enough to make changes as needed.

It might make you feel more sane to make your own plans rather than try to follow someone else's. Getting started may be overwhelming, but ultimately you may find homeschooling more satisfying than trying to follow a (well-meaning) teacher's remote plans or than sending them off to school each day and not knowing much about what happens there.  

This is not impossible. Lots of families who homeschool do it in lots of different ways. Your family situation is probably far from the strangest. There is no one way to do it. You can join online forums and Facebook groups for homeschoolers and you will quickly get a sense that families make this work in all sorts of ways. Some families have their kids do lots of online classes, some do none. Some families school on the weekend and any other hours that one parent is not working while other families school during normal school hours. Some parents split the school week with a nanny or grandparent or their spouse. You don't have to stress if you can't do school from 8 - 3 Monday to Friday. One thing I've become clear on is that lots of families who have valued homeschooling for a long time have been doing wild things to make it work.

Make use of the library and other free resources. Homeschooling doesn't have to cost much. Our libraries aren't open, but the books are available to be borrowed. We can send them an email or submit a request online for the books we want and they will put them outside for us to pick up. There is something like a 40-book limit and I regularly make use of that. Every few weeks or once a month or so, I look over what our needs will be going forward in books-- for leisure, for science or social studies topics, certain genres we might be focusing on in reading or writing-- and I get a bunch of those books out. Also, there are sites/apps such as Epic which offer online books. They offer free trials and fairly inexpensive monthly rates after that. Under one household account, each of my kids has their own interface which suggests books for their interests and age range and has search options. There are even a lot of books that the app will read aloud to my youngest. I know we don't want too many screens, but Epic has been a nice supplement to the library for us.

If you've read this far, you might also be interested in some of the lessons I learned during our first year of homeschool. Good luck!