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So, here we are at the end of the first week. It’s been a little strange, hasn’t it? There have been moments where I’ve felt bright and positive and days where I’ve had to hold it all together because, quite frankly, I’m terrified. The one reassuring thing, if you can call it that, is that we are all in the same boat at the moment. I am also really fortunate to have an incredible support system around me on the phone and online to fall on when I need to.

The kids have been loving it if I am honest. Sure, they’re missing their friends and missing being able to go out in the park but they’re coping really well so far. We have decided to go for a fairly structured day because when I’ve tried letting it go a bit, things descend into chaos. A routine keeps them from bickering, from boredom eating and from the house being completely destroyed. The days that I did try and loosen up and didn’t do a schedule, they asked me to make one! They’re ready at the table at 10 am to start ‘house school’, and so far it’s working.

Before I had the kids, I was a primary school teacher, so I do have some ideas and plans lurking in my head from way back then. However, teaching a class and home edding your own children are two very different things! I am learning lots as well – there have been things that have bombed and things that have been surprisingly well-received. Like every parent trying to navigate this up and down the country, it is a very steep learning curve and we have to take it on a day by day basis, and we can only do what we can. At the moment, I just love the opportunity to spend some real quality time with them and see where their own thought processes go. It’s been a real eye-opener!

Here are some of the things that we have been doing so far (click on the links to find out more about them)

English

• Spellings – using English with Holly. They’ve been practicing them and writing them into sentences to gain an understanding of the word. On Friday, we will be joining in with the live spelling test on Facebook.

• Contractions – again, using English with Holly live lessons. We then worked together writing sentences that had contractions in them and looking for as many as we could in books.

• Story settings – I printed off some sheets from Twinkl with lovely coloured pictures and a word bank and they spent some time describing the scene. It led to some great chatter about adjectives!

• Phonics – Ben has been busy practicing his phonics, and using adjectives to describe what he could see if he was in a rocket.

Maths

• Times table practice – writing them down, playing games online, using RM Maths. We’ve also been making use of our lovely multiplication framed poster from Look Learn.

• Addition and subtraction – Alex and Harrison have been doing traditional column addition and subtraction, while Ben has been practicing it using a number line. I’ve used Twinkl sheets to support this.

• Number bonds – We’ve been practicing number bonds to ten and twenty using a Montessori maths kit that I bought from eBay and number cubes from Learning Resources.

Other stuff

• Made rhubarb and banana crumble

• Made pizza
• Looked at flowers under our Learning Resources microscope

• Made electrical circuits using a set from Amazon – we also looked at the symbols for electric components and drew some in books
• Talked about fairtrade and found out some facts about where tea, bananas, and chocolate comes from, using resources from Twinkl
• Joe Wickes workouts from YouTube Live
• Oti Mabuse dance classes from Facebook Live (highly recommend!)
• Played ‘Beans’ in the garden

• Lots of colouring
• Playdoh time
• Painting – we made a card to post through the letterbox of a local care home before the lockdown was put in place and painted rainbows for the window

• Spring Tuff Spot – searching for letters to make words

• Started a memory jar

Wow, written down that looks a lot! There’s also been plenty of TV and Xbox time, reading, chill out time in the garden, playing with toys and of course, cuddles!