Homeschooling going to shit - a support thread

[Brokenchair1]

Schoolmum WhatsApp group rapidly filling with messages about people doing the Joe Wicks live PE, photos of kids sitting at desks dressed and working, mum's joking about how lovely it is to home school.

Meanwhile in the broken household....single mum here, I have a Skype meeting at 1 I need to prep for, DD 7 currently refusing to do anything and keeps sitting on me saying she wants to play. 3 months of this 😭

Anyone else where homeschooling isn't filled with colourful timetables and colour coded snack trays...join here for support and commiseration.

I haven't done anything yet.

Its the Easter holidays here so I'm sticking with that.

Two weeks to go, then I might start! But it's literally going to be a bit or art, some baking, a few maths/English worksheets, clean the car, polish the furniture, walk the dog, plant some flowers. We'll watch some documentaries and interesting videos.

I am not stressing about formal home schooling at all.

I just saw my DS teacher (I work at the school). He's YR5. They've set work but she says all she cares about is that they read every day - anything else is a bonus.

I figure we're in this for the long haul so we have to do what suits us as a family to retain our sanity. It's all so overwhelming - for them and us.

Did you see the advice that in the end, after 5 months it doesn’t matter what they’ve learned if the underlying parental relationship has sustained serious damage. Learning can be caught up, relationship damage can take years to fix.

@lentenwonder wise words!

Update from DD 7 meltdown is that she sat in her cupboard and did two pages from a maths book. Then we did a bit of housework. She's now having iPad time and I'm going to attempt to do some work.

Well do some reading together tonight and then that is us done! One day at a time. Considering opening my stockpile last bottle of wine tonight but then I'll need crisps...

I've just had an email from DCs' school entitles 'URGENT ACTION REQUIRED'. Turns out that because I haven't used the newly set-up year group emails (to email their class teachers all the wonderful work they've done ), I need to urgently email them to confirm I've been getting all their communication.
Jesus Christ. Does it have to be monitored like that? We've been doing the bare minimum a little bit every day, can't that be enough?
FWIW mine are all achieving above average so no fears of falling behind.

Also, if anyone has any wise words how I can get my youngest to do any work, please share! He's in Y1 and has ASD. He keeps saying "well this isn't school" so in his mind he shouldn't be doing any school work!

Treasure hunt for phonics letters @SansaClegane ? I’ve had some cringey photos of parents chalking numbers and counting leaves...I just wouldn’t sweat it.

I'm bribing mine with food. It works.

New to this thread and glad I found it!!

Dd2(4) is marvellously instagrammable! She was up, dressed, enthusiastically walked the dog, did her daily diary and phonics all before 10am then did some more phonics and some additional twinkl sourced maths and craft sheets after that and a video diary entry for her teacher on class dojo. Super cute golden child today. Currently being rewarded with Disney+.

Dd1(9) on the other hand.... had a pre dog walk meltdown about hair brushing and leaving the house (has done neither over the weekend) and has proceeded to drag out 2 hours (tops) of maths work over the course of 5 hours whilst doing her best eeyore impression. THEN had the audacity to moan that dd2 wasn’t being quiet enough (clearly we need to all sit in silence all day while she doesn’t do work!) and that she wouldn’t get any chill out time today!! There was a WHOLE afternoon of chill out time and fun stuff scheduled, all she had to do was do this bloody work!! She wants everything spoon feeding and it doesn’t matter how much I explain that I can help her but she needs to work it out herself and that I NEED to help her sister BECAUSE SHE IS 4, it makes noooo difference! But THEN she’ll get a sudden spurt on and answer 9 questions in 5 minutes when she’s taken 2 hours to do 3!! So she knows she can do it and what the benefits are!!!

Don’t even get me started on DP who is desperately bored (but not bored enough to help dd1) and feels the need to ask me every 2 minutes about the location of everything we own!!

And I can’t even have any wine because I’m 8 months bloody pregnant!

Does he watch TV @SansaClegane? If so then programmes like alphablocks or numberblocks would count as work?

Both my dcs went to bed really late last night after the clocks went forward. So they just about got dressed for 9am but we’re zombies for a good hour after that.

Dd1(11) has to remote school and is pretty independent, but every single time I ask dd2(6) to do something she either sighs really loudly or says “WHY???” In a really whiny voice like some kind of teenager. It’s getting draining as she doesn’t seem to want to do anything independently and just wants attention. I understand why, but I’m getting fed up.

I am going to be an expert in year 6 SATs having spent over a week giving DS1 the answers to hundreds of questions. He is very anxious and just cries unless I sit next to him telling him what to write letter by letter.

I tried to bribe DS2 to do some work, but he is having none of it. A total waste of chocolate buttons.

How the FK do u homeschool when you are still working full time? Mine are left at home with my 17 year old a lot of the time and my bf is helping out when he can but hes not thier dad and is dyslexic himself so is.not able to homeschool.
The only thing weve done is a few work sheets and planted potatoes 😂 but I'm not getting in till 6 on a good day, some of my shifts are 12 hours so 7am to 7pm.
I'm in a non essential factory job which refuses to close..love thier profits too much..

Worst mother in the world I am

Worst mother in the world I am No you're not; you're a mother doing her best in a very difficult and strange situation.

I don't know if you have to pay for it but my children are using White Rose Maths home learning. It's good in that it gives a short video clip introducing the concept and teaching the lesson and then they do the worksheets (8 questions or so only) and the answers are provided.

Writing could be anything: a letter to a loved one or to a favourite character; a setting description using a location they've visited, a Minecraft world they've created or a photograph as a starting point; a set of instructions explaining how to do or make something such as a game or a crafting activity they enjoy; a newspaper report about a current or made up situation; a diary detailing their time away from school.

Science: can you do some experiments such as put a fresh egg in a bowl of vinegar or boil up some red cabbage and use the water as a pH indicator: can they do a write up of the experiment (what we're they finding out? What equipment did they use? What did they keep the same and what did they change? What were their results and what do they show?) Operation Ouch is great for teaching children about their bodies and shows them some cool experiments to demonstrate how it works.

There are some ks2 reading lessons on the Roald Dahl day website: I found one for the Twits.

Tes is free to use and there are a lot of free resources on there - aimed at teachers but can be used at home as well.

For history, google the topic they've been covering at school and you can usually find some video clips and information pages about it. Horrible Histories is great for that as well.

Number and Alpha Blocks on cbeebies is good for maths and phonics at foundation and y1 level.

Geography: draw or find the floor plan for your house/steet-by-street map of your local area and get them to follow it (with you if you're outside) from the start point to a specific end point. When you're on your daily walk (or use Google Maps or google Earth) can you find examples of different land uses (farms, manufacturing, offices, shopping areas, residential, recreational) and try to explain or find out why that particular area of land is used for that purpose?

RE resources: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z7hs34j

www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=25 for RE resources - this site is also fine for some other subjects

www.tts-group.co.uk/home+learning+activities.html I downloaded the free ks1+2 packs and they seem OK if your children are willing to do so.e written work.

💤💤 Our smoke alarm needs a new battery and was beeping intermittently all night. I just want to go back to bed.

We can't just take the battery out as it's wired into the mains and just goes off if we take the battery out.

Thank you TwoZero and lentenwonder for suggestions.
He was obsessed with Alpha-/Numberblocks a few years ago but has lost interest now. He's actually very on track academically (can add, subtract three digit numbers; knows most time tables/all square numbers, reads on purple band; has very accurate spelling) but it's very very hard to engage him or get him to do any set work - even at school they often struggle as he won't do anything unless someone sits 1:1 with him and constantly nudges.
His teacher emailed me yesterday "would love to see some written work from him" writing is what he hates most!!
I'm planning to let him type in Word and write about whatever he likes, rather than do a sheet from school. Wish me luck!
Or if you have any other 'get them to write' ideas let me know!!

Any chance you can ask if the teacher can skype etc him at some point @SansaClegane ? I wouldn’t worry if he’s doing that well. My 9 yo is pretty good at school but getting her to do it whilst at home when she could be pottering around eating snacks is something I haven’t cracked!

I’m hoping post Easter when the teacher is directly communicating they may see the need.

How about taking photos of anything, for example him doing something fun, objects around your house and garden or things you've seen in your daily trip out and then get him to write a caption for them? Just 1 or 2 at a time of too many scares him and puts him off.

"Write" by forming letters in sand, shaving foam, steam on a mirror or in chalk on the floor outside and then take a photo of it. Make silly sentences using magnetic letters of even spaghetti letters. Get him to tell you a story, explain something or recount something to you and scribe it word for word.

Make it fun, turn it into a game and don't bust a gut over it. He'll write when he's ready and if there's an underlying problem such as dysgraphia then that can be investigated further when he's back in school.

Some of those ideas might seem very young @SansaClegane. I'm sorry, I don't know how old your ds is.

Don't know about anyone else but I'm sick of seeing all the perfect families and their good ideas on Facebook. Den building, tents in the garden, movie nights, themed learning days, cooking, paintings, arts and crafts etc. Are their schools not setting any work?! I have one primary dc and one secondary dc. There's so much work to do from school, I have no time to do anything else! Feel like I'm doing something wrong

I’m contemplating leaving the class WhatsApp - sick of seeing photos of people doing jolly things! I don’t begrudge them but I haven’t had a decent run of sleep in weeks and it’s wearing. I’ve muted the group but it keeps reappearing when someone messages about their latest photo worthy moment.

@lentenwonder I wonder if we're on the same group😂 I also considered leaving mine yesterday due to the 50 messages about what homework people had done!

@formerbabe I agree. I don't understand this incessant need to document every aspect of your life online.

Well DD has been great today. Did two worksheets and let me (almost) have an uninterrupted work meeting online. Probably because she was so difficult at bedtime last night I removed all the fun stuff and she's had to earn them back so to be fair it worked.

We're going to do some online maths games later and then we're done for the day. We've had a walk already so then it's just movie and bed. Groundhog Day!!

Sounds likely! I do understand they’re proud of their hard won moments I just don’t want to know. Perhaps I’ll post when mine stops bed wetting and sleeps! I need a grinch emoji.

I had to leave the school twitter for the same reason - endless pictures of baking and counting leaves etc. If I tried to bake with dd today she’d fling it everywhere for fun.

Well done on a good day @Brokenchair1 I hope it continues. We are slowly doing phonics so all not lost here. I’m sure 20 mins a day adds up!