Omaha mom faces challenges, finds joy in homeschooling
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OMAHA, NE (WOWT) — After the Coronavirus outbreak closed schools in the spring, many students transitioned to remote learning. Omaha mom Megan McClaren knew then that kind of learning wasn’t best for her 3 kids. She decided to pull her kids from public school and homeschool this school year instead, something she’s never done before.
“It’s an adjustment. It’s different than regular school. The routine is different, the curriculum is different,” she said.
Megan spent lots of time researching all kinds of curriculum, interactive work, and other kinds of teaching methods and eventually landed on one that works for her kids. Every day, they follow a worklist that Megan designs.
“So you have math and social studies, then maybe you have a writing lesson and maybe you have a math workbook and a cursive writing lesson.”
Twins Cassidy and Ryan typically work at the dining room table, and big brother Aidan sets up shop in the living room.
They spend 3 to 4 hours a day learning in a structured environment.
“We have a certain schedule we have to follow every single day, like the first thing we do is ’time for learning’ which is like our main thing with our math and science,” said 9-year-old Cassidy.
Megan says along with the usual school subjects, she’s also able to tailor the learning toward her kids’ interests, like baking, sewing, and marine biology.
As a first-time homeschooler, Megan admits it’s been an adjustment for everyone.
Her kids miss their friends and they had to get used to waking up and going to the kitchen table, not to school.
Megan is now juggling her career and homeschooling, but she’s happy to be able to help her kids when they need it.
“It’s just balancing getting my work done and keeping everyone else on target and on track and also being available for them and my job because that’s also a priority,” said Megan.
And while things can get stressful at times, Megan is enjoying watching her kids learn and grow, and they like learning with mom by their side.
“She knows our personality and how we deal with things so she can help us if we’re having difficulty,” said 11-year-old Aidan.
“Usually we have a teacher we don’t know, and now we have our mom and we’ve know her since birth,” said Cassidy. “So she knows what we really like instead of our teachers having to guess throughout the year.”
Three weeks into homeschooling, Megan maintains it was the right decision and the kids are doing well with the change. She says positive COVID-19 cases showing up in some metro schools reinforces her decision to keep her kids home.
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