Low tech households and school work

[WhatsTheFrequencyKennneth]

How are households with little technology coping with school work provided for their kids? Have you found any workarounds or alternative methods?

We have plenty of tech but prefer not to use as much as is required for online schooling. We have instead been concentrating on reading, have ordered Dekko comics as DD has enjoyed the ones online that are free which I print off for her.
We've also had much more time to improve instruments and theory which we've been doing.
We also have a maths set with counters so we're using that instead of online aside from some doodle maths.
I try to print stuff off and ask her to write in her exercise book so as not to lose finger strength.

Thanks I just realised today my kids are very behind others in online /tech skills. They're only 6 & 8 so I've never felt this was a problem but with all their school work now online I wasn't sure if I was failing them. As with most things I guess its about striking a balance.

Mine are the same age as yours and have definitely been improving their IT skills as a result of the lockdown - eldest in particular is faster at typing and can produce documents more confidently although they still do hand written work too.

We had to buy more tech

We too bought more tech - tablets. We've allowed them on the laptop for the first time, but we mostly adapt for non tech options. Mine are 8, 6 and 4 and Weare both working full time in public sector senior management jobs and find that a lot of the school work is watch something, do something. We mostly adapt it to judt do something as I don't have capacity to be googling stuff every few mins, I need them to get on.

It's really not a problem. It really depends on how much time you have too, and if you're actually working. If you are than a tablet and oak academy is great, if you're not than more screen free school is deffo possible. I think children who's parents were very busy doing work from home will have a very different experience than those who were furloughed and had more time. Our DD is 12 and y7 and only just learnt to make a doc and PowerPoint. It's really not necessary before than and when they're older they pick it up so quickly, she learnt in about 10mins. Her typing has improved a lot I must say but that's only because she's obsessed with the touch typing game on BBC bitesize.

We’re doing alternatives offline. We are (relatively!) low tech by choice so fortunate to have a lot of resources and equipment we can use. I feel for parents who don’t have the same options as they can’t afford or didn’t have space to store maths equipment ‘just in case’!
We could afford to buy a tablet for school work (we have a family lap top and TV, no other stuff) but I don’t want my 5 year old on a screen all day when there are better options. I’m a primary school teacher so feel confident in adapting the school work to keep the same learning objective but offline.

We’ve borrowed a laptop from school but did have to buy a printer. I’ve been doing handwritten activity sheets to link with the class topic so the laptop is mainly used for google class meets. DD is only 4 so lots of things are done with everyday materials and toys.