In the Reggio Emilia approach, the environment is considered to be the child’s third’s teacher (the first being the parent and the second the classroom teacher).   With 71% of children doing remote learning this fall, it’s vitally important that we provide children with the support they need to thrive in this new hybrid environment of home and online classes.`Here are the tools we recommend for parents and teachers seeking to create an enriching learning environments online.

We polled 200k parents from around the world which educational apps their kids can’t live without and then tested them with 30 Modular Learners between the ages of PreK-12th grade. We were specifically looking for mastery-based apps that made learning fun and challenging at the same time. The very best apps went a step further by personalizing the experience for the child as they played (as the app learns about their interests and learning style) Another factor we were looking for is that these apps were ones that children could pretty much do independently while parents were working (after their parents had downloaded the app and helped them get get oriented). Here are our 50 favorites. Let us know if you have any you think we should add to the list.

We tested dozens of different conferencing platforms, tablets, headphones and other devices and software solutions to find the best devices to support teachers and young children learning together online. Here are our favorite devices, software, web conference tools, headphones, glasses and more…

Did you know that there are just as many homeschooling families who are poor or near-poor as the normal population? And even better, they've spent decades developing creative ways to provide exceptional educational opportunities to their kids on a shoestring budget. Here are some of the best strategies they've shared with me.

I currently teach 2nd grade at a small independent school in the Mission. Throughout my five years of teaching, I have constantly strived to improve my art. In particular, I am drawn to teaching topics and techniques that focus on the environment, or on tinkering and STEAM. I also have a Master's from Vanderbilt University in elementary education, and a bachelors from the University of Virginia in psychology.

While she’d always been very involved in her children’s school, an act of school violence prompted her to draw all of her 4 kids out of school and being educating them on her own. She is now a best-selling author of “Free Range Learning.”“In this episode: Janet speaks with pioneering homeschool practitioner and advocate Laura Grace Weldon, author of the best-selling book Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything. Laura’s experiences capture the essence of how children learn best and gain competence, self-confidence, maturity and wisdom. She and Janet find common ground in their respect for the natural learning process of every child.”

Time4Learning is a mastery-based homeschool program for PreK-12th grade that uses videos to teach children all academic subjects including Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies. Used by over 600,000 homeschool families it’s one of the oldest and most popular comprehensive, secular homeschool programs.

Torchlight is a comprehensive, literature-based curriculum for children ages PreK-3rd grade founded by an educator and homeschooling mom who was having trouble finding diverse, in-depth curriculum for her own children. Torchlight uses a Socratic-inspired approach, while embracing Humanistic thinking. Lessons encourage students to use logic, scientific inquiry and empathy to explore the world around them. It is a mastery-based program, that builds on concepts progressively and support students mastering each concept fully before moving on to the next. 

Excerpt: “Close to forty years after I first began to write about the concept “Multiple Intelligences,” the topic still dominates my mailbox, with questions arising each day,…. Rarely if ever does a questioner talk about the uses to which the several intelligences are to be put. For decades, I have sought to make the point that intelligences are morally and ethically neutral… From now on, when I am asked about “MI,” I will respond, “To what uses do you propose to put the intelligence or intelligences in which you are interested. And so, as we touch upon these issues, we enter a domain that my colleagues and I have been working on almost as long as the study of intelligences: what it means to be good, and what it means to do good. This is the province of what we now call The Good Project. “

The idea of giving a child the opportunity to “dive deep” into a learning concept is intuitively appealing to many parents. When a child takes their time to  fully explore a subject until they are able to understand, retain, articulate it back, even teach it to others (rather than just scratch the surface and forget it the next day) is what we call mastery.  And when they master one concept before moving on to the next, that is called master-based learning.

Are you looking for a full-day, experiential learning opportunity? Forest schools are a wonderful way to give your child the experience of being in nature and make friends. Many forest schools also offer drop-off options if you need full-time childcare.

One of San Francisco’s most popular forest schools, the Mission of “Little Earthlings Forest School” is to provide an emotional and physically responsible, nature based learning environment for children and parents alike” Full-day drop-off options available.