To Learn Online or Not – That's the Question

To Learn Online or Not – That's the Question

Online homeschooling programs offer a tempting solution for busy parents. However, it's essential to consider both the benefits and drawbacks. 

Today, Ginny and Mary Ellen cut through the noise to provide practical, no-nonsense advice, wrapped, as always, in their unique humor and warmth.

 

Little kids – preschool and primary grades.  

Overall, there are advantages to Online Learning, but sitting a child this age in front of a screen gets a big thumbs down, with just a few exceptions.

Kids this age need to be:  

• Jumping around.
• Sniffing flowers.
• Chasing bunnies, real or imagined.

These activities develop imagination, observational, and communication skills.

It's their chance to tell you what they have seen, heard, touched, and smelled. 

Stuck in the house? - Give them blocks, Legos, or a whiteboard with markers—not a screen. 

A word or two on Handwriting:

• Have you seen children's Handwriting recently? Does it look like chicken scratch?
• Most young children can't read cursive, and virtually none can write it. 
• They will whine but need to sit and practice penmanship for hours. 
• Writing, cutting, and pasting builds small motor skills and reinforces learning.  

 

Is online education ever appropriate in younger years?

Two opportunities stand out:

1. Online Language Lessons

Being bilingual does great things for children's brains. Online language lessons are a solution.

1. Enrichment Programs

For instance, if students study bees in science and are very interested, an online enrichment lesson or video could be beneficial. But an even better solution might be a trip to the library.

 

Online for Middle and High Schoolers?  

The PROS: Online Can be Appropriate for Older Kids - Upper-level and even middle-school math, science, and foreign languages. Even before high school, moms may need help teaching grammar and diagramming. Teaching Textbooks has been a lifesaver in many homeschools.

Online classes allow kids to hear lectures from experts or watch videos that expand on a textbook lesson. As students mature, it will be easier to put screens in perspective.

The CONS: Isolation - It is psychologically unhealthy to be isolated.  This generation has more diagnosed mental illness and higher suicide rates than any before it. Human beings are social creatures - we need social interaction. We don't get that in front of a screen.

Tongue-tied - We've all passed groups of teens who stand near one another but never look up from their phones. They don't know how to communicate. Teens struggle to get jobs because they lack social confidence.  None of this gets better if they stare at a screen all day.

 

Homeschooling Information

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