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Homeschooling going to shit - a support thread

273 replies

Brokenchair1 · 23/03/2020 10:14

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.

OP posts:
FreakStar · 23/03/2020 13:28

If you have young children then forget school work!

It is not mandatory that they do it!

Do the things you don't normally have time for- build with lego,
bake,
make a pizza for lunch,
make play dough,
play in the garden,
go for a bike ride,
plant some seeds like cress or sunflowers,
make models out of your recycling,
watch t.v
play board games,
build a den from chairs and sheets,
have a dolls tea party,
role play by making a pretend cafe with play food and get the kids to write a menu, use real money if you have some or play money,
play hairdressers,
fill the bath with water and make boats out of paper,
make paper aeroplanes,
make a kite from paper and garden sticks and decorate it and fly it,
play computer games,
paint a picture,
look on youtube for exercises for kids,
make jewellery out of beads,
teach your children to sew,
make slime,
potato printing,

Kids will catch up when school starts again- a few weeks off for primary age children is not going to impact their future academic careers. And who knows what other skills they'll develop when not limited by the parameters of our education system- they might learn to be more imaginative, more self-sufficient, more able to entertain themselves, find a love of gardening, of engineering, of art, of reading.

Don't worry about school stuff! it's over-rated!

menopause59 · 23/03/2020 13:39

I have been up since 7.15 working
The kids have done an hours work this morning and will do an hour this afternoon if its 12 weeks of this i think its enough as they haven't been set enough work by the school.
They are currently having a bit of fun outside on the trampoline.
All these instagram mum's with their perfect lives need to stop posting and making others feel shit as it isn't helping anyone

SistemaAddict · 23/03/2020 13:53

Failing here too but I do have colour coded snack tubs Grin ds refusing to do work. Says he will get board. He's 5. Dds doing better but argued a lot this morning. Roll on bedtime.

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vhs95 · 23/03/2020 13:58

Yr 7 DGS kicked off big style when time came to actually settle to homework - he'd agreed the schedule beautifully yesterday put it all on a white board and everything. Mum keeps getting more and more online work from school and she's meant to be wfh. He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

Hadenoughofitall441 · 23/03/2020 14:02

DS 12 is autistic so he’s doing his based on his timetable, they are lucky that hes getting anything done as he usually assosiates school is school and home is home. I think it’s a novelty at the moment. Dd7 wants to do it all today she loves school. And DP is at home hopefully only till next week when he starts his agency job in the hospital, him and DS clash so much and have done the last 3 days, he’s quite strict and I’m a bit more laid back, My approach always works and his doesn’t. I’m still working till they close my shop so I can imagine the arguments. It’s stressful enough as it is without DP not picking his battles

wfranden · 23/03/2020 14:14

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danni0509 · 23/03/2020 14:29

Ds is giving me a five minute rest whilst playing hungry hippos.

Good for his fine motor, win win Grin

doctorboo · 23/03/2020 14:31

We’ve got j2blast, all the j2’s really, and busythings happening right now while I order a sports bra so I don’t knock myself out when I’m using the skipping rope in the garden.

VashtaNerada · 23/03/2020 14:42

Teacher here. I can get 30 children to stay on task, achieve the learning intention and self-assess their work in a safe, supportive environment. But can I get two children to brush their teeth and do a simple fucking worksheet? Can I bollocks Grin
My main advice is to give yourself a bit of a break and massively lower your expectations of what you can achieve and also what DC will achieve. Hopefully this will get easier as the weeks go by! If it helps at all, I’ve designed a timetable which starts with PE (thanks Joe Wicks), then schoolwork (with a break in the middle) before lunch. After lunch is more chilled although I’m trying to get us all to read our books together mid-afternoon. I just can’t get them to do any work after lunch so I’m not going to kill myself over it.

LER83 · 23/03/2020 14:56

Mine are all playing computers and will be for the rest of the afternoon! Did about an hour of maths this morning, then I lost the will to live! School website crashed so they emailed out work, but it came all jumbled up so it's taken me about an hour to work out what the hell it is! I'm currently putting together some sort of plan for tmrw. My 2 boys have autism and the eldest (9) was sat at the table this morning expecting a proper organised, timetabled lesson/day!

CuriousCapricorn · 23/03/2020 14:59

Place marking for later Smile

TaliZorahVasNormandy · 23/03/2020 15:00

I've got a 12 year old to home school now. Hard to get a pre teen motivated.

TwoZeroTwoZero · 23/03/2020 15:00

Mine are on ttrockstars now. I thought I'd give me an hour's breathing space but no, because dh is using a lot of the Wi-Fi whilst he's working from home it's as slow as a snail so isn't working for them. OMG the strops! We're stopping in 5 minutes because the school day is over and I've had enough!

danni0509 · 23/03/2020 15:03

I make that 3 o clock. Thank fuck.

WineWineWine

danni0509 · 23/03/2020 15:04

I haven't drank a drop for about 15 years. But I'm having a bottle of wine tonight Grin

Dhalandchips · 23/03/2020 15:05

Holy fuck Venn diagrams

Ratbagcatbag · 23/03/2020 15:07

My seven year old did two sentences on the creative writing element that's been sent home. And that was because I suggested one wasn't enough.

However. I suggested she write a diary about her experiences and what we're going to do!
Everything went quiet. I did my work calls and she has produced three written pages in a notebook. I figure it's just as good as creative writing. 😂.
Can she write a letter to someone? The queen, anything?

FunicularVictorian · 23/03/2020 15:07

It's not going great here either. One of mine is preschool and doesn't need to do anything specific but the older one has work to do. He doesn't want to listen to me and the younger one constantly interrupts. Jealous of DH sequestered away working Envy

Whoareyoudududu · 23/03/2020 15:12

Mine did the Joe Wicks thing but 10 year old DS kept asking why he was incessantly talking about himself and I had to laugh Grin. He’s so annoying and smarmy, not sure I can deal with him first thing every morning!

RiseAgain · 23/03/2020 15:24

Joining the club - one day in and I am ready to self-isolate on my own!
DD(14) is good and her school keeps them to the usual timetable, they have to dial into the Teams and follow the lessons - thank god!

DS(10) on the other hand has an attention span of a fruit fly. We have set up a rough plan where I input in between my various conference calls, set him up for independent work, inter-lay it with physical activity in the garden, etc
The reality: piece of Work that should take him 30 minutes as set by school takes five minutes before he comes bothering me in the middle of my VC.
This happens 3-4 times in the allocated 30 minutes...

On the positive side, he did read a book for about 20 minutes and he drew a picture for another 20. Neither of these is normally possible Grin

So - by 3pm he was allowed PC games and I am staring into empty space trying not to think of the next three months...

BogRollBOGOF · 23/03/2020 15:25

We have survived. Ex-supply teacher so not on wholly unfamiliar territory, but with DS1 being a bit fragile with an interesting combination of high-functioning ASD, dyslexia and dyspraxia, he's not the easiest client. Fortunately an hour gawping at the Smithsonian Channel at some dry documentary about Abraham Lincoln is his idea of light relief before getting back to such complexities as writing a sentence. Both DCs have tag teamed in enthusiam, and both have spent time silently working under the watchful eye of DH so they don't feed off eachother.

Round 2 tomorrow...

SistemaAddict · 23/03/2020 15:32

We've been self isolating for a week now. Last week I tried to keep them occupied with existing homework and various activities. This week dd1 is unwell but wanting to do her work. Dd2 is claiming I didn't tell her what she needed to do and has instead spent her time researching no -school things on google. Ds has read beautifully for me but is definitely missing school and his friends. I have PMT and some kind of virus that won't shift and it's not a good combo.

midwestspring · 23/03/2020 15:40

My dc have a full day online teaching schedule with their teachers, I am so lucky!
But they are still managing regular meltdowns out of school hours by tag teaming. I am so grateful I don't have to try and teach them anything.
The weekend at home was enough to remove my sanity.

FireUnderpants · 23/03/2020 16:18

DD1 has colour coded each subject into its own folder. She has laminated the suggested timetable school issued. She's downloaded the extra reading books onto my kindle and is taking it very seriously. I was tutted at earlier for daring to vacuum near the office.

DD2 and DS have desended into chaos. My lovely maths time ended in a fight. I either need to partition the dining table with a wall so they can't make eye contact or alternate each of them (meaning I can't get my own wfh done).

Brokenchair1 · 23/03/2020 16:36

Well as my day comes to an end we've managed 5 sentences. That's pretty much it. Just been for a long walk and picked up some debris to make some kind of scrapbook. Skype meeting went ok but DD kept bobbing her head into the frame.

Made the mistake of going on Instagram and the first post was someone putting up pictures of their two DC doing Joe Wicks and sitting neatly doing school work.

I'm joining in the wine tonight. Day 2/90 (minimum) tomorrow Confused

OP posts: