KERNERSVILLE, N.C. — Schools across the Triad, like in many parts of the country, are closed because of coronavirus concerns. However, despite the closure, learning continues online, at home.
Moms and dads are all adjusting their schedules to make room for learning at home. Families have turned their dining rooms into fulltime classrooms.
The transition can be a lot to take on all at once, especially for working parents. However, one group of Forsyth County moms are trying to make it easier for each other by teaming up to teach their kids.
"It's tough I'm not going to lie, it's really tough. Not only are the school shut down, the day care facilities, the after-school facilities are also closed," said Brianna Garrison of Kernersville.
To conquer the challenge, the moms from four families are taking turns or several days at a time to teach and supervise the at-home online learning process.
The six kids between kindergarten and third grade are still settling into their new learning environment.
The home school lessons have been structured by teachers via Power School, the online teaching platform used by the Winston-Salem Forsyth County School District.
The moms, who were suddenly saddled with the curriculum due to the public health crisis, are themselves, like the children, also learning along the way.
"The Power School thing has been very difficult for them, especially our kindergartners because they've got to have a lot of help with it. The second graders are a little bit better with the online learning thing, but they still have to have a lot of help it's not something they can do fully, independently," added Garrison, who doesn't work on Fridays and has the kids.
It is a full house, so the mom turned teacher, turned babysitter has to figure out a lot more creative ways to engage the children, become an expert overnight on multiple subjects and pack plenty of patience.
"We're learning Art, Music and we are going to do Science lessons about Baking, and Math Fractions with pizza," she said.
"We're all learning together, and the teachers are doing the best they can with the resources they've been given. I think this has been hard to shift everything online," she added.
As for the kids, learning the fundamentals of the standard units of measurements through baking as well a subtraction by chomping down on one pizza slice at a time, they appear to be adapting.
When asked how home-schooling was going, they all chimed in unison and beaming excitedly, "Good!"
The Power School system experienced some glitches nationwide, Thursday, the first-day homeschooling launched for many of its 100 million users. Some of the problems included connectivity.
W-S/FCS school leaders say those have now been fixed by Power School and things are working better.
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