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Home schooling and keeping kids entertained

As we all expected, the schools are closed and suddenly many of us have kids had home who need to be supported in their learning but also finding ways to make this extended family time fun for all members of the family.

Some useful advice is floating around the internet from home schooling parents and most kids are being set work by schools but I'd say (as a former teacher) give your kids space as well to pursue their own interests and projects.

If like me, you have kids who have just had their exams cancelled then I think it's important to not let them give up but keep up some study in their chosen A levels or Uni subjects as they'll find it pretty hard to make the transition in 6 months if they don't keep their brains chugging over.

With all this in mind, I've opened this thread to share ideas, free resources and tips on how to help kids through this.

I now do outdoor education so I'll start with a couple of my favourite sites.

Life Sciences: Ecosystems and Energy CRASH COURSE KIDS playlist I love these videos, short, easy to follow, colourful with young presenters. All the Crash Course videos are great if you want to delve deeper. The regular crash course are suitable for older kids and you!
Woodland Trust (tree tools for schools) have their popular ID sheets and suggestions for outdoor activities if you can get into a garden, but if you don't have a garden there are still lots of things that can be done online. Click here
Not nature as such but my kids used to spend hour making stop motion animation with lego and an app "brick films". There's lots of tutorials on YouTube but this blog from the Creativity Museum is a good intro.
Don't forget Pinterest which has stacks and stacks of ideas for arts and crafts, 100 things to do with toilet roll holders, nature activities, writing prompts. Here's our Railway Fields Education Officers board for example
Haven't tried this one but there's a free online PE lesson for kids with The Body Coach. Details here

Please add more ideas below and good luck!

Tags for Forum Posts: coronavirus, coronavirus things to do, homeschooling

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Permalink Reply by Hannah on March 24, 2020 at 15:05

Wonderful suggestions! Thank you for setting this up, Liz. Excellent advice on just letting children pick and choose.

I'm an English tutor, environmental educator (with Liz at RF and Woodberry Wetlands) and Beanstalk reading helper so here are my suggestions. Apologies if any repetition!

Wildlife Trust activities https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/looking-after-yourself-and-nature

Liz mentioned The Bodycoach PE lessons - I know lots of children (and adults!) who love these sessions. They're at 9am everyday.

For English- lots of free resources https://www.teachitprimary.co.uk/ https://www.teachitenglish.co.uk/

Think you might need to be a teacher to access Teachit so if anyone sees anything they fancy but can't access it- send me a message and I'll download/send to you.

https://64millionartists.com/ 64 million artists are running a Create to Connect challenge for next 2 weeks where you get sent a different task each day. Great for all ages! Day 1 yesterday was to create a Creative Companion and today's was to write a haiku on a book/film recommendation. You can sign up at the website.

Beanstalk Top 40 books- I have quite a few of these books so if anyone wants to borrow them then send me a message and I can lend to you. (will be using them for Storytime too)

https://www.beanstalkcharity.org.uk/news/beanstalk-reveals-top-40-c...

For over 16's - there's a BBC short script writing competition - deadline is Monday 30th- £300 prize! https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunities/interconnected/term...

Over 16's- Reading Women- reading all the prizewinners for the Women's Prize for Fiction is a fun challenge. There are 24... https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/reading-women

I'm running free, online Storytime for nursery & primary children every Tuesday and Thursday at 10am. Please message me on 07956 700 513 for more details.

And if there are any Year 11 or Year 13 students who want to talk about what they're currently reading then I can do book discussion with them if they drop me a message.

Home schooling and keeping kids entertained

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