If you're home schooling a reception aged child...

[theirgraces]

...what sort of schedule do you have? If you have one at all?

I'm at home with my 4.5 YO. I am also WFH but only 21 hours PW - I work flexibly and generally am with DS all morning until 2pm - I have any calls and meetings between 2 and 5 and then make up the rest of my hours evenings and early mornings etc. V lucky employer is extremely flexible and understanding and all my colleagues also have school aged children so everyone is basically in the same boat. DH is full time and his employers are also in theory quite flexible but in practice he is client facing and has a lot more calls during office hours than I do. At the moment we vaguely schedule our day like this:

9-12 - I do home schooling stuff with DS
12-2 - Lunch and DH takes over for a bit and I get some work done, usually takes DS for a walk during this time
2-5ish - this is usually my work time but I still interact a lot with DS during this time - set him up with a craft activity or whatever and then generally he'll also have screen time

I struggle to fill those 3 hours of homeschooling though! His school gives them some stuff but most of it only takes a few minutes to do and it's stuff he knows how to do already so it's hard to keep him interested. We live in a small flat with no garden or outdoor space at all and we live in an area of London which is extremely busy - it's really difficult to keep our distance at all in any of our local parks (I am ECV and we don't own a car) so we tend to do walks round the street but it's a struggle getting DS outdoors - he moans the whole time. Yesterday we didn't go out at all which I know is awful. This morning I'm seriously struggling to fill up his time because he gets bored so quickly - home school schedules for this age that others have shown me have said things like phonics for 30 minutes or whatever. His interest will not hold that long! He's very bright and interested in learning but he just wants to move onto one activity after another and my ideas reserve is running low. I feel most guilty in the afternoons when he wants my attention and I'm having to hop between him and work.

What are others doing with this age group?

anyone?

Mine is y1 but was reception last year.

We did

• baking, endless bloody baking - only biscuits or thumbprint cookies as they take less time to set up and clear away than a massive cake
• painting
• sensory activities like scented playdough (if your DS is interested you can try making some with him for a double activity - you can add colour, scent or glitter), water beads, making patterns in dried lentils etc
• learning BSL
• set up a 'shop' and used real or fake coins to buy things with
• a maths hunt where she had to solve a sum, find the post it with the right answer, then turn it over and it would say where to find the next sum (etc) with a chocolate coin 'treasure' at the end
• phonics posters where we had a particular sound written in sharpie in the middle, then she could write / draw / tell me a word with that sound in for a sticker
• popcorn necklaces ready for that afternoon's film
• fabric pens to decorate a fabric tote bag

She wouldn't do the work sent home so I looked at the learning objective and tried to do something that would achieve it - e.g. if the LO was 'adding 1' I did a teddy bears picnic with popcorn and each teddy had a sum, so teddy 1 had the sum "6 + 1" on its lap and 6 pieces of popcorn, she had to add the 1 piece of popcorn, solve the sum and could then eat the popcorn.

This all sounds terribly wholesome but it required lots of adult input and sometimes she flatly refused and had -an afternoon- most of a day attached to a screen instead.

We spend ages practicing letters. So everyday we choose a letter/ sound and then draw pictures of anything that starts with that. I get them to make words out of lego/ playdough type stuff. BBC bitesize is quite good so they did a dance lesson with darcy bustle today. Lots of reading. Teach your monster to read, karate cat maths, sumdog all good apps.

I have twins (age 5) they're good company for each other and do jigsaws, drawing, building with no input from me when I'm busy. Trickier with a single as they are lonely. I know some of the kids from thier class are doing roblux as they can chat to each other at the same time.

I have a toddler and I’m a sahm.
Calendar over breakfast.
Maths activity left out on the tuff tray.
Play until 9.30 then we have snack and do phonic until 10. New sound, flash cards, reading words with sounds and writing words with the sound.
Then play, maybe our in the garden or try and shoe horn some maths into the day.
Lunchtime. DH does some workbook stuff while I put the toddler down for nap.
2.30 snack and try to do some work.
Try to squeeze more work in while the toddler climbs on us. Counting backwards from 20 or whatever. Handwriting practice.
4.15 tidy
4.30 TV while I make dinner.

She reads to me for 10 minutes before bed.

I have a reception and year 2 child. I’m struggling to fit reception child (DD) in with DS schedule as he has live lessons - they’re brief but they go on and then go off and do independent work then back on so it’s a good 3 hour block I have to supervise him. Then in the afternoon they both have story times live so that’s an hour block. They both also have phonics videos to watch which is about 45 minutes altogether.
So with my DD we are squeezing in time to practice letters - I write words linked to her phonics video and she copies.
The rest of the time it’s free play, art and craft or cosmic kids yoga.
I am so thankful I’m a SAHM as I’m drowning, all you working parents doing what I’m doing on top of work I have so much admiration for you.

Gosh I thought reception children play all day... I think my son is in for a shock come sept!

I am SAHM and have a reception child and a Y3. The reception-aged child starts with the class morning zoom at 9.30 which lasts 15 mins. School suggest tasks each day for English/ maths/ phonics/ fine motor, plus a weekly "bingo" sheet of creative or play-based learning ideas, and daily reading.

I try to spread these out in 15 minute bursts, fitting them around helping my Y3 when he needs it and housework. As an example, today we did 10 minutes reading, 15 minutes of a white rose maths video and activity, about 15 minutes of a writing activity, and he watched a 10 minute phonics video recorded by his teacher. We didn't do the school's suggested fine motor activity today as he did some craft instead.

In between this he just bumbles around the house really, sometimes he entertains himself with drawing/ Lego/ playing with toys, sometimes plays with his brother, sometimes watches TV/ plays a game on the ipad. We try to get out for a walk in the afternoon weather permitting. Sometimes we bake or do something like junk modelling (maybe twice a week).

There's no way he would sit and do schooling in a 3 hour block in the morning!

@OverTheRainbow88

Gosh I thought reception children play all day... I think my son is in for a shock come sept!

They do a lot of play but they do a lot of phonics, maths and reading in small chunks. It’s a lot of repetition as well but it’s all taught in a fun way, my DD loves school and learning.

Re moaning about going out for daily exercise - I have found that young children are far more keen if allowed to wear their favourite dressing up clothes...

Website Phonics Play is pretty good and is offering all of their games with free log in at the moment.

Yep my DS is in reception. First lockdown I was saying over and over “god I’m glad DS is only in nursery, home schooling reception age would be so so shit.” I was 100% right.

9-9.30 - he FaceTimes my mum and reads to her. She has the book and points the camera at the screen and they take turns to read. There’s also a a lot of chat about what he’s been up to and a lot of faffing about and showing my eternally patient DM random things.
9.30-10.30 we do the school activities. His school are great and there are usually maths videos to watch, a follow up maths activity, some writing worksheets, some other sort of learning-through-play type thing, phonics- we easily fill an hour.
10.30- snack, then he plays for a bit
11- class Zoom meetings, I have to sit with him.
11.30- whatever “work” we haven’t finished
12- play
12.30- I make lunch and he insists on helping
After lunch- play/walk/screen time, in that order if I am having a good day and can manage all three. iPad for most of the afternoon if I’m not!!

DD is also around but mostly they are separate for the mornings so he doesn’t play with her a lot then. I’m trying to keep them apart for at least part of the day because frankly they are sick of each other.

Re moaning about going out for daily exercise - I have found that young children are far more keen if allowed to wear their favourite dressing up clothes...

Oh GOOD IDEA!! I will be taking Elsa and a ghostbuster for a walk tomorrow!!!

I've got a reception aged child. And WFH FT along with DH who's a teacher so at school or teaching online all day

I do:
8:30-9:15 - phonics
11:45-12:30 - maths
3-3:30 - writing practice
5:30-6ish - foundation subject
Bedtime - reading for 10-15mins from oxford reading tree books.

In between I'm working and DC has to potter about and play.

Our schools remote learning doesn't include live lessons (thankfully!) but we get pre recorded videos of the teacher introducing concepts and the task, and resources and tasks are uploaded to the platform for us to access. Tasks are done offline on paper (usually each lesson involves some writing) and we have to take a pic and upload for marking.

Reception children do 'play' and don't receive 3 hours of direct teaching a day so chill out. Playing games, arts, crafts, physical exercise, mark making, imaginative play, counting, bit of number recognition, reading books, pencil control and basic phonics is all you need to do.

Crikey Exeter how do you get 45 minutes concentration from a reception age child at any one time never mind multiple times a day?! DD has SEN and when I raised her how distractible she is with reception teacher they said they don't expect more than 10 minutes focus at a time even for NT children. Not having a go, just envious

@ElfAndSafetyInspector tbf, the 45mins includes the videos from teachers which are typically about 10mins long. Phonics usually has a video which is about 20mins long as it includes a story read to the kids too. Then we have a quick chat about the task, and then the rest of the time is the pure effort to get Dc to actually put pencil to paper or to follow through with the activity. Often it involves me shouting for help from DH as I simply don't understand phonics! The foundation subjects are more fun and we can easily find 30mins of interaction there - eg. Today we had to see what items we could find in the garden which were "alive" and talk about why we thought they might be live things. Those lessons are more active and Dc enjoys those a lot more and the time goes a lot faster!

He doesn't need 3 hours of learning. My DC is in school but they do something like 15 min phonics, break, 5/10 min maths explanation then the children do an exercise. 15 min English plus story time. Lots of playing.

Not sure whether you can read this very well but we do short bursts of school work (youtube links and worksheets) with activities (anything vaguely educational) and child initiated play in between. And a lot of snacks!

My reception child has form time 0845 then a phonics zoom lesson. There is a maths lesson later which she can’t do as we are short of adults to sit with her. We have 3 kids. When the elder two are on live lessons and I’m supporting them she is left to play by herself. She usually does some Lego, play Mobil or plays games with her dolls and teddies. When the others are on their breaks from lessons they go outside in the garden in all weathers (with wet weather gear) and play together. We have lunch together and if it’s sunny we go for a long walk and if it’s awful we go for a shorter one. Kids can’t concentrate in the afternoon after lunch without being let out for a run. At some point in the afternoon I will get an older to help her do some maths work in a Collins workbook, whilst I’m doing some one on one work with the other one. Then swap over elder sibling. Then at bedtime she reads to us, RWI green books.

I had a reception child in the first lockdown (along with a 1 year old) I tried my best to emulate the "learning through fun" approach suggested in the activities sent home from the school. But it was beyond me, setting stuff up and keeping activities on track (with no teaching skills) whilst also handling a crazy toddler and a full time job just ended in stress and mess. Instead we had a few quick bursts of "unfun" activity - mainly phonics, writing and maths worksheets sent home from school. DS complained about it but complied and I could feel good that he had done something. Maybe for 15 mins 2 or 3 times a day. I also got a sense for the stuff he liked (maths sheets) and hated (handwriting) and deployed them at the right times.

We didn't do much of the "topic" stuff. DS doesn't really like art or crafts, and it'll occupy him for 2 mins max, ditto baking, just me in a messy kitchen finishing the baking while the kids wondered off.

Mine go like crazy zombies if they get too long on the iPad or binge watch the same thing, so I saw it as positively "educational" if they would watch the varied Cbeebies programmes in the morning and would let them keep going until they stopped ... to be fair DS learned lots of R/ Y1 maths through an obsession with Numberblocks.

Most of the rest of the time we / they played. I started doing toy rotation with about 4 different bags hiding 3 in the garage. We could kill a lot of time just getting the toys out and sitting in the middle of them - and if all else fails pull sofa cushions on the floor and make at home soft play.

Thanks for your answers. I feel I should clarify we don't do 3 hours of learning (I.e. sitting doing phonics and numbers etc), that's just the time I fill with activities inc small world play, craft and so on - but stuff I have to do with him. Otherwise he'd be bored to tears unfortunately. He can play on his own for a bit but I have to save that for the afternoon so the novelty keeps him quiet and I can get on with a bit of work.

The structure is for my benefit as much as his - I have ADHD and badly need the routine. And if DS doesn't have some kind of routine he gets very fed up and very destructive.

Last lockdown we had no routine at all and I was madly flitting from work back to him again with nothing much planned and it was shit for both of us. That's why I'm asking.

He is high energy and catapults from one thing to the next really quickly- he won't just sit and entertain himself for hours on end.

He sounds entirely normal OP - it’s the situation that isn’t! I have a reception child and a Y3 and it’s very hard to keep them occupied, although my Y3 is at least able to get on with school work on his own for longer periods.

My son in reception enjoys cosmic kids yoga, and is very keen on doing his ‘work’ on the iPad - we do try to limit this but have found Crazy Cursive (app) and Phonics Bloom (website - phonics games) to be at least vaguely educational and they hold his attention for longer periods when we need to help his brother.

Otherwise we’re doing a lot of handwriting practice. He enjoys practising his letters in sand and on wipe clean books. Also chalk on a blackboard. I remember being told that doing sensory writing helps their muscle memory. We’ve written a couple of (very short) letters to his friends and had exciting replies. He does the White Rose maths videos as well and we always end up getting out teddies/buttons on plates etc to recreate the activity so that takes up a bit of time. We get other schoolwork home but nothing great he’ll concentrate on for more than max 15 minutes at a time.

He’s just had his birthday and got some StoryOrchestra books, which have really captured his imagination. The other thing he loves doing at the moment is excavating dinosaur fossils from plaster of Paris like this
www.amazon.co.uk/KandyToys-Dinosaur-Fossils-Excavation-Skeleton/dp/B00EYMDCWI/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=dinosaur+digging+kit+fossils&pf_rd_p=f9379ecf-b158-4af1-9ba7-e10b1fa9db88&pd_rd_wg=YNZ6h&pf_rd_r=45MQ9D2W1XKEC075FG31&pd_rd_w=duHLg&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1611210335&pd_rd_r=217a92ac-03e0-48ca-bd25-32593c68871d&sr=8-3 - aargh, sorry, can’t do clicky links.

We made jelly the other day as well, which was a surprising hit - he loved watching it change from solid to liquid and back again

Hang on in there - it’s tough, and I can only imagine how much harder if you can’t get outside regularly and easily

DS in reception has a live zoom phonics lesson from 9am for about 45 minutes.

Work gets uploaded on to seesaw at 9am, 10am and 11am. He also has another zoom lesson at 11am - usually maths.

The 11am lesson usually lasts 45 minutes and then it's straight in to lunch and a long break until the next set of work is uploaded at 1pm and final piece at 2pm.

It's a lot. I'm also balancing a one year old, having covid and DH attempting to work from home.

Between lessons DS can do whatever he likes, usually tv. I'm too exhausted to fight that right now.

My DD was in Reception in the last lockdown. We did phonics - Ruth Miskin videos on Facebook/ YouTube as our school does Read Write Inc. Maths - usually WhiteRose things the school sent. And a topic related activity (drawing, watch a video etc) that the school sent. So really only 3 short activities spaced through the day plus reading. It was made easier because the weather was so nice and we fortunately have a garden.

This time round in yr 1 we have 3x 30 minute zoom lessons plus extra work. I am pleased we are setting their teachers/ friends but it needs a lot of parental involvement.

There are loads of great educational apps eg Teach your monsters to read, Dragonbox numbers if you want to feel less guilty about screen time. We also watched some more educational series eg Blue Planet over the course of lockdown which she really enjoyed.