Pandemic pushed some parents to homeschool elementary age children

Schools all over are wrapping up the year and entering summer vacation. Since the start of COVID, students, staff, and families have had to acclimate to a new normal, including the use of masks. The mask mandate made some parents choose to homeschool their children.

Becca Hunter, a mom of five children who are eligible for public school at Abingdon-Avon, homeschooled this year.

"At the beginning of the school year, I decided to keep my sixth, fourth, and second graders in school with the mask mandate. My two younger children were eligible for Pre-K and Kindergarten," she said.

Why did she decide to homeschool this year?

"A few factors came into play when I chose to keep the little ones home. Firstly, I didn't want either of them to start off wearing masks for their first ever day of school. I decided I would wait so they could have the same "first day" experiences like my other children. Secondly, because the school district decided to take grades second through fifth to Abingdon, that gave us two campuses plus extra bus rides that my children would have to take. For us, that meant more exposure to possibly be quarantined. We were quarantined a lot due to exposure," she said.

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Hunter explained how her first year went.

"I actually 'unschooled' my little ones. I paid for a set of curriculums for the littles and followed it in a lifestyle learning fashion. We only spent 20 minutes a day doing worksheets and then applied what they learned in real life situations."

Unschooling was easier than Hunter expected.

"Being able to take what my children are supposed to learn, and apply it to every day situations has been a blessing."

There has, however, been a few challenges for the mother such as timing.

"Having five children in itself is time consuming but adding in the other kids' extracurricular activities has been very tiring," she explained.

Despite this, there has been many benefits to unschooling her children.

"The biggest benefit would be the extra time I have with them. Plus, I did something completely against the 'norm' which made things fun and educational. My Kindergartener finished the second and third grade social studies curriculum this year. Vada wouldn't have done that in public school."

Throughout this school year, Hunter used the time4learning kindergarten curriculum for both her children along with the second and third grade curriculums for social studies.

Does she plan to homeschool for the next school year?

"I have no idea yet. If I send Vada to first grade, she would have one year in Avon and then move to Abingdon grade school. If I keep her home another year, we wouldn't have to deal with taking away familiarity of facilities," she explained.

Hunter and her husband, Nick, have five children, Grace, sixth grade, Stella, fourth grade, Rhett, second grade Vada, and Lewis. Hunter is a stay at home mother while Nick has a trucking business.

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Another parent, Brianna Coupland, started homeschooling in 2020. At that time, Coupland was a stay-at-home mother of then 1-year-old Isaac, and 3-year-old Avarie. Coupland was going to school for early childhood education specifically to homeschool her children.

"I decided to homeschool my daughter, Avarie, who would have been in her first year of preschool. I homeschooled her because I wanted to keep her life as normal as possible and I refused to mask my toddler," said Coupland of Galesburg.

She further explained that the year went great for the family.

"She learned a lot and we had a lot of fun. When she did start school, she went to private school and was ahead in her class!" Coupland said.

Coupland's children attended a private Christian school this year as the school does not require masks or the vaccine.

"They also follow a curriculum I agree with more than the public school," Coupland added.

While Avarie was homeschooled, her younger brother was also involved. He was too young for school, but still enjoyed participating.

What were some of the challenges of homeschooling?

"Our biggest challenge was that the library closed their Tots and Tunes toddler story time and Discovery Depot closed their homeschool hub, so it was hard to find groups to get with, but we managed!"

Like the Hunter family, the Couplands found benefits to homeschooling.

"The benefits is that it is catered to your child. You can work on areas that they are interested in and go at your own pace!" she said.

She followed the Playing Preschool from Busy Toddler curriculum combined with The Good and The Beautiful.

Coupland added that that she would have loved to continue homeschooling Avarie, but her daughter wanted to try out school and ended up loving it. "They go there and genuinely enjoy their class and she is still above average in reading and math!"

Coupland and her husband, Saben, live in Galesburg with their two children, Avarie and Isaac.

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