To ask how much homeschooling you achieve?? (primary age)

[fireearthwaterair]

Just wondering if anyone is in a similar boat or whether anyone has any practical and realistic tips and advice for how to get through and manage it.

I have an 8-year-old DS in year 4 and find homeschooling so difficult! He can be really reluctant and unwilling to do a lot so just to get started is a battle. If he finds something easy then it’s fine so he will practice things he already knows, any new concepts that he needs to learn he just wont. I’m finding I’m crap at trying to actually teach him anything new and just end up getting annoyed and frustrated.

I’ve had some success with a couple of apps that he likes to do learning on, but school have been emailing everyone and it seems like from next week they expect kids to follow the work they set. DS dislikes a lot of their resources and the printed work sheets. Also the reading they set- he will happily do a bit of reading each day from his own chosen book but not the set reading from school.

A lot of mums on my Facebook posting photographs on their kids all set up around the kitchen table with work sheets out, headphones on with laptops happily learning which makes me feel a bit rubbish. I know some might be a little staged but many genuinely seem to be finding it a breeze whilst last lockdown we completely failed at it and gave up long before the summer holidays started.

I can’t let this happen again and just wondered how much people are doing and what secrets there are to keeping it going smoothly and consistently?

I’m a sahm (although have quite a demanding toddler as well to look after) so working from home at the same time isn’t an issue for me

We have 2 children (1 secondary, 1 juniors).
We have found that printing off the timetable and all the printouts on the Sunday has helped us to be more organised for the week ahead. We talk through the lessons for the day at the start of each day. We pencil in their zoom meetings, so they know when they are. We make sure that they have enough breaks during the day, so they have a 10 minute break midmorning, then an hour away from work at lunchtime. They normally go out in the garden and play or watch some TV while lunch is prepared. If they are getting stressed, we take them away from the work for another 10 minutes to try to limit the pressure. We get up at the normal school time and start the work at 9am. We try to get finished by 3pm and email the work across to the teachers. From 3.30 its family time. We do anything the children want to do, movies, walks, arts and crafts, board games. Its completely their choice until teatime. At the end of each day, we praise them for the work they have done and for preserving when it was difficult. We tell them how proud we are of them.

The schools set 5 lessons each day for both children. Some days, we will do the timetables in the order on the sheet, other times, we juggle the lessons around so their favourite lesson is at the end of the day. This helps them to push through the other work to get to the one they really want to be doing.

Eldest full homeschool via google classrooms but she’s private so figured and is starkly unfair.

Two youngest zero. I am single and work FT so no hope.

I am going to try and do them a schedule today with stuff to do and will set up “desks” but can’t police them doing any.

The ones who have photos on FB of them all sat at a table on laptops are liars. Their kids sat like that ONCE (at 9am on Tuesday) and stayed like it long enough for mum to take a pic. You have no idea what that table looked like literally 10 seconds later. And if my kids sat like that for 2 seconds, I would probably take a picture too! Wouldn't post it on FB though (because I'm not a knob).

I’m a teacher and have been in school all week . My youngest is at primary and has had to spend everyday out on the farm with his father . We do an hour together in the evenings atm 😢

My secondary 2 are doing 6 hours a day plus homework and my 4 year old is joining his team's calls and completing all the work set. There's not much teaching involved as the work set isn't very challenging. I'm looking into getting some private tuition so they don't fall behind.

I’d love to be furloughed this time so I can actually support my own children .

Year1. We manage about 2.5 to 3 hours including a 20 minute break. She has 30 mins to play while I get things ready. If I say go to play anytime within those hours she will refuse to come back so I generally play with her outdoors. Afternoon we play, go out, exercise and do a craft. No point in asking her to sit down after lunch. We do the reading before bed. We used to read in the morning before school because she was fresher then.

I am exhausted. She will not let me sit down at all. I asked her if her teachers ever have a break and apparently they don't. Hmm. If I say I am having a coffee and a sit down for 10 mins she will use the clock to time me and watch. So my 30 mins between 9 and 9:30 is the only break I get from 7 until 9pm. I don't know what I'd do if I had 2.

Stormy - I think you need to remember who the adult is in your house . A 5 year old dictating when their parent sits down ? Don’t be ridiculous

We're managing a couple of hours each day with ds who is 9. Plus reading at night and we're doing some catch up today. It has to be balanced with WFH and a secondary aged DC who fortunately is managing themselves.

Stormy - tv is allowed , you don’t have to be perfect ! No one is .

Sorry. I meant to add she has autism.

2.5 hours on maths, reading comp and writing set by school on google classroom. 30 mins independent reading and then we read together before bed. She enjoys shows like horrible histories and plays minecraft. She has screen free time from 4 where she plays with her toys or does craft. At lunch we try and have an hour outside whether walking or playing. She is in yr4.

I am a teacher and a mum to an 8 year old who resists learning (she does have ADHD though) and if your son will work on educational apps and read a book of his choice daily, I'd say you're onto a winner there. You can cunningly include writing and counting through games such as Consequences, Monopoly etc (maybe after the younger one's bedtime). Your primary concern should be maintaining a trusting and productive relationship with your child, which several daily screaming matches over worksheets won't achieve. Been there, done that.

I suggested we watch TV. I am working on trying to get her to play alone just so I can do some vaccuuming or something. Just for a bit. I thought I was quite successful the other day until I walked into the living room and saw my sofa had been coloured in.

Some sort of visual plan to work to is great for kids as it prepares them for the day and for what comes next.
They could make a simple version themselves, drawing/colouring a small card for each subject and a card for each break.
Each day set these out so that they can work through them, removing each lesson/task once completed.

Stormy mine was like that at that age. Can you sit on the sofa and watch iPlayer? I have learnt a great deal from Operation Ouch! And this is for older DC but lately we have been watching The Dumping Ground a lot which has led to lot of useful conversations about why the kids in it are angry/sad/what will happen next. As far as I'm concerned it's like the BBC are giving me hours of animated social story.

I suppose she's just anxious due to change and added SEN. I am aware that her behaviour is still quite normal. I is like going backwards 2 years without nursery or clubs.
I am going to try the visual timetable. I don't wish her to play alone all day in silence. I love to join in and play. I would however like do get the housework done (look at my phone) when she's not in bed or destroying one room while I clean another. I keep telling myself, it isn't for long. She'll be a teen soon and hate me.

I'm a teacher so we're just doing what we can evenings and weekends. We've covered maybe 60% of last weeks offerings.

We’re doing quite well. Also have a DC year 4 and another at primary. We have to keep electronics off or it’s hard to pull them from it but they set alarms at playtime and like to stick to school timings for breaks so they’re quite self-disciplined. We set them up with their work and are on hand for questions which are constant but they’re doing well. I have told them any that isn’t done during the day just means they’ll get less playtime as they’ll have to make it up in the evenings. The teachers have made the work engaging though for them so they’ve been happy. I will add, all children are different, home set ups are different. We have one DC at a desk, one at the table and DH is at the table also. I float about. Both DC are quite academic and bright.

My youngest DS is 9 and he does sit down for most of the day and get on with work. It helps that the older ones are in their rooms studying and that both DH and I are working as well so he understands that it's a normal school say and we're all getting on with it.
On Sundays I prepare a timetable for each day of the week, we start with Joe Wicks or similar then work through mostly the material from school but sometimes we chose other stuff as easier to do by himself. There are FB live art sessions and lots of zoos have a weekly live chat. If he gets stuck he finds someone not on a zoom call to help him. Build in breaks and lunch, if he finishes something early he can read, play with Lego or play in garden until the next session. Very structured , there's no tv or Xbox time in the day. There is often baking or something different in the afternoon depending on who can be around to supervise. At 3.30 (exactly!) he jumps on the Xbox and can talk to his friends, very relaxed about screen time once the school day is over.

One thing I have found helped us, which is maybe controversial is not having breaks - I find mine take a while to settle, so we just go from task to task (start at 9/9.30 and go until lunch), then have a longish break and then hopefully do a little more work. Also I try to start with an easy/quick task out of the list, eg writing out spellings, so that they feel like they’ve achieved something early on, and I let them tick it off the ‘to do’ list. I also found in lockdown 1 that I had to make myself not respond to diversionary tactics (dropping pencils, trying to argue etc - my daughters are quite shy and I think in school if they don’t understand, they just keep quiet, but at home there’s nowhere to hide and they had to learn how to admit it and ask for help). I had to make myself stay calm and firm, I kept repeating set phrases to keep them on task. If maths sheets etc took a long time, I agreed with my daughter that we would do 30 mins good, hard work on it, then stop, the teachers were happy with this approach too.

Y2 and YR.

Both DH and I WFH

We do 30-60 min some days - that's the absolute max. DS1 (6) will only do maths and science, he's quite good to undertake tasks for about 20 mins but I really am not forcing it. DS2 (4) watches a couple of videos posted by the teachers if I'm lucky.

Don't measure yourself by others.

I have a yr3, yr1 and a 2yr old. Prt furloughed so have to work from home too. we are doing next to nothing! I set up my yr3 maths lesson (white rose). She tries to watch the video but the 2yr old will pull the iPad away/start colouring the walls/runout the front door/scream/be generally distracting. It takes us a good hour just to get through her maths. She is always crying at the end. Repeat with yr1 child. Thank god nurseries are open as I can send the toddler in a few mornings which means we can crack on with a couple of hours but that’s it. We read together every day as a bare minimum.
The best part is the key worker/vulnerable kids at our school are in yeargroup bubbles with their regular teacher so they get normal teaching my and we get next to no contact with the school or teacher at all.

High school age one can't manage online lessons with household distractions so is going to school tomorrow. She has ASD and ADHD and is brilliant at school but falls apart at home.

Have a preschooler at home too and a 7 year old year who has severe ADHD and absolutely can't be left to do any on her own. She needs one to one for every tiny thing. I'm on furlough but I also have ADHD so just getting organised with printing it out (we are sent the work daily rather than weekly so I can't prepare it all at once) is a struggle. So far I've managed to keep up but that's with doing the bulk of it on the two days the preschooler is at nursery. When DH is working from home (50% of the time) it's actually harder, he needs the table to work on too, I need to keep them out the way when he is on calls etc

Dd has to have a go on the swing or climbing frame or trampoline and usually a snack in between every single piece of work. And once I've lost her I've lost her, she just shuts down randomly like an ancient computer. So I always start with maths which is the one she struggles with. Everything else is a bonus.

I used to home educate, and this isn't home education. It's school at home. Formal schooling is absolutely not achievable long term in family homes.

Mine are 9&7 (English Yr5&3).
They are set 3 prerecorded lessons from school a day (apparently supposed to be an hour each. Some take longer, some shorter.) Some need worksheets printing.. We have 2 tablets, 1 laptop, and a slow broadband connection.
At 8.45 I Check the app, download any worksheets, and set up the first lesson on their tablets while they watch the welcome video from their teacher. So hopefully, we are getting started on the first lesson not long after 9. 5 minute movement break after first lesson, while I load up the second lesson. After that, dependent on time, it's either lunch or TTRockstars, spelling shed, or handwriting practice. Then the third lesson after lunch. They have an hour for lunch coinciding with DHs lunch break, when I get exercise. We do the third lesson after lunch, then out for a walk or bike ride before it get dark. Then they listen to the class book (prerecorded). They also need to read every day.

So about three hours of lesons, and an hour of other activity related to school. Plus some educational TV.