Welcome to the new Lockdown Learning area.

[YetAnotherBeckyMumsnet]

Come on over to Mumsnet’s corona classroom . Are you feeling more Miss Trunchbull than Miss Honey? Don’t know your Plantagenets from your Pythagoras? Many of you have said you’re feeling a touch overwhelmed at the prospect of home-education and could use more guidance. If that sounds familiar, then Lockdown learning is the place for you to share advice, tips, and resources. Or if you just need some moral support from your fellow Mumsnetters and a virtual scream into the wind during the school closures.

So if you're wondering when Year 3 maths got so complicated and you’ve forgotten all dates of ancient battles apart from that one in 1066, then we hope this new section will help put things in perspective.

Parents who are old hands at home-education are MOST welcome to pop over and share your wit and wisdom.

Thanks, everyone - and good luck.

and these are brilliant Need to Get Outside? These 5 National Parks Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take From the Comfort of Home
www.travelandleisure.com/trip-ideas/national-parks/virtual-national-parks-tours

I'm currently working a 'weekly planner' for my 1&2 year old Dd's. It's very 'playcentric' using all the toys we have, eg:
'Disney Day' - Costumes, Princess Castle Corner, Songs & Dance- themed 'ABC' YouTube songs....
I'm also trying some 'messy play' using a baby bath and toys.
And some mixing for (easy!) baking

I'm writing out my new one for next week and am looking for a bit of inspiration!? Things I'd like to include are ideas around speech development and things that help them play and learn together (They're 2.5 and 15 months, they both love 'dance routines' but can be a bit 'That's mine!' when it comes to certain toys!).

We have a 'window garden' now (M&S gave us a load of their little grow boxes with different seedlings, lovely idea)!

Any ideas welcome!? Many thanks

I think the main message needs to be relax! Take your time with the learning and don't worry if it doesn't get done everyday
^^This! The whole cohort will be in the same place, try to consolidate what you have and accept that especially if you're working as well, letting children play is also good for them and for you.

They can also learn a lot by helping you cook, sorting the laundry, decluttering the spare room, sweeping the patio, even squabbling with siblings... All these things have practical learnings, from maths to social skills to life lessons.

I've been thinking panicking about how to sustain remote working, with home-schooling, after a VERY tough week. Thankfully we are now on school break, but we will still need some kind of structure just so DD is reasonably busy at the times I have to focus on work.

I read somewhere else on here the idea of moving the child's weekend, and I think that's what we will try. So for example Sat and Sun will be "school" days for DD when I'll be fully available to support and supervise the (considerable) amount of work school has set. But probably Monday and Tuesday will be her weekend, when she can chill out and have screens / more garden time / crafts etc while I work.

As a lone parent I am not totally sure where a "weekend" for me comes in this (agh) but last week it worked fairly well to have a longer break in the middle of the day, so I was offline 12.30 - 2.30 to just cuddle my DD and chill out with her after lunch.

Today's plan is to gently sort out the heaps of colouring books and old comics obscuring her desk, so she's got a proper space for school work. I'm doing that mainly to set a bit of a boundary so there's a school "zone" to help her either focus, or get separation from the rest of the time.

We follow Lockdown Learning on YouTube, they are teachers from a school in Liverpool. Six short segments a day, most content on English & Maths and all segments have learning resources attached. So far we've had a response on everything we've sent it and they show pieces of work in every segment? They have links to learning sites to access free too and it is very funny too. I like the structure it gives to our day, still loads of time for our own stuff.

I started a Facebook page for this with a group of friends. Talking to a couple of them who have DC with SEN it became apparent that they were super focussed on 'worksheets' and didn't realise the potential for learning 'on the go'. Children don't need formal learning until a much older age than we do here, and once you have the basic building blocks you can build on them with any number of practical activities!

Preschool/toddler music - simple easy musical fun with “Music with Mike@ - YouTube and Insta. Not sophisticated but easy to follow and friendly!

@Taddda i dont think you need a weekly planner for a 1&2 year old . Being at home with a primary caregiver developing healthy attachments is the priority.

@IfOnlyOurEyesSawSouls We have healthy attachments- it's more about keeping things fun for them at home and as entertained as possible while taking into account we cant go to the park, playground, playgroups, nursery for Dd1 (which she was loving for 3 afternoons a week) etc.

A weekly planner has also given us all a bit of an extra 'indoor' routine. I also work well with a bit of structure, we all do, instead of just waking up in the morning and doing the same thing over and over....

Thanks buzz and Isitandwatch. We're were doing a test and she announced 'oh column addition'. So I thought they had been covering it ay school. I didn't know the new term for it or anything.

Actually my problem is there are so many resources online that it’s working out which ones you need. / want. I’m using a bit of formal “ sit down” work and supplementing with cookery, gardening, first aid etc. My DD is year 3 and as a starter I’ve downloaded resources from Twinkl which is a homeschooling site. There are absolutely thousands of topics covered but they’ve also produced Lockdown packs for each Key Stage. They’re not at all boring. She has some work from school too but not much. I’ve said she needs to do English & Maths in some form every day ( Reading, spellings or comprehension). If she’s interested I might award “ Stuck in the House” points for those plus anything else she wants to do like Spanish. I’m going to come up with a list of treats that she can use her house points for ( this is what her school does so she’s used to the idea). Our first week was very hit and miss and not very organised but we did watch some programmes on dinosaurs and listened to a couple of podcasts and stories online. She learned to make vegetable soup and did some planting in the garden. I just need a bit of structure because I’m supposed to be working too and can’t spend all day prepping activities for her. But definitely a relaxed approach is called for I think given the scale of the adjustment.

Anyone else with a year 6 child and no idea what to do to motivate them?

The worksheets we've had from school are all based around the same Sats-focused teaching that they've had for the past two years. Only now there's no Sats. I talked to a friend who's a HS English teacher and she said there's basically no comparison between primary English and HS English. Maths is obviously slightly different as there'll be more continuity, but most of the other subjects will be more or less starting from scratch in September (assuming that's when school goes back).

My DS has had a hard time emotionally through Y6 and has reached the point where he says he hates school, thinks education is pointless and doesn't care if he fails. He's extremely able and will work when actually in school, but claims to hate every second of it and point blank refuses to engage with the work the school has sent home.

I think he may be suffering from depression, and in fact we were in the very early stages of the process towards a CAMHS referral but then all this happened so I expect that's gone by the board now. Anyway for this reason I'm wary of putting too much pressure on him, but even our gentle attempts at home learning so far have mostly ended in shouting and tears on both sides.

All he wants to do is the Joe Wicks workouts, cooking, learn the guitar a bit, and says he wants to learn Spanish but we haven't attempted that yet. He'll also read (under sufferance) and is fairly happily keeping up with the weekend Mandarin class which he does anyway (obviously it's online now) and which he knows is non-negotiable.

AIBU to think that the rest of it matters less than preserving his mental health? He says the only thing he likes about school is seeing his friends so obviously this is a tough time for him. Most of his school friends don't seem to have phones of their own or any way to contact one another during this time. He's made other friends through online gaming, and chatting to them seems to be the only time he's happy.

The transition to HS is SUCH a big change anyway that I feel like anything I do now re home learning is at best pissing in the wind, or possibly even counterproductive in some cases. My teacher friend said they do CATS tests on the Y7 intake, and my feeling is that after this summer, ALL teachers are going to have to work from a baseline assumption that the kids have learned nothing in the interim and many will have regressed a bit. DS was already higher level in several subject areas, so how bad a regression would there really be if he just took a longer break from the formal study which stresses him out, and just did stuff which he actually likes? I could MAYBE persuade him to do maths for a couple of hours a week as well, but with the rest of it, I feel the stress levels just aren't worth it for either of us. It's just me at home with him because DH lives elsewhere.

@turquoise50 I think you definitely have the right idea to prioritise his mental health and wellbeing right now. It sounds like he's doing loads already, and stuff like a daily exercise routine, cooking and learning an instrument all sound like priorities to me, especially since it sounds like he was doing well at school "academically" anyway.

I recommend Duolingo or similar for Spanish, and also just looking for TV shows he is familiar with already but watching them in Spanish. He might also like to try an online tutorial on how to play an easy Spanish song on guitar?

As for reading, as long as he CAN read well (and it sounds like he can), I would just try and find something he's interested it - could be a gaming magazine or website, a comic book, whatever it is, and encouraging him to do 30 minutes or so a day.

Do you know his friends parents? He's still so young so maybe facetime calls etc need to be co-ordinated by you, and using his friends' parents' phones?

If attempts at more "schoolish" home learning are ending in tears, I would just drop it altogether for now, and in time, ask him for suggestions of what he'd like to do.

AIBU..??
my 15 month old’s nursery is asking all parents to pay a 50% retainer fee to keep his space for when things are up and running.. this apparently is so that they can pay staff.. i mean i do feel for people who’s businesses have to shut down and i feel sorry for the staff.. i would love to pay this but DH doesn’t think i should and said the nursery should be claiming some money from the govt to pay staff.. i actually love the nursery and i don’t want to lose DS’s space.. i’m in 2 minds now as to whether or not i should pay this...

Great idea for a new area, thanks MN! There’s a website which brings together loads of home learning links resources, all sorted by subject so it’s really easy to find your way around and come back to:

www.schoolsout2020.com

@BGM85 you DH is right, you absolutely shouldn't be continuing to pay, a retainer? 50% of what? A weekly/monthly or continuing cost?

Nothing is guaranteed right now- the government are aware of that and that is the help they should be applying for, not contributions for the unknown from parents.

Thanks for this, really helpful thread.

Particularly glad to see that there are others with year 6 kids - DS2 was in bits after what looks like being his last day at primary school. We didn't try to make them do anything last week and let DS1 have long lie ins and they played games all day.

This week we are getting them to some school work, and although DS1's not entirely with it I think the problem is that we can't replace the bits of school he enjoys like playing football etc with his friends at breaks and often after school and trying out other physical activities. He's spent a lot of time playing MInecraft with one of his friends by playing on an old Android tablet while discussing it it all on Whats App. At least though there is quite a bit of work across various subjects he can work on at home.

DS2 though was being prepared for SATs. I'm quite glad he doesn't have to do the exams as I don't agree with the whole system. I think he was well prepared and at the level to do ok if he didn't get too stressed by the tests (that rather than his ability to do them would have been my concern). He was doing some problems in a Maths workbook - it's not really offering him any challenge or interest of learning. I want him to have a bit of routine and structure and do some learning each day.

I was made redundant when the boys were young and I was at the point when I had no take home pay after paying for childcare, and was hoping to get some work as a legal secretary next term or next school year until it became clear this month that this isn't going to happen. DP is working but from home and quite flexibly a lot of the time.

@elkiedee I feel like the Y6's are almost in a similar position to the Y11's - not as serious obviously, but in the sense that the past year and a half of school has been leading up to a major assessment which is now cancelled, and that syllabus is now finished, with the next stage being the start of a new one. That's why I'm not too worried about making sure DS does the work sent home by his primary school. Y7 is going to be so different and a lot of the concepts they're currently studying won't come up again for ages. HS teachers will fill in the gaps where required.

@turquoise50 I agree with you.

DS2 hasn't really been sent home with much, just the workbooks for preparing for Maths and English SATs. I' want to find something that has a learning content each day that's more interesting for him, because I think those workbooks are a bit of a waste of time. He might well learn more from the games (though I'm not sure about Youtube, especially the horrible shouty gamer videos - the videos about football are quite weird and probably totally unsuitable for his age but still probably preferable.

Maybe we could develop a little research project on some aspect of football.

Our school has been fabulous and put up loads of work and suggested timetables for each year group (it’s a primary school). It’s not too onerous but really helps.

I’ve been using twinkl and today tried my first lesson presentation. It was much better as the kids could then get on with the work while I worked (having volunteered in a class for a year I had an idea of how to approach things).

We haven’t bothered much with projects - just keeping basics ticking over. I’ll do projects more in the holidays.

DH & I have already agreed that we’ll split subjects- he’s a maths whiz & pretty good at science. I’m merely adequate at them but great at English, spelling etc.
We’ve logged into TTRockstars on DD’s tablet (she’s much more engaged with the online version) so hopefully that will help. She doesn’t need encouragement to read, bit of a bookworm TBH. We don’t have many books here but I’m going to download the Libby app if it works on her Kindle. Lots of books available online.
She has an instrument as well, loaned from the school, so I’ll see what YT tutorials there are.

I’ll be exploring the links properly in the morning.

Looking for advice.... I am home working and my 12 year old would like to spend next week at his grandparents and they want to have him also, they are under 70 and have not shown any symptoms of the virus, are they able to collect him and take him to theirs? I mean, if they are stopped by police will they get into trouble?