Homeschooling NIGHTMARE

[MrsFluffyMuff]

Just been informed the kids' schools are closed for another 2 weeks (at least) so all learning will be online. Last time I struggled so much with homeschooling. I am a single parent with four children, all under 10, youngest is 1. How the fuck do other people with 4 or more kids manage it? I literally can't get one on one time with them for more than 2 minutes, it's impossible. They need someone to be able to sit for at least 30 minutes with them and go through everything. I've Got no one in my bubble to help as my parents are shielding.

AIBU for really struggling with this?

I wouldnt bother trying to home educate the little ones. Concentrate on the older ones, but dont sweat it too much either, as long as they get something done each day

I wouldn't beat yourself up, I know a teacher who didnt homeschool her 3 kids during the last lockdown as she said it was impossible to get them concentrate! They seem ok now and no worse off for it. Dont give yourself a hard time

Can you shield for a few weeks then be in your parents bubble? It would mean shielding going forwards so it's ongoing which is challenging.

The only time any of you would be able to leave the house is for exercise and essential medical appointments. So you'd need to get shopping delivered contact free.

But if your parents live close enough they could help out and I expect they would be delighted to be helping.

The moment you need to go into a shop or post office or pop out to pick something up you'd not be able to see them, but it could work for a month or two.

Talk to school, they may take the school age dcs under the circumstances

I don't have anything to add, as there are some great practical suggestions on here, but please ask school for help and don't be hard on yourself

Good luck OP. Our local primary has said they are not helping with laptops/printing things out, as the children do not have todo the work and they will cover it all again when they are back in. Do what you can and don't stress. Enjoy having them with you. Watch david attenborough / horrible histories, educational and fun.

I have 4 children and will have them all at home for the next (how many?) weeks. It's very hard to manage.
Mine are slightly older than yours, which makes it easier for them to work independently, but also their education is more critical. I worry most about DS1 who is doing his GCSEs.
My suggestion: ignore what school send unless it's helpful. Read, read, read, go to the park, get them to help with cooking. Stick 'Horrible Histories' on TV as it is vaguely educational.

Stock up on gin.

Good luck. I feel your pain.

I'm all for using 'topic' work, it was trendy in the 1970s.

So if you pick 'cooking tea for everyone' the eldest can look at what is in the cupboards and research recipes. This gives you literacy and some numeracy.

Get them to write a shopping list then do an online shop, more literacy and numeracy, tings like buying 250g of butter when you only need 25g - what can be done with the rest.

A daily diary with drawings / photos with the older ones writing for the youngest.

A bit of science when looking at what you do and why - bread is good for this. You can make home made play dough for the youngest.

A bit of health and safety looking at how you hold a knife and why.

Reading to you or each other.

Go for a walk and collet things, if you are brave you could forage food but if not look for birds, which kind are they, what trees can they see and why don't many trees have leaves at the moment.

Find 6 things that fit in a match box can be interesting.

Could they do a new report? Maybe a paper or even a TV news report about what they have done - this can bring in lots of art and IT. Can they interview their grandparents over zoom?

Learning at home can and IMHO should look very different to learning at school.

@MrsFluffyMuff

Thanks so much everyone, all really helpful advice. My middle ones are 6 and 4. Just so worried that they will all be so behind :(

Don't worry about this, do as much stimulating educational stuff as you can, but perhaps try to treat it as group work. At 6&4 they are not vastly apart - better they both do something than no one does anything.

Agree with suggestions to ditch the curriculum.

YANBU, even in schools there is a period of adjustment of getting (back) into habits, but as things are, it's really hard to get into anything with so much unknown plus the different distractions at home.

I home educated my four through primary (1 Y4 child still full time here, and my Y11 is a part-time student who is here most of the week). Alongside the other great tips on this thread (especially ensuring life skills get covered), my biggest tip is to not try to fill up a whole school day. Harder for those who have children doing live lessons, but really, try to make habits of doing 'learning activities' - 3-4 areas (English, maths, plus 1-2 others that can stay the same or change each day) and some reading aloud which the ten year old or an audio book can help with - in either the morning or afternoon and giving a lot of the other to free time. It's both valuable for them and saves sanity.

For learning activities beyond life skills - for the 4 and 6 year old, I See Sam readers can be found as free PDFs online (as well as books and apps. My kids loved having the little short books) and Ultimate Phonics has free PDF that has a list of words plus sentences that are part of their paid computer programme. With beginning readers, I would use a whiteboard and put 1 letter or sound at a time, build up words, then they'd reread the list afterwords, with those farther along the word and sentence lists can be a great way to keep things going over the two weeks and then pick a few of either as copywork for penmanship. So simple, minimum set up which for me for a bonus.

If you want to add in creative writing/discussion and grammar, Pobble365 is a click and go way - it has daily pictures with 'sick sentences' to improve, sentence challenges that often include grammar discussions, an art challenge, and a writing prompt.

For maths, www.homeschoolmath.net/ has a worksheet generator & lessons and you can have the older two copy from the screen, then scroll down when they finish to check answers. I use this to occasionally top up struggling areas for my children, as it's made by the same person who created my go-to primary maths curriculum, Math Mammoth. There are also a lot of math trainers that give basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems to work on maths facts.

During this, for other topics, I would focus on life skills, areas of interest for them or you, things you kinda wish were part of the curriculum (or got left out during all this). With my 9 year old, I've got some silly short poems that he likes for us to read that he's going to try to memorize and perform for us which we're going to do daily, he has his weekly science (we use Science Detective workbooks plus I'll get other resources on that topic), and we've got some drawing books that he's going to use more while his sisters are home and needing computers for their online lessons, and I might break out one of the Jolly Music book for singing which I used to do with all of them when they were smaller, but is hard to do with just one.

Could your parents or someone in your bubble school the older 2 (or middle 2) for a couple of days? Or look after the 1 year old for a few day time periods so you can concentrate. A 1 year old is very hard work.

Can you concentrate on your oldest when the baby naps? Use BBC Bitesize as well, Horrible Histories, things the others can watch while you're busy with others? Also as someone else said, you can do lots of things with board games together while the baby sits and plays at your feet - Junior Scrabble, Brain Box, etc. Jigsaws of the world. Cooking (get one to do the weighing, perhaps get the older to do some conversions/doubling/halving etc). Youngest play with the cookie cutters, bit of hand eye co-ordination. TBH if you all get some fresh air every day and the oldest gets to do most of their work I would think I would be on a big win.

If you work surely you could argue that they’re vulnerable? No idea if it would work but an acquaintance of mine has just gotten divorced, has a highly stressful job (not a key worker) and 4 children and the head of her school has agreed to take her children.

They won't fall behind and they have much improved life chances by virtue of having a mum who worries and cares about them and I suspect is doing a great job bringing them up in very challenging circumstances. Here's to you

Thanks so much for the kind words @ScrapThatThen X

Just an addition to this, and a caveat that I'm not sure how legal this site is, but a friend recommended

z-lib.org/

I believe it was originally set up for US college students to save money but basically any book you can think of is available in PDF form.

Just a thought, but as this situation seems to be ongoing should we ask MNHQ for a home schooling / corona category?

I think there is one for home schoolers, but one with hints and tips for short term and people who have not planned to do any home ed.

@BiBabbles is obviously an expert and input form those well experienced is vital but a few, "we tried this" from those who think, "bloody hell what so I do now?"

Sounds so tough. This article really summed things up for me www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/28/nursery-staff-work-covid-crisis-early-years-support

OP, you have my complete sympathy. Firstly, your children have you, and you love them. This is already worth a huge amount on it's own.

I have 4 sons (8, 6, 4 and just turned 2). We just returned to school this week after 10 weeks of homeschool (locked down after October holidays). We live in Slovenia.

DH was busy most days trying to find ways to keep his business going.

I (barely) coped by having a fairly rigid routine and letting go of any expectation of doing anything except dealing with the children.

We got up around 8, had breakfast, got dressed and brushed teeth. The 6 year old's zoom call began at 9, 3 mornings a week and lasted about 50 minutes. The 8 year old's zoom call began at 9.25 every day and lasted just over an hour.

So, at 9am I put cartoons on in our bedroom for the 2 littlest ones and settled the 6 year old at the laptop in the kitchen. 8 year old in the childrens' bedroom, we checked he had everything ready for his call, then he went in on the tablet.

Then I checked on the little ones. Then tidied the kitchen while checking on the 6 year old. When his call finished I sat down and did half an hour of his tasks with him. If it was a day where he didn't have a call we did an hour. That was enough to complete what he had to do.

Then when the 8 year old finished his zoom call I brought him down to the kitchen. 6 year joined the 2 youngest in front of the TV (with snacks) and I would do an hour of work with the 8 year old in the kitchen, whilst preparing a packed lunch.

Then, around 11.30- 12 we all went out, regardless of the weather. Youngest had a nap in the buggy and we went for a walk with a picnic lunch, stayed out til around 3 or 4. DH made tea. Then free time, they mostly played with Lego or sometimes we put on a movie. Bedtime routine from 7, little ones to bed at 7.30, older ones at 8 or 8.30 after stories.

It was monotonous and I had issues getting them out of the house most days. And felt very bad about how many hours of TV time the younger ones were clocking up. We cut corners on the school work. I insisted that they kept up with maths, reading and writing but didn't sweat every single task beyond that.

To be honest, getting outdoor excercise every day, eating sensibly and trying to promote their friendships with each other were my main priorities. I didn't want them to fall behind at their schoolwork, but more because I didn't want them to have issues when they went back to school. I don't personally think the actual work matters all that much at this age.

@MrsFluffyMuff

I dont have a printer but I suppose I could ask school to print plenty off for me, and we could go and collect them :)

If printed materials would help, either ask the school or ask a local business? Around here, the schools will print off the worksheets if you ask them or several local businesses have offered to print anything if parents email them the resources.

If you have previously been turned down for additional laptops/tablets from the school, it is also worth raising it again as it must be tough relying on one cellphone. There has been another round of devices made available at my local schools so the families who didn't previously get one might now be able to snag a freebie via the new supplies. (Or, go on a waitlist - tbh, some devices from the previous round have now been returned to schools either because families have now acquired their own or chose not to use them and clearly don't want/won't use them.)

I'm in the exact same boat and we haven't completed a whole school day yet

What I would do is - make sure the 10yo has a quiet space and expect them to get on with their work fairly independently. I would try to make half an hour two or three times a day to support the 6yo (probably using the TV to occupy the younger dc). I wouldn't worry about the 4yo's work but would encourage some educational activities through board games or whatever.