Marcus Elliot, youth pastor at Flint River, shares what his family has found helpful for schooling during COVID-19.

Hey everybody, it’s Marcus.

I know as we get started with this week, there’s a lot of stuff going on. But for some of us, it’s the end of our spring break and we’re jumping back in to the school season. This week as the schools begins to release information and give us stuff for our kids, I know one conversation I’ve had with a lot of you is, how does that work?

Some of you guys, you’re home-school pros and you’ve done this for years, but some of us, this is new territory for us. I just wanna share with you what we’ve done at our house, and maybe some of these tips and tools can help you. Maybe this is not a right fit for you, but you can help some other people. I’d like to just be able to start a conversation about what we’re doing for our kids, specifically when it comes to schoolwork right now.

What we did at my house, we wanted Malachi to continue to have some structure in his life. What we’re doing is we’re giving him an opportunity to create his schedule. He needs structure, but he also wants independence. There are certain things that he’s going to have to do every day, but when he gets up, he gets to create his schedule and make it look what he wants it to look like for that day.

At 9 o’clock, he starts with his devotions. He has a devotion book that he reads out of and he’s got 30 minutes to pray and read his devotion. This is probably more time than we spend on a regular basis, but we have more time right now, and so we wanna take advantage of that.

I’ve given him the parameters. He’s going to read for an hour. He’s gonna do math for 30 minutes. On Mondays and Wednesdays, he’s gonna do science for 30 minutes. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he’s gonna do music lessons for 30 minutes. He’s gonna go outside and play, just regular recess.

Then because we also do baseball and football, we spend some time doing some off-season conditioning. He’s doing strength and conditioning stuff as well. This takes the place of PE, which he normally does at school, and then also fills in for what he’s usually doing once he gets home, whether it’s at baseball practice or what we’re just doing at the house.

But the great part about it for him is he gets to create that schedule every day. He has to read for an hour. He loves to read, and so this works well for him. But he can choose; he could get up and read all at once in the morning, he could read 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the afternoon. He has the freedom to choose how he’s going to put that schedule together. That has worked so well for him.

I don’t know about you, what’s working for you and what’s not working. Maybe you haven’t tried anything yet. Maybe you know exactly how it works for your kids. Maybe you’ve got multiple kids and what works for one isn’t working for the other.

I’d love to start this conversation. Let some parents know what’s working for you, what you’ve tried, and let’s try to help each other to navigate this season that we’re in right now. I want you to know that we are praying for you guys. I know that this is a weird time and uncharted waters for a lot of us, but we’re gonna get through this together.

We can’t wait until we can see you guys face-to-face soon. As always, if you need anything from us, please let us know. We love you and we miss you, and we’ll see you soon. God bless.

The article “Let’s Talk About School: COVID-19 Resources” was first published on YMlink.org.