NEWS/PUZZLES
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2020
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A11
Free resources available for parents trying
to homeschool children during shutdown
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
The six-week school clo-
sure announced by Gov.
Kate Brown last week has
suddenly given some par-
ents a lot more time with
their children than they were
expecting.
For some, it might be
a time for relaxation or
chores, but others are look-
ing for ways to continue
their child’s education at
home.
Kari Goodheart, of Herm-
iston, said she is currently
working on picking out a
curriculum for her 12-year-
old twin boys to study for
the foreseeable future. There
are a lot of homeschooling
options out there, she said,
from secular private schools
to public online charter
schools to Christian-based
homeschooling.
She said she is excited to
turn her home into a learn-
ing environment, and to be a
part of her children’s’ learn-
ing experience.
She thinks the experience
will allow her sons, who
often get bored at school, to
work at an accelerated pace,
but said she thinks once
school is back open they will
choose to return for social
reasons.
“I will let them decide,
but I have a feeling they
will want to see their friends
again,” she said.
Amber Street, of Hermis-
ton, who has homeschooled
in the past but hadn’t been
doing so this year, suggested
that parents forcing children
to sit at a desk all day going
through a structured curric-
ulum might not be the way
for stressed-out parents to go
right now.
“I made a list with my
son of what he wants to
learn about, and of course,
there are dinosaurs, but
there are also things like the
country of Israel,” she said.
“That’s what we’re going
to be working on, and the-
oretically he’ll be more
cooperative.”
She said there are ways
to incorporate learning nat-
urally throughout the day
— learning measuring and
cooking skills while helping
in the kitchen, for example,
or learning through reading
and games. And even if par-
ents are holding more for-
ONLINE
RESOURCES
HH fi le photo
hermistonlibrary.us/os
While the library building
is currently closed to vis-
itors, people can still call
to order books for pickup
outside, and the library
off ers digital resources
including audiobooks,
e-books and services
such as Bookfl ix
TumbleBook and Tum-
bleMath
Both are making services
free to all Americans
during the current out-
break, including reaing
materials and a collection
of math activities.
artsandculture.google.
com Off ers virtual tours
of now-closed museums
and zoos around the
world.
www.americandairy.
com Provides virtual
tours of farms for chil-
dren.
Oregon Connections Academy students work on projects in 2014. Online schools are one option parents are turning to in order
to keep their children busy during the six-week school closure.
“WHEN YOU’RE HOME, A LESSON THAT MIGHT
TAKE AN HOUR AT PUBLIC SCHOOL MIGHT TAKE
20 MINUTES WITH YOUR KID BECAUSE THEY
HAVE THAT REALLY GOOD ONE-ON-ONE TIME. ”
Amber Street, of Hermiston, who has homeschooled her children in the past
mal lessons with students,
the “school day” can be
much shorter.
“When you’re home, a
lesson that might take an
hour at public school might
take 20 minutes with your
kid because they have that
really good one-on-one
time,” she said. “You don’t
need to explain things mul-
tiple times for the kids
not paying attention in the
back.”
Street said if parents are
just looking for ways to tem-
porarily provide educational
opportunities for their chil-
dren, and not committing to
a homeschooling lifestyle
permanently, there are plenty
of free resources online they
can use instead of investing
in expensive textbooks and
other materials.
One of those resources,
locally, is the Hermiston
Public Library. While the
library building is currently
closed to visitors, people
CRYPTOQUIP
can still call to order books
for pickup outside, and the
library offers a long list of
digital resources, found at
https://hermistonlibrary.us/
os.
Library director Mark
Rose said it’s not too late
for Hermiston residents to
get a library card to access
such services — just call
541-567-2882 to provide
the necessary information
and be issued a library card
number. For people who
don’t live in the city, some
of the resources listed on
the library’s website don’t
require a library card to
access.
“Because of the state
library and other things of
that nature, we have huge
amounts of resources,” Rose
said.
Those resources go
beyond just audiobooks and
e-books and include ser-
vices, such as Bookfl ix,
which help young children
read a digital picture book
along with a narrator, and
offer questions afterward to
gauge their understanding.
“We’ve had pretty good
use of it, and I think it will
be a good resource for peo-
ple now,” Rose said.
TumbleBook, an online
library that also includes
videos and comic books,
is making its services free
to all Americans during the
current outbreak, along with
a collection of math activi-
ties on TumbleMath.
Another resource for fam-
ilies is Beanstack, a reading
challenge service that allows
people to track their reading
hours.
Rose said now is the time
for parents to get creative
about keeping their children
informed and entertained.
He said if people are looking
for a specifi c resource on the
internet to help them do so,
but haven’t been able to fi nd
it, librarians at the Hermis-
SUPER CROSSWORD: OUT OF THE ORDINARY
ton library are happy to take
their call and help them out.
“Finding things online
is supposed to be easy, but
it’s not always, and our staff
have experience in that,” he
said.
As families wait to
hear whether Oregon stu-
dents will actually return to
the classroom on April 29
as planned, some parents
have written in community
forums on Facebook that
they plan to withdraw their
child’s enrollment from their
local school completely and
switch to a virtual charter
school, such as Connections
Academy. It is unclear yet
how the Oregon Department
of Education will handle
that phenomenon, as schools
usually get funding from the
state on a per-student basis,
meaning drops in enrollment
hurt districts fi nancially.
Hermiston School Dis-
trict has put together a list of
some educational resources
parents can use on their
website, at bit.ly/2UaOaXn.
District
communications
offi cer Maria Duron stated
in an email that the list was
not the answer to ques-
tions about what learning
will look like for students
throughout the outbreak, but
is meant to be a resource for
caregivers looking for ideas.
For parents who are just
looking for ways to keep
their child entertained in an
educational way over the
break from school, many
companies and nonprofi ts
are stepping up.
Scholastic, for example,
has launched a free Learn at
Home program that offers
“20 days’ worth of active
learning journeys designed
to reinforce and sustain
educational opportunities
for those students who are
unable to attend school,”
according to their website.
Students can take a virtual
tour of now-closed muse-
ums and zoos around the
world by visiting artsand-
culture.google.com, which
uses the same technology as
Google Street View to allow
users to “walk” the halls of
everything from the New
York Metropolitan Museum
of Art to the Australian
National Surfi ng Museum.
Or they can use street level
mapping technology through
www.geoguessr.com to race
to guess where in the world
they have been “dropped.”
The American Dairy
Association North East is
offering virtual tours of
farms, catered to different
age levels.
SUDOKU
DIFFICULTY THIS WEEK
EASTERN
OREGON
EVENTS
The place
to fi nd
everything
happening
in Eastern
Oregon.
Post your events.
It’s fast and easy!
e-Edition
For Hermiston Herald information
541-567-6457 • info@hermistonherald.com
333 E. Main St. • HermistonHerald.com
Exact digital
replica of this
print edition
is available
online, every
Wednesday by
5:30 a.m.
Check out
Hermiston
Herald.com
for more
information.