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Maybe homeschooling was fun for some of you, but I know I spent a lot of my time grumbling to myself about having to learn adding and subtracting again. Now that summer is here, we have a new opportunity, parents! We can do a very different kind of learning at home that will enrich our lives as much as our children’s. We can learn the skills, crafts, and arts we’ve always wanted to, and bring our kids along for the ride.
The beauty of this new age of online education is that you never have to feel embarrassed about being the oldest or youngest in the classroom. You also have so many options at your fingertips. You can learn guitar or painting, bike repair or knot-tying, art history or Japanese or the latest coding languages, all in your home. You can take some of them as real, live courses with an instructor teaching a class (or just you). Or you can opt for the more flexible on-demand videos or multi-media sites to absorb your new knowledge at your leisure.
What we’ve listed here are courses that are either targeted at adults or children — no one has officially caught on to our innovative idea of intergenerational learning. But we think that both you and your kids will learn something new from all of them, regardless of your actual grade level. Whether these new skills turn into a lifelong hobby for you or maybe a career for your child, or you both decide to drop it next month, the best part of this will be the memories you create learning together.
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Bake the Perfect Thin-Crust Pizza From Scratch
Though many of the cooking and mixology classes available on Skillshare aren’t exactly kid-friendly, some, like this pizza course, you can definitely share with the whole family. We’re not certain whether dough-tossing is one of the lessons, but you can improvise.
Learn Another Language by Playing Games
Gamification is everywhere these days because it works, and given how hard it is for adults to learn a new language, we’ll take any gimmick we can get. The fun techniques employed by Duolingo, a free online language course and app, are easy enough for both adults and children to understand. Learn one of the dozens of languages it offers (including Esperanto and High Valerian!) for fun, or plan that vacation you might one day get to take together.
Learn Another Language With Private Lessons: iTalki
Maybe games aren’t serious enough for your language-learning goals. iTalki allows you to hire a private tutor for 1:1 video-chat lessons in one of several languages. Nothing on the site mentions learning as a family, but we bet you can find the right teacher (you can search for kid-friendly tutors) who would agree to such an arrangement. With everyone learning together, you have that many more chances to practice what you learned.
Become Extreme Sports Photographers
Just watching just the trailer for Jimmy Chin’s MasterClass on adventure photography made my palms sweat uncontrollably — that’s how extreme his mountaintop photo shoots are. From the safety of your own home, you and your kids can get his tips on capturing action shots, then go out and shoot some adventures of your own.
Find Your Inner Artists
There’s now a seemingly endless supply of online art classes and video tutorials for children, many of which popped up mere days after quarantine began. We’re here to say that nothing should stop you from joining in on the fun. That could mean participating while your kid is taking a live course, like the ones offered at the Art Studio NY. Or it could mean you watch a video catered to all ages and artistic levels, like the free live stream sessions The Art Studio NY holds weekly on Facebook and Instagram.
Become Guitar Gods
The much-loved Suzuki method of teaching instruments to young children encourages parents to learn the instruments right alongside their youngsters. No one says you have to use Suzuki (which from experience I can tell you is very tedious for adults) in order to learn to play with your kid. Online learning sites like Udemy offer full courses on several instruments, including piano, guitar, drums, and harmonica, with on-demand videos and downloadable resources. It’s not going to be the same as having a teacher in-person, but it’s a great, inexpensive way to try it out.
Learn Flower Arranging
What’s the difference between gathering a bunch of loose flowers and sticking them in a vase, and real flower arranging? You can see the difference, but not until you study how florists work their magic can you really understand the level of design involved. Watch some YouTube tutorials with your kid, head to a grocery store or flower market, and get ready to make some living art.
Become a Trader, Or at Least Understand Them
Let’s be honest, not all of us really understand what all those stock market numbers mean when we see them on the news. Rather than nodding absently when it comes to your financial future, it wouldn’t hurt to go back to the basics of your economic education. You can do that along with your high schooler, without anyone’s eyes glazing over, thanks to MarketWorks, sponsored by Citadel. It’s a fun educational program that covers global markets, company finance models, and the fundamentals of investment. It’s available for free on Everfi — just log in with your child’s school name.
Become an Art Historian
If you were too practical to “waste” your college tuition on art history classes, you’ve got another chance at it, and this time for free. The Museum of Modern Art offers a number of classes on Coursera that will help you appreciate the many works currently confined within its walls with no one to admire them in person.
Tie Some Knots
If your only regret about not becoming a scout is that you know nothing about tying knots, we have a very easy solution for you. AnimatedKnots.com shows you how to tie basically every knot you can think of, from complicated rock-climbing and fishing knots to neckties. Once you start learning them, you and your kids can take a bit of rope and practice everywhere you go. There’s even a mobile app you can download for reference on the road.
Learn How to Fix Something Yourself
DIY.org is actually a subscription-based portal to dozens of video courses for kids of all ages, teaching them crafts, computer skills, art, science, and more. When kids complete a project, they’re encouraged to upload videos to the platform to share with other budding makers. You can also find several classes that might prove useful to adults as well, such as this one on basic bicycle repair.
Re-Learn American History
We know by now that some of the American history we learned in school was missing quite a bit — the stories of non-white, working class, and otherwise underrepresented people of this country. The long-running PBS docu-series The American Experience is an excellent source for all of those untold parts. Visit the show’s website to watch videos as well as read supplementary materials on subjects ranging from the Black suffragist movement to the 1918 flu epidemic.
Learn to Code
This is a skill many kids are learning in first grade, so it’s about time we grown-ups catch up to them. Free site Code.org has games for younger kids to get the hang of the general concept of coding, and then more advanced courses for older kids. (I’m thinking my skill level is about at fourth grade with this stuff, so I might start there.)
Get Off the Couch
How long have you been sitting in one place while reading this? Just like your kids, you might need a recess or P.E. break in the middle of your day, so why not take one together? Head over to the Body Mind Together YouTube channel for some great kid-friendly workouts that are all less than 10 minutes long. It’s no full gym routing, but many little breaks like this can do you a lot of cumulative good.
Learn Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness is a skill you can learn at any age, and it can’t be a bad thing to live in a house full of people with regular meditation practices. Subscription service Headspace offers a selection of guided meditations just for kids, so you guys can do your sitting together, without interrupting each other.
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