With students all across the nation ready to be back in school with their friends, it’s important to teach them how to be safe during the “New Normal”. By educating your kids at home with all they need to know about COVID-19, you can help keep them safe at school.

Although this fall semester has countless unknowns, we do know how to best prevent the spread of COVID-19: social distancing, wearing masks and good hygiene. We know with kids this is a lot to ask for as “kids will be kids”. Can anyone else picture their kids running around like Coronavirus is the new Cooties? 

So to answer how to prepare your child for going back to school, education is key. Depending on where you live, educate your children on the number of cases and what is expected of them when school starts. With Valley schools having a delayed start, it’s good to give them tips for online learning and prepare kids now. 

Staying healthy at school

Before kids go back to school you want to normalize wearing masks. This could mean having them practice wearing their masks at home for a long period of time. Giving them a visual representation of someone wearing a mask vs someone who isn’t can help show kids all of the germs that can spread if you’re not wearing one. 

Another tip for staying healthy at school is to teach them how to correctly wash their hands. It sounds funny, but kids don’t usually understand how long it takes for the soap and water to kill germs. A trick is to sing the “happy birthday” song twice, and that will be just about 20 seconds. 

Another way of staying healthy at school is to social distance. Social distancing is KEY to keep this virus from spreading. If your kids can not grasp keeping their distance from others, try making up a game. Play this game at home to help them practice then once they go to school you can come up with an incentive for keeping 6 feet away.

Tips for students learning online

As Valley schools start off their year with virtual learning, it’s important to give your student as much of a leg up as possible. For some students learning online is easier and for others it can make it 10 times more difficult. Regardless, learning online is a big part of the “new normal.” Setting yourself and your child up for success is key! A few tips for online learning are:

• Treat the new school year like you would any other school year. Do you take first day pictures of your kids? Do that this year too to help get them excited and feel like there’s still some normalcy in the new school year. 
• Have a plan. Online learning means there’s some flexibility, so schedule out what will work best for your kid and have your older student get a planner and make a schedule of when assignments are due, etc. 
• Stay focused with a clean office space with no distractions. Students can also schedule short breaks from school so that they can recharge. 

One last tip for students learning online, remember that everyone is at home learning and working (not just you) so make sure you have a reliable internet connection. Here are eight more additional tips for online learning specifically for your older students.

Distance learning study tips

At the end of spring semester our school systems were not prepared to go fully online, but now teachers and school districts have a better idea of what online learning will look like. So be ready and prepared! Talk to your kids about what the “new normal” for school is and why treating them as if they were going to in person classes is important. Another distance learning study tip: let them know it’s ok if they need time to adjust, everyone deserves a little grace right now. 

Although all their learning will be done at home it’s still important to give kids distance learning study tips. For example,  stay in touch with friends from school, and try to make new ones so you can have virtual study sessions as tests and quizzes come up. Zoom is going to be here for a while and learning to embrace it will make the “new normal” that much easier and will be a good tool for any distance learning studying your student will need to do this school year.

For more tips about setting up a work space for the family, click here and more ideas about how to bring school and after school activities into your apartment click here.