Home School Resources & Tips

I haven't used it in ages, but bitpaper.io has camera and online whiteboard functionality, and is recommended for tutoring.

Ya sorry - of course - just venting.

Fair enough, I had my teacher hat on there! We will always over stress the importance of the work set to try and counter teen apathy.

I’ve always liked Khan Academy for learning subjects. They’ve got loads of children’s content though I’m not sure how well it maps to U.K. curriculum.

As posted by @PQR here, huge thanks!

Had the below text in so hopefully a few resources might be useful ......

There’s a lot here - I’ve not screened it but am sharing in case it’s helpful
Since many kids are/will be home from school, sharing an awesome list of ideas from a parent who homeschools.

Online resources:

BrainPop
Curiosity Stream
Tynker
Outschool
Udemy
iReady
Beast Academy (Math)
Khan Academy
Creative Bug
Discovery Education

YouTube Channels:

Crash Course Kids
Science Channel
SciShow Kids
National Geographic Kids
Free School
Geography Focus
TheBrainScoop
SciShow
Kids Learning Tube
Geeek Gurl Diaries
Mike Likes Science
Science Max
SoulPancake

Lots of board games, library books (and Kindle), tinkering/upcycling with household junk, etc.
Some resources to help with kids at home:

*Scholastic has created a free learn-from-home site with 20+ days of learning and activities.

https://classroommagazines.scholastic.co­m/support/learnathome.html

*Pretend to travel the world..Go on a virtual tour of these 12 famous museums.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/attract­ions/museums-galleries/museums-with-virt­ual-tours

*This is the awesome free curriculum that we use. Everything from preschool activities to 12th grade is here!

https://allinonehomeschool.com/

*List of thinking games by grade: https://allinonehomeschool.com/thinking/­

More awesome free learning websites that we like to use

https://www.starfall.com/h/

https://www.abcya.com/

https://www.funbrain.com/

https://www.splashlearn.com/

https://www.storylineonline.net/

https://pbskids.org/

https://www.highlightskids.com/

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/

https://www.coolmath4kids.com/

http://www.mathgametime.com/

https://www.uniteforliteracy.com/

http://www.literactive.com/Home/index.as­p

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/

https://www.switchzoo.com/

https://www.seussville.com/

https://www.turtlediary.com/

https://www.e-learningforkids.org/

Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think may benefit from this

I'm currently teaching in an international primary school in Tokyo and we've been doing 'distance learning' for three weeks now. From a teacher's perspective these are a few things we've found have worked:

Seesaw for KS1 kids
Google Classroom for KS2
Flipgrid for uploading and creating videos/films
IXL*
Virtual Fieldtrips
RAZkids*

*not free

Obviously, being able to access these depends on families having enough devices for their kids. Having taught in Peckham for 6 years, I'm well aware that many households don't. Even in an international school this has proved an issue, let alone the fact that 3 - 4 hours additional screentime a day is not ideal.

Nonetheless, we've set up a fairly loose timetable for the kids. In the first few days, lots of parents took the opportunity to travel, so we've ended up with kids at different points in their work. Each day we're providing an English, Reading and Maths lesson through Google Classroom, which follows the usual structure of what we do in school. Japanese, Music and PE teachers are also providing two lessons a week for kids. We've been uploading videos of us doing the work (the screencastify add on to chrome has been a life-saver) and making google forms/docs for the kids to work through.

We're also doing a whole class chat in Google Meet every day, and are encouraging kids to check in with us to review work once every couple of days. I do only teach 10 kids though.

It's by no means perfect but the feedback from the kids and their parents has been pretty positive. The thing I'm worrying about most for kids here is their well-being, but for those Peckham kids I'd also be worried about their access to food. I hope school kitchens can find a way to stay open.

If there are any teachers on the forum that want to chat anything through, please do get in touch as I've now got some KS2 resources I could send your way. In the meantime, we're due to reopen on the 30th March...

Oh how my two best pals are dreading this to which I'm deriving some really quite peculiar sick pleasure. Probably because I have put parenting/life first and work/success/status second (well, last) over the last few years.
I genuinely hope that they actually, despite some 'inconveniences', end up loving it.

My boys are just 2 & 3, nearly 4, 3 year old starting reception in September (3 year old weirdly keen on reading, writing, numbers) and go to pre-school 3 and 15 hours a week respectively. I've proposed to Mrs Pasty, as much for the fun/structure/experience that after we've done our morning walk (whilst that's allowed - we live very rurally so can avoid anything resembling close proximity) I do a morning learning/doing activity and she does an afternoon one - today I'll be getting the globe out and she'll be baking. 3 year old will love Countdown each afternoon also. Add that to 'sorting the garden and the bike shed' and we should be set into September

Sounds great! my 2.5 year old is still a bit young for properly learning stuff, but she'll be helping out in the garden next week at least.

Me and the wife have divied up the "working day" into blocks where one needs to be working and so the other is on childcare. Building a new routine is going to interesting.

Our 2.5 won’t be having proper taught stuff until she’s 6/7 or she asks for it.

We just took on a new allotment so we can add that to our routine, and just made a massive slab of flapjack!

Oh how my two best pals are dreading this to which I'm deriving some really quite peculiar sick pleasure. Probably because I have put parenting/life first and work/success/status second (well, last) over the last few years.

I genuinely hope that they actually, despite some 'inconveniences', end up loving it.

Same with some friends of ours. Kids aren't old enough for proper school and we've done virtually no nursery/preschool so basically our situation is the same as it usually is. Apart from I'm working from home which everyone was struggling with until my 4yo got on my knee and asked to watch me edit photos. Gave her a running commentary on why I'm doing what, and suddenly all was well.

I feel this.

All our friends nursery, we choose not to.

Kiddo just wants to be involved, hence why she can 90% lace a radial Brompton wheel now..

hence why she can 90% lace a radial Brompton wheel now..

Impressive! Kid 1 has done some nursery but just a couple of afternoons. We tried her at a preschool but it really didn't work so we pulled her out. Increasingly realising she just needs to play. Very true that kids just want to be involved in what you're doing: Baking, gardening, DIY, fixing bikes even tidying up and washing. Just have to let go of how you would do these activities on your own and let the kids do their thing.

https://artsandculture.google.com/partner?hl=en

https://www.muddypuddles.com/blog/free-outdoor-lesson-plans-children

I’m nodding ready this..!

Biggest emphasis is learning through child directed play! It hurts me when I hear parents lecturing kids about being incorrect... dog foot prints are of course gruffalo foot prints... let the imagination flourish!

One point. Kids are quite possibly equally as anxious about all this. So don't be hurried to get them learning academic stuff in a rigid fashion. Maybe they need a pause to reset.

And some of the best learning is life, is non academic stuff.

Big thing pushed when transitioning from school to home Ed is the decompression period!

For those at home with smaller kids , take a look at this service that my close friend Isabelle started. Its all about simple and affordable ways to stimulate constructive play.

Plenty of free suggestions too. Well worth a read.

https://www.littlehandslearning.co.uk/

Free activities: https://www.littlehandslearning.co.uk/activities2

My little girl has been asking for waay more cuddles than usual. She doesn't understand the full picture but kids understand more than we sometimes imagine and can really pick up on the atmosphere.

Any general tips on motivation for a 10-year old (yr 5)? My son enjoys school and does very well. He's got a great brain but also applies himself well and (I think) thrives on the positive feedback and comparison to his peers. Homework on the other hand has always been a massive fucking battle (apart from screen-based maths). Often he just flatly refuses to do tasks that he's not interested in or that he finds hard. I'm finding it really difficult to deal with the frustration of his initial enthusiasm for the idea of taking on work rapidly morphing into full-on rage/complete shutting down at actually putting pen to paper.

Just to add, in some ways I'd like this to be a chance for him to develop some self-discipline rather than relying on the presence of external motivators. Once we've spoken about and agreed on the value of continuing with learning I'd like him to follow through on the schedule that we've worked on (based on school's suggestion) simply because that's what we've decided rather than because it's what he wants to do right now.

Don't push it. I did. I hate myself for pushing it.

I know what you mean and I really don't want to. The problem is that given the choice he would just flop on the sofa and not do anything at all. Even getting out of the house to just walk to the park is an effort. I enjoy sharing stuff with him and we've done some great activities that are educational but also fun. The problem is that I hate (and absolutely cannot cope with) him showing a total lack of engagement with something when he needs to get on with it for the sake of getting anything done in the day. After about a minute of trying to get some sort of response out of him I'm reduced to either just walking away and leaving him doing nothing (literally face down on the sofa) or threatening him with such a withdrawal of privileges that it just reduces him to tears. This is very much my problem as much as his, but I can't see a way round it.

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