I know with the current change in times, many of us are headed to an online approach to our children’s education. Some of us have embraced the change, some of us still fight the ever present screen time battle and both views are to be applauded. As an educator, here are my tips/ideas/view points on online education.

Online education should never be more then 15-30 minutes at a time. If you plan on using it for more than one subject, I would recommend 15 minutes per subject and a break in between subjects.

Be sure to look through the site yourself first. I cannot stress this enough. There are many sites that advertise educational games, that do not have anything educational on them. I have also found sites that advertise free educational games. Then they offer 1 or 2 games and ask you to pay for the rest after you’ve taken the time to set everything up.

All the sites on this page, I have personally gone to and tested. If you would like me to look through other sites for you I would be happy to.

Lastly if you are someone who is against screen time (I feel you). Don’t feel as if you are not doing a good job by only doing at home activities. Online sites can be helpful, especially when you feel lost, but never discredit your own creativity. Baking, building, creating, drawing, solving, practicing, can all be done at home in a variety of creative ways. Let your child help bake, talk them through the planning process of building or fixing something. Have them help plan grocery shopping, have them design their own math problems for you to solve and them to check. If things don’t go well, try something else. Life is full of educational practice, it’s o-kay to just bring them on that journey.