To not have a laptop for every individual in the house?

[help1653]

Just that really.

So we are self isolating, plus kids would be off from Monday anyway. They are 6 and 8. Youngest's school hasn't said to do anything, eldest wants them to do online learning. But we only own two laptops and need them both to work from home. We have a couple of old tablets but they don't run anything sensible, just old games.

Not buying primary school children their own laptop/tablet has gone from sensible parenting decision to terrible parenting decision in less than 2 days. And now we have run out of paper so I can't even print stuff for them to do, if they wanted to do anything on paper, which they don't as it is just not cool.

This is something many of my colleagues and I have pondered over. We bought a family laptop at Christmas for dc to share. Dh and I have work ones. My plan is for them to alternate every 45 mins. Its the only thing we can do.

My 10yo has a laptop she inherited. At the weekend some massive critical update happened and now it's on a go slow.

DH and I shared a laptop and the same update completely fucked ours too, then the battery died . It's like technology comes to die in our house. Fortunately BIL is of a technical vein so will see what he can do at the weekend. (Dd2 would have had ours).

I'll try the old tablet advice up thread thank you.

my son just refuses to write, his writing is about 2 years behind his peers and he is teased about it, and has been told he is bad at it by the school for the last 4 years. So he won't do it. As he is well behaved the school aren't very interested in helping him with his writing other than giving him extra spelling words.
Then YOU need to help your child with his writing. This could be an ideal time to help him improve, at home, where he won't be teased.

Do you have a smart tv or games console? I work for a school in an area where most people won’t have computers and we have suggested a lot of YouTube videos they can watch on a phone. Most can access mathswatch on that too. Do you have a notepad? They can use paper and pen for a lot of things too.

Same issue here. Tried to resuscitate an old desktop for dd1 but failed. Need to figure something out for her and dd2, I’m on my work one all day and so is DH. We’ve held off getting them tech so they’re forced to read/play/craft but it seems like the wrong call now.

Buy some workbooks from the bookshop. I’ve got some for my kids (5 and 9). They’re not perfect, but nothing is at the moment.

I absolutely cannot afford to buy any new tech in right now so my 9 year old twins are 'stuck' with their kindle fire tablets.
I'm hopeful the school will be setting appropriate work though as during this last week they have been quizzing kids on what tech they have at home.
A letter emailed out during the week listed what the case would be if they had to close and it seems fairly copable with a basic tablet.
My eldest is 18 and coming up to her A-level exams, she has an iPad as that's what they use for all learning in college so she should be okay, the main worry there is the cancellation of exams and waiting to see what the outcome of that would be, she was really ill during her mocks so if they go down that route it won't be great for her.

Get them to do projects together using one of the tablets, I homeschooled at that age, it's quite easy, just set a topic each week and get them to present it on a Friday, plus do maths (order actual books online I used cdg) or online resources 1 hour per day) and set reading and creative writing 1 hour per day. Buy seeds and pots for some gardening/science

We have 3 between 4 of us, and I'm hoping that will be enough. I'm pt and have already told work I'll be doing my hours as and when, not to my normal pattern.

OP: I don't have any new advice on the laptop issue but it occurs to me that if your son's fear is about writing not being cool and being teased by his classmates, this enforced absence from school could be an excellent opportunity for him to practise and improve his writing without anyone other than you knowing what he is up to. If there is no underlying reason for his problem he could make huge improvements while the schools are shut which would really help him next year.

My children were quite happy to do things that weren't cool as long as their cool friends didn't see them doing it (especially at that young age)!