Greetings Eddies,
This week we asked our Facebook community a slightly dangerous question: what does your kid do when they get bored?
The answers made me nostalgic for the long, unstructured (and slightly feral) summer days of my youth. They ranged from forts built out of the living room furniture to mud pies sold from a fake bakery.
Of course, I also remember the days I spent melted into the couch, zoning out to bad sitcom reruns. That’s the nature of boredom: it can tip a child into a grand adventure, a little harmless trouble, or total vegetative inertia. And since my own ‘90s upbringing, the magnetic pull toward screens has only grown stronger.
This week, we dig into the latest data on screen time. Plus: we have the story of a teacher who left the classroom $50k in debt and still got both her daughters through college for free, and a quick reminder to submit your entries for the Independence Project.
- Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)
P.S. Applications for Fall OpenEd enrollment close July 1. Starting your application only takes a few minutes.
Average Screen Time Is Up (Again)
The new State of Childhood report shares the latest screen-time averages - the headline? American kids spend a lot of time online.
The typical three-year-old spends about 4.5 hours a week on a screen. By age 17, that figure climbs to nearly 20 hours.
But beyond the sheer quantity of screen time, we think there’s an even more critical question around the quality. Our latest deep dive distinguishes between a screen that hooks a kid like a slot machine and a screen that gets the work done and hands the afternoon back.
Tool of the Week
Some seasons of homeschooling, you have the bandwidth to source everything yourself - matching curriculum to each kid, each subject, each learning style. Other seasons, you don't.
Whether it's a health issue, a new baby, a year of travel, or just a season of familial uncertainty - when your bandwidth is thin, many OpenEd families turn to Miacademy. It offers a complete K-8 curriculum under a single subscription, covering math, reading, science, social studies, electives, and world languages. It also provides a robust parent portal, built-in gradebook, attendance reports, and flexible pacing. Over 100,000 families rely on it.
They’re also coming to the OpenEd marketplace starting next year. So you can get everything you need with no upfront costs.
The Independence Project
Looking for a cure for summer boredom?
There are still 5 days left to submit entries to The Independence Project - our invitation for your kids to make one thing about America's 250th. Whether it's an essay, a drawing, a video, or anything else they can dream up, share your child’s project by next Wednesday, and we will feature them in a special July 4th edition.
Need a spark of inspiration? Here is some Fourth of July trivia for the dinner table: George Washington once accidentally started a world war. At just twenty-two years old, green and overconfident, he ambushed a French patrol in the Pennsylvania backwoods, lighting the fuse on the French and Indian War and signing the only surrender of his life. Fortunately, he recovered. Young Washington (in theaters next Friday) tells this story and was produced by an OpenEd podcast alum, Benton Crane.
Best Links
Our favorite finds from this week.
Trends
More parents are pulling the screens out of school and asking for books back. (Joanne Jacobs)
Alpha School's new "Founders" track bets full tuition that high schoolers can build a million-dollar business in just a few hours of daily academic screen time. (Founders School)
An Alpha School graduate writes about three distinct culture shifts that make kids fall in love with learning. (Austin Scholar)
A firsthand look at what a classroom looks like when kids drive their own learning. (Tyler Thigpen)
Which school lessons actually prepare a kid for life? (A shorter list than you would think.) (Peter Gray)
Tools
A weekly, "anti-Prime-Day" newsletter featuring four hand-picked, screen-free physical tools for independent learning. (Education Supply)
One mom got four neighborhood families to agree to a no-phones, knock-anytime summer, and the kids took it from there. (Let Grow)
A summer reading list sorted by age from a veteran homeschooler, designed to keep kids hooked on books. (Julie Bogart)
Six deep anxieties that stop parents from starting, answered directly by families who already took the leap. (Classical Conversations)
Practical, high-energy strategies to keep active, wiggly kids engaged and listening during family read-alouds. (Brave Writer)
How to let a gifted kid chase her own quirky interests without the constant fear that she is falling behind. (Raising Lifelong Learners)
A realistic guide to curriculum choices and a flexible structure designed to survive a mother's full-time job. (Christy-Faith)
An open letter of encouragement to the brand-new homeschool parent quietly wrestling with self-doubt. (Patterns for Life)
An afternoon routine blending holiday picture books, watercolor art, and copywork to turn the Fourth into a history lesson. (Treehouse Schoolhouse)
A straightforward, stress-free checklist to help parents easily gauge if their second grader is hitting the right academic milestones. (Savvy Learning, a marketplace partner)
Print Your Own Diploma
In case you missed it, we recently launched a diploma maker tool, and are glad to see families using it for students of all ages.
Keep in mind that a diploma doesn't carry the strict legal weight a lot of people assume (that’s what transcripts are for). It’s primarily a keepsake—a meaningful way to celebrate a milestone your kid worked hard to finish. And on the off chance an employer ever requests one down the road, you'll have a clean copy ready for their files.
We’ve already rolled out a few new features, including a variety of frame styles. What would you like to see in the next iteration? Reply directly to this email with your ideas!
College Before High School?
From host Ela Bass:
This week's episode is with Shelley Branine - author of Finish College in High School - who left teaching $50,000 in debt and has since watched both of her daughters graduate college debt-free - with one of them finishing her degree a week before she even graduated high school.
You’ll learn:
How dual enrollment allows a student to earn a college degree and a high school diploma simultaneously.
The simple math that turns the "unaffordable college" crisis into a solved problem.
What Shelley wishes she had known back when she was the one taking on education debt.
Why high school is the single cheapest window for college credits a family will ever find.
Parting Thought
“Depending on your personal style and the needs of your own children you can choose how detailed you want to get with your planning. Some people like to plan their days down to the minute, others (like yours truly) prefer a looser, though predictable, rhythm. For some of us, thinking in large blocks of time (morning, afternoon, evening, or spring, summer, fall, winter) comes more intuitively. For others, thinking in hours and minutes just make more sense. You will have to figure out which style works best with your brain and learn how to make that work for you. And even though you might prefer one end of the spectrum over the other, there are seasons that will demand more structure or more wiggle-room without reference to our preferred style because that is what we are called to in that particular stage of life with the needs of our particular family.”
That’s all for this week!
