So here are my best tips and tricks from home-schooling websites and books that I’ve come across from the best YouTube art sites and children’s online exercise classes. Not to mention the most fun games, jigsaws. I’ve included everything including the good, the bad and the wine. Did I mention the wine?
1. Home schooling
This is a brilliant K-8 and ELL online resource for learning almost every subject. Their courses include videos, games, quizzes, vocabulary and related reading.
If your kids are early wannabe gamers like my nine-year-old son is, they’ll love these arcade-like games that teach a variety of subjects for grade 1-6.
Created by experts, Khan’s Academy has a library of thousands of trusted practice and lessons covering maths K-12, through to early college science, grammar, history and more. Students practice at their own pace, first filling in gaps in their understanding and then moving on to more challenging learning.
Bond and CGP key-stage appropriate books are both available on Amazon for all ages and offer brilliant bite-sized lessons that go through the curriculum. My children will do two maths and two English tests a day and really enjoy them.
2. Exercise
Walking aside, which I’d recommend daily to get some fresh air and to get out of the house while still social distancing, here are a couple of brilliant online exercise classes for kids.
Cosmic Kids Yoga is a brilliant YouTube channel that creates themed yoga classes that are taken to the backdrop of storytelling to all the children’s favourites from Harry Potter to Frozen. My children are obsessed.
If you weren’t already one of the 800k families who joined Joe Wicks’ first kids’ workout, PE With Joe Wicks then don’t worry – you can still watch it on the Body Coach’s YouTube channel or join tomorrow – he’s doing a live session every day at 9am and it’s brilliant for all the family.
Follow @ace.lifestyle on Instagram for a daily aceFITNESSCLUB for kids and the whole family. Led by two working mums who are also making it work homeschooling while continuing to keep us us all fit and healthy.
Trampoline
If you have a garden, then I’d highly recommend ordering a trampoline. They come in various sizes, and help release tension and ensure your children get at least 30 minutes cardio exercise a day. They’re great way for us to let loose too now that gym membership has been put on hold. For a more low-key option, skipping ropes also work wonders.
3. Online Art Classes
Art For Kids Hub offer brilliant and easy-to-follow art lessons with every topic you can possibly imagine from animals to superheroes.
4. Pebble
The team at Pebble Gear have released a Frozen 2 Kids Tablet which not only offers full parental control but over 500 Frozen-themed games, apps and e-books to keep your kids entertained. They can learn and play with Elsa, Anna and Olaf for just £99.99 – it’s a life saver.
5. Gardening – inside and out.
Check out these brilliant seed kits from sowlush.com that offer boxes with seeds that grow herbs and vegetables. Plant seeds and watch them grow whether you have a garden or not and who knows, we may all even get some fresh vegetables and herbs at the end of it when we’re in full lockdown – the boxes provide soil, seeds and paper pots. Super cute.
6. Cooking
Check out @gingrkitchen on instagram for a daily kids cookery class every day at 3pm – starting tomorrow, the healthy food influencer and caterer will run through fun cookery ideas to do with the kids from pizza making to healthy treats and chocolate bark (she’s believes it’s all about balance).
7. Puzzles
I’ve ordered 10 jigsaws on Amazon. One thousand piece one for us all to do as a family and lots of individual ones for the children to do on their own, all themed to their favourite toys from LOL dolls to Harry Potter. It’s also something they can do together without too much competition – and therefore no fighting.
8. Movies
OK, movies aren’t normally part of the school day, but we need to work as well right? And movies are the best guaranteed 2 hrs you’ll get to get your head down and get on that Zoom call without interruption. A movie a day is put on our schedule, normally to coincide with my most important work meeting of the day.. Our all time favourite: The Harry Potter movies, Trolls, and I’m working though all the classics – E.T, Gremlins, Back to the Future etc.
9. Virtual Book Club
They’re missing their friends. And in the same way we’re all having wine-o-clock with our mates on the House Party App, regular Zoom/House Party meet ups for book club is a great way of keeping them in touch with their peers as well as encouraging them to read.