Learning with Your Kids While Staying at Home

By csheaffer@helenadamsrealty.com - April 28, 2020

During our extended time at home, most of us have had to take on roles as chefs, coaches, barbers, and teachers. With physical schooling unavailable, parents have learned what it’s like to go back to school - which these days means your kitchen table.

Learning and working from home might not be what many of us are used to, but it’s inspiring to see the creativity that parents are now implementing regarding at-home learning services. We talked to agents at Helen Adams Realty about their experiences with learning at home and putting on the hat of a teacher.

“I have zero teaching experience so I have really had to do some homework to get homeschooling rolling,” says Liz Partee, mother of two and agent at our Ballantyne office. “I have found a lot of free learning activities, printables, and craft ideas online through Pinterest, HomeSchool Preschool and The Relaxed HomeSchool.”

Angie Bright, out of our Lake Norman office, explains how life has changed since her son came home from college early this spring. Bright says that although her family wishes that he could finish his freshman year and play spring baseball at school, they feel blessed to spend this time with him that they otherwise wouldn't have at this point in his life. With her son being a college athlete, it adds another layer of responsibility while he’s at home.

“He still has his baseball workouts on top of his school work,” says Bright. “My husband and I joke about the college student schedule still happening at home. He will be doing school work or lifting weights late at night and he always eats another full meal about 11 p.m. when we are done for the day!”

Lawrence Mahool, part of the Mahool Nance REALTORS® team, is now playing the role of teacher for his son who attends Sharon Elementary. Mahool says they have been more relaxed with his son’s schedule, allowing him to learn at his own pace while still meeting assignment deadlines and checking in with classmates and teachers through Google Classroom and weekly Zoom calls.

“The most challenging part is trying to get him to focus on school work with all of the distractions at home,” Mahool explained. “With all of us being there, the dog, the tv, game systems, and his toys, it can be a hard place to focus on school work. But the most rewarding part of the entire situation is simply spending more time together. In a normal week, we are all separated for the bulk of any given day and we regroup around dinner time and just before bed. Getting to go on a mid-day bike ride, or play in the backyard, or build and plant a garden together...not sure that we'd normally take as much time to do this fun stuff as we have this spring.”

As Mahool explained, this extended time at home can be stressful as it’s outside of most of our comfort zones but there are plenty of rewarding moments as well.

“I think this time is causing our daughters to appreciate school in a whole new way,” says Tracy Jones, one half of a husband and wife team at our Ballantyne office. “There will be so much that they no longer take for granted after going through this experience. Each class in person with friends and teachers, each game or practice with a sports team, each rehearsal or performance with a music group or cast, and each social outing with friends will be all the more sacred and special going forward.”

Partee says that having her two young daughters at home together has been a special experience. She explains that she has seen her kids attention spans and self sufficiency grow firsthand each day. They have gotten more creative in their playtime activities, she says, and they have also become closer friends with one another.

But how has the transition been for these agents who still have ongoing calls and video chats with clients throughout the day? Many aspects of the real estate process are deemed essential, meaning the agents are still in regular contact with clients and vendors.

The shared workspace, Bright says, hasn’t been a problem in her house. She says that everyone has different go-to spaces in the house, with her husband at the kitchen table, her son in his bedroom, and she takes the home office.

“We all use our AirPods, so that helps with the noise control,” says Bright. “If I am on an important call with a client I sometimes find myself outside on the front or back porch.”

Aside from specific school’s online learning resources, many educational venues have created ways to keep learning fun at home. WCNC Charlotte, a local Charlotte news station, has started a Weather School series hosted by their First Warn Storm Team. The goal of the Weather School videos is to help parents, students, and teachers learn from home with free atmospheric science lessons about a variety of different weather phenomena.

Even museums are providing exclusive online resources. As part of the Google Arts & Culture platform, many world-class institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Palace of Versailles in France, and the Van Gogh museum, to name a few, are now offering virtual tours and exhibits available for free from your laptop. Find the full list of collections here for reference.

These days we are all being tasked to live a little outside of our comfort zones. With schools in North Carolina closed for the remainder of the school year, parents have had to quickly adapt to this new normal. While it is something different, there are many positive benefits to this new wave of at-home learning.

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