Currently there are many families that don’t have internet. Maybe they don’t want it in their house or can’t afford the internet. Others live in areas with very slow internet speeds. Regardless of the reason, no or slow internet connections make it impossible for a child to benefit from online learning activities when homeschooling.
Fortunately, parents were homeschooling their children for many years prior to the invention of the internet.
Most likely your child’s school district already has a homeschooling curriculum outline and resource list. They will have practice tests and lesson answer keys.
If you are homeschooling primarily because of COVID, they should be able to accommodate this. Homeschooling your children is not a new concept and the resources already exist.
Not having an internet for the kids to learn from home may demand more “teaching” time from you. Especially for the younger kids. The older kids can take advantage of self-guided lesson books. There is an incredible advantage to learning how to teach yourself from a young age. This skill will serve the kids well throughout their lifetime.
Hard Copy Books and Scribblers
Getting back to basics with real books and writing essays. Society is rapidly losing this skillset. Many schools don’t even teach language skills anymore. Many schools don’t teach cursive writing either.
The school curriculum and study plans may be packaged together in one large bundle, or you might receive a separate package in the mail once a month or quarter. Each will be assembled into their individual subjects like math, geography etc.
There will be projects and essays that will have to be sent back to the education staff for grading and critique.
Another way to tackle the homeschooling without an internet connection is to have the kids focus on one subject at a time rather than a divided subject day. Children learn exceptionally well if they can do it in their way.
Board Games for Homeschooling
There are educational board games that either go with or compliment school lesson plans. Kids enjoy games (as do adults). Getting boardgames designed to teach math, history, geography, or what have you, will be a fun way to learn.
There are educational board games that you can find for most every subject and designed for the appropriate school age. You can actually get creative and make up your own games too. Perhaps a scoring game in a particular subject to reward the kids for studying.
Homeschooling Life Skills
Homeschooling your children without the internet allows you the time to teach them important self reliant competencies. Many of these get overlooked in regular, internet based educational programs.
Important things as humdrum as keeping the house clean, laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. Accentuating the importance of keeping a yard like mowing and trimming. As well learning how to keep a food garden and what to do with the bounty in the fall. If we have learned one thing of late, you can’t depend on the world not to change.
Teach them how to do small house and car repairs, sew, and cook. This may not be on the school boards test score but the kids will benefit from these core skills.
Affording to Homeschool Using Books
Books can be expensive. Fortunately you don’t need to buy a brand new book every time for every child. The required reading books for public school are available through your district. You can also find them in your local library system. If they don’t have it they can source it for you.
Educational groups in your area are also a place to contact to get the testing guides and curriculum needs appropriate for the grade. Many of these will have a collection of used and donated books and guides. You can find these at local churches, community centres, and places like the Masons, and other non-profit societies.
Getting Back to the Future in Homeschooling
Teaching your kids to be unplugged and learn from books will help them become a “lifelong learner”. They will learn how to pick up a book, skim through for the meat of the lesson, and retain what they read. Using a book is much different than asking Google to find what you are looking for.
Other benefits of not having an internet is the removal of potential distractions. No social media, no search vortex, no silly videos.
You don’t have to have the latest and greatest of most course books. Things that haven’t changed over the years is math, history, physics, chemistry etc. There may be some additions to the courses but essentially nothing has changed in the basics. A book from 1950 will be just as educational as one from 2020.
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