When there’s a crisis or disaster and you are anchored at your bug out/bug in location, your children’s education will become your sole responsibility. Many homesteading and off-grid families have already opted to teach their children in a home classroom and will have at least some materials stockpiled for standard use.
Online homeschool opportunities thankfully abound, but access to the Internet will not be possible during a grid-down scenario. Depending upon the severity of a civil unrest, economic collapse, or natural disaster, cyber learning may also be interrupted for an extended period of time.
As previously noted by Off The Grid News in the morale boosters [1] report, maintaining some sense of normalcy and making sure that children in a post-doomsday America can still read and possess the math skills necessary to tackle life-saving tasks, is important.
Morale boosters and school materials are definitely not at the top of the prepping list, but such items can make the spare time after chores enjoyable and productive at the same time. Hands-on technical learning will be a big part of any crisis classroom education process. Although little Susie might be good at helping Mommy measure sugar for cupcakes, she needs to learn how to read to be able to follow package instructions and garner basic math skills to understand fractions when cooking or helping with water disinfecting and filtration.
Below, parents can find the information and links necessary to begin collecting the materials needed to create a home classroom. As a former educator, I have used many of these lessons and activities when instructing elementary age children. Future installments in this series will offer reading, spelling, math, history and science lessons for students of all ages.
This guide is geared to kindergarten through second grade youngsters. In addition to the sample printable worksheets, the guide offers extremely useful instructional forms, charts and diagrams which will allow parents to replicate the educational lessons with purchased storybooks or simple stories authored at home and written at the child’s level.
Worksheets and booklets can become quite costly when purchased at educational resource stores. Cheaper educational activity books from discount stores are extremely similar to teacher store books, but typically only focus on up to the second-grade level and do not offer educator instructions.
Networking with a local homeschool league may also enable prepper parents with the skills and resources necessary to help educate their children when the school buses stop running and the Internet no longer works.
The female prepping sensation known as Survival Mom [2] had this to say in a recent post about homeschooling:
“The foremost benefit for preppers is that homeschooling provides a continuous flow of education in spite of changing circumstances. Any event that would normally disrupt the school year doesn’t have nearly the same impact for homeschoolers. During a time of intense stress and change, a homeschooling family is together, along with the reassurance and the anchor that only parents can provide. If a family decides to move to another location or has to evacuate for a time, other than losing some time in the moving process, kids can pick up their schooling right where they left off. The trauma of leaving one school and starting over in another is a non-issue. A multitude of free homeschooling resources on the web can take the place of more expensive curriculum if need be.”
My daughter was in the middle of her junior year of high school when we opted for an online charter school education and post secondary options (PSEO) classes. I was not sure how the experiment would work out, and we were fearful that she would miss her friends and athletic activities. As it turned out, once she was able to work at her own pace and was not distracted by the antics of students who had no desire to learn, she completed high school requirements more than a year early. She took college courses both online and at a local campus, where she made more friends and had tons of fun at the student center.
An increasing number of prepping parents are taking advantage of similar programs. For those who are not comfortable with the idea of removing their children from the public school system, the links below should provide ample teaching resources so youngsters will be able to continue learning even after a disaster scenario.
The links to materials shared in the guides do not require any type of user sign-in, membership, or a fee to view or print. Some of the materials in the guide are sample excerpts provided from educational centers, they can stand alone as a lesson without the membership required to obtain an extensive book of activities which is advertised on the page. Click on all the links in each line to acquire the necessary pages from the booklets or lesson for printing.
Take a hard look at the true state of public education… [3]
Printable Booklets
Make an extra copy of the booklets, cut apart, and use the mini pages as spelling flash cards.
Words that Rhyme [4] with AD [5]
Words that Rhyme [6] with AIL
Sleeping Beauty Read and Color booklet [7]
Words that Rhyme [8] with AKE
Words that Rhyme with ALL [9]
Thorna Rosa Action Song booklet [10]
Words that Rhyme with AR [11]
Building a Birdhouse [12] booklet
Words that Rhyme [13] with IR
Words that Rhyme with OOL [14]
Words that Rhyme with UG [15]
AN words [16] booklet
EN words [19] booklet
Rhyming words [20] booklet
Print and color [21] storybook
Camping [22] words booklet
Boat words [23] booklet
Clothing words [24] booklet
Nature words [25] booklet
Farming [26] words booklet [27]
I Live On A Farm [28] booklet
Autumn words [29] booklet
5 Senses [30] booklet
Flowers [31] booklet
Food Pyramid [32] booklet [33]
Fruits [34] booklet
Furniture words [35] booklet
Insects [36] booklet
Number [37] words [38] booklet [39]
Fantasy [40] mini booklet
Plants [41] booklet
School words [42] booklet
Shape words [43] booklet
Spring [44] words booklet
Sports words [45] mini booklet
Summer [46] words booklet
Vegetables [47] booklet
Winter [48] words booklet
Frog On A Log [49] booklet
Noah And His Ark [50] booklet
Little Horse mini storybook [51]
The Life of Jesus [52] booklet
Gardening [53] mini booklet
God Made Me [54] booklet for Girls
God Made Me [55] booklet for Boys
Mommy Bird [56] booklet
Summer time [57] booklet
The Boy Who Cried Wolf [58]
Reading Comprehension
The worksheets offer a short story a child can read alone or with assistance and then answer the context questions to demonstrate an understanding of the text.
Ball [59] for my Dog
Buzz, Buzz, Bumble Bee Poem [60]
Rock Band [61]
Book Bingo [62]
Book Report [63] worksheet
Superhero Joey [64]
Airplane Trip [65]
Story Map [66] Worksheet
Compare and Contrast [67] Worksheet
Text/Self Connection [68]
Vocabulary Worksheet [69]
Setting Map [70]
Dictionary Practice [71] Page
Cause and Effect [72] worksheet
Story Sequence [73] worksheet
Four Bears Reading Comprehension [74] worksheet
Campout [75] Reading Comprehension worksheet
Fruit Stand Reading Comprehension worksheet [76]
Seasons [77] Reading Comprehension worksheet
Catching Bugs [78] Reading Comprehension worksheet
Moles [79] Reading Comprehension worksheet
Porcupine [80] Reading Comprehension worksheet
Letters and Sounds
The worksheets will help children learn the sounds letters make and words which start with each letter or sound blend.
The Letter “B” [81]
The Letter “C” [82]
Short “E” [83]
K-2 Sight Words [84]
High Frequency Words [85]
Vocabulary Log [86]
Alphabet [87] Pages
Grammar Worksheets
Help children learn basic grammar skills and the difference between nouns and verbs with these free printable worksheets.
Nouns [88]
Plural Nouns [90]
Sentence Starters [91]
Action Verbs [92]
Past, Presence, and Future Tense [93]
Commonly Confused Verbs [94]
Pronouns [95]
Pronoun Match [96]
Choose the Correct Word [97] worksheets [98]
Word Map [100]
Punctuation [101]
Non-Action Verbs [102]
Compound Words [103]
Antonyms and Synonyms [104]
Contractions [105]
Dolch Words [106] List