How do you actually fill your 8 yr old's day?

[Knitwit99]

If you're at home with an 8 yr old and you're trying to work, what do they actually do with their time all day?

I'm not interested in how hard they are working academically or anything like that, just what do they actually do?

We try to start some work at 9am, aim for 15-20 minutes of a maths workbook, he usually does that on his own but sitting at the table with me talking quite a lot.
Then at 9.30 there's a call with the class teacher so that occupies him for 15 minutes.
Then he does a bit of reading for maybe half an hour.

Then there's a lot of down-time while I try to work and he just hangs around the house not really doing anything. Sometimes he watches tv, sometimes he tries to play quietly on xbox so I won't notice.

Then I realise he's totally wasting his time so I stop working and try to make him do some other sort of worksheet or something from school.
Then it's nearly lunchtime. And then I realise there's still a whole afternoon to fill.

We go out for a walk when I can fit it in but as often as not I can't fit it in and I just have to keep working. Sometimes he'll have 15 minutes in the garden but it's so cold right now and our garden is so damp and miserable.

He's always been the sort of kid who likes to be around people, he loves a chat, so he's hopeless at getting stuck into some sort of activity that might occupy him for an hour to let me get a good stretch of work done. If I could devote my entire day to him we'd learn loads in really fun and interactive ways. But I can't.

What do your 8 yr olds do all day?

[caringcarer]

There are school stuff he can watch on You Tube. Eg. Watch what happens when frogs spawn tadpoles. Then he could draw each stage. Show him how to pause TV so he can copy down the name of each stage and then press the play button to move it on again. Next to the name he can draw an image of it.

Make up a story about a frog. What is it called? What does frog do? How old is frog? Does frog have some friends? How does story end?

Draw and colour a frog.

Get him to go on internet and find images of different types of frogs.


Print off a basic Maths worksheet with adding and subtraction sums he can just do on the sheet.

You will have covered Maths, English and Science.

It takes about 10 minutes to find him something to do for all 3 subjects. Things that may be quite simple but he will be working independently. If he is more able get him to write 8 sentences about frogs from information he can find on the internet so make a frog fact file. Set multiplying and dividing Maths. Get him to make a story including a frog, a prince, a wizard and a pond. Give him a beginning, Once upon a time ..........what happens.in the story. Put in interesting details including stuff he found out on internet about frogs.

If he is less able find 4 facts on frogs. Draw a story board showing in pictures what frog did. Make Maths easy. Times tables grid to fill in.


So much you could do.

[caringcarer]

Mix work in with meal times, playing outside for fresh air and Lego play etc and a reading or story.

[caringcarer]

There are loads of printable word searches on loads of different topics. Art tutorials. Crafting. My DC spent some time today cutting up old Xmas cards, hole punching and threading with silver thread all ready as gift cards for next Xmas. I would think an 8 year old could do that himself. Even better if you have pinking shears.