lockdown learning chat (primary school children)

[HelloMist]

I wondered if we could have a daily chat where we can just drop in to update how we're doing learning from home, good or bad, or tips etc and find some company.

My DD is KS1 age though we can broaden it if you want to join.

puts the kettle on, cuts some

@Emmacb82 I normally hate the whole be kind saying, why is that even a thing?! However in this case you definitely do need to be kind, to yourself. It's OK to feel like it's all too much. January is a crappy grey nothing of a month anyway, even with snow and floods, for variety! It sucks that my 3yo reminded me today to keep my distance from someone else on the pavement. It sucks that I can't go visit my 2 day old twin nephews when my sister is crying on the phone that she can't do this. And home schooling definitely sucks. All we can do is eat more biscuits. Drink more coffee. And just carry on putting one foot in front of the other.

@Emmacb82 you aren't derailing the thread. We are here to support one another! I agree with what Nan and Indecisive wrote.

I'm sorry you had a rough day and were feeling that way. I hope you feel a bit brighter tomorrow.

Thank you so much for all the kind messages, you’ve all really helped. Holding out for a better day today!

We all have good days and bad days and even at school sometimes the teachers get to the staffroom at break or at the end of the day and are just completely frazzled by the volume of work and the behaviour of the students; even if they haven't been particularly naughty or anything it's emotionally draining. It's even more so when they're your own children because of course you love them so much more and are already emotionally invested in them.

Feeling overwhelmed with the amount of zoom calls and trying to finish school tasks in time! The minute I try to leave them to work and go to another room (to secretly have a chocolate) one of them calls me or follows me!!! Leave. Me. Alone. For a couple of minutes. Please!!!!!

Anyone with DC in reception - would you describe your online learning as fun? Ours is clear and teachers are lovely and enthusiastic but wouldn't say the tasks are particularly imaginative or fun, and are too screen based IMO.

Would love to hear what others are doing.

@nanbread yes I would say DS's school are trying their best to make it fun.

We don't have any live lessons which I feel is best for reception age personally but they have done informal (non compulsory) Zoom get togethers so the children can see their friends.

We have a daily pre recorded phonics session but it normally involves some sort of game. We also have lots of recorded stories, games and activities for the children to watch and join in with.

We then get an activity grid with around 16 different ideas of things to do, normally with a theme each week. They encourage you to pick at least one a day. Wide range of ideas including yoga, making things, scavenger hunt, drawing etc.

I think they've done a really good job.... it's just me failing miserably!

I don't work on a Friday and ds age 3 is at home, so I pulled out my A game. Instead of boring worksheets for dd age 6 we did phonics games involving feeding alternative graphemes to monsters drawn on envelopes, duplo maths, wrote to Nana for literacy. We played indoor camping, I got out a tent! We went for a walk. We had icecream. We watched junior bake off. Tick tick tickedy tick. Then Dd was looking teary, I asked what was wrong, and she said she just feels she hasn't spent enough time with me today and it wasnt enough of a mummy day. I know home is all ages got at the mo. But I honestly think she wants more than I can give, sometimes. She is quite high needs. I'm quite standoffish by nature but I really do try.

We get a daily plan from the teachers for reception. It has a funky fingers activity which can be anything from drawing patterns, making a snail shell, play doh etc. We then have a video for phonics and some sort of game attached to that which are usually quite fun. They normally send a sentence for this children to try and read and are starting to encourage them to write their own sentence and sounding out the letters.
We have a maths section, which is normally an episode of numberblocks or one of the teachers sends a video with activities to do. Again they are normally quite fun and engaging.
They send a pe activity every day (we are really rubbish at doing that)
And then a talk for writing activity. So this week the children have been authors and illustrators and have written and designed their own book on this terms themed book. Every day one of the staff reads them a story too which is nice.
They have a weekly catch up session online which is lovely.
All in all the school have done a fab job with the online learning. The activities are mostly simple enough and are quite fun for the kids. It is quite a lot every day so we rarely get it all done but they have put a lot of effort in.

@nanbread my Reception age DC's school are trying their best to make it fun for the DC at home - they do give us a variety of tasks each week, but some DC just enjoy the reading/ writing more than the imaginative stuff! Many of the girls are loving the art side - designing, drawing, colouring - I only have boys and it's like pulling teeth however they do like the science experiments they're set and will do those for ages.

We do have a weekly Zoom call for all the DC at home, I'd prefer more frequently but do understand that it means the DC at school don't get as much attention... school can't win really.

@Indecisivelurcher I am in awe of your home schooling efforts!!

Thanks - would you mind sharing examples of the phonics games they suggest please? They've suggested a few here but none have appealed so far.

@nanbread for phonics games ideas check out phonics family on Facebook or Instagram, and for online games try the website phonics play which is free at the mo using the code on the front page

@nanbread my DC are also really enjoying Fast Phonics (via Reading Eggs) - they have a 30 day free trial at the moment. We haven't tried Reading Eggs yet but they like Mathseeds too which is part of the same package and more engaging than the maths website their school uses!

Letter bingo so drawing a grid with 6 numbers on it and then going through the flash cards until they get a full house. Can play against someone or on their own and maybe a little prize if they win.
We wrote lots of words down, laid them all out and he had to read as many as he could in a minute.
They play word soup where you write a lot of words beginning with a particular letter, mix in some other words and they have to find the words beginning with that letter and add them to their bowl of soup.
That’s a few, I’ll have a think about any more.

Thanks for the ideas, will try some of these this coming week!

Was feeling really hopeful this morning. Had prepared some fun ideas, made some playdough and got some other materials ready, and by 9 it's all gone to shit. Both boys have had huge fights and screaming fits and stormed off. Haven't even started or mentioned school work!

@nanbread the phonicsplay website have some good games and activities. They're often used in the classroom as well.

My dc are just getting on with the work set so far this morning. I'm feeling really unsociable and dh and the dc keep talking at me. It's doing my head in.

Thanks yes my reception age son likes that. I'm struggling to get my y3 son motivated. A lot of his work is so dry, I don't blame him. He also is extremely easily distracted.

So is my y5 child. He has adhd and is bouncing off the walls on some days. We have had to build in numerous rest times for him throughout the day so that when he does do the work it's legible and the content is of a decent quality.

Had a very reluctant child this morning, but I know Monday morning is the best she'll be all week... So to break it up, I set a timer on Alexa for 5 mins, every time it was up we ran a race to the front door then the back door. Then reset the timer, got on with the work for another 5 mins, timer up, race! We got through a doodle maths backlog of 39 stars and 2 days worth of literacy this way, and Dd announced it was even fun! It's all down hill from here folks...

I was nervous last night about another week of this. DD has started to be reluctant and argue back/mess about instead of try doing things. She gets bored and is in a room with her toys and the TV (not sure our other rooms can be adapted to work in easily) so I suppose it's hard to focus.

Hasn't gone too badly apart from a few technical issues, but it's hard going and only one day down.

Well done everyone else for getting through your day (so far). Thanks for the ideas too.

@nanbread by 9am I had sent DS1 up to his room for being a complete PITA so I feel your pain... he is borderline ASD but just not doing well out of his school and activities routine. He really needs constant engagement/ attention and without that gets very whiny very quickly. I second what @TwoZeroTwoZero about them bouncing off the walls as well - during the first lockdown I was taking them out on two long walks a day but the weather's so cold we're only managing one at the moment, which isn't helping.

School are promoting Children's Mental Health Week this week and have given us some things to try, fingers crossed they will help!

Hi all waves - hoping no one minds if I join in .

I have a year 6 ds and year 3 dd...my focus this time has been to get ds working virtually independently once I’ve explained what he’s doing and “set him off” freeing me up to help dd, or in very rare moments - actually get some of my own work done! It’s going ok so far.

Today the school are doing “no screens day” where there’s no formal work set, and they’ve given a sheet of activities where you have to choose at least 1 of each section (fitness, making, reading, serving & 1 other I can’t remember). I’ve saved up the hoovering for them especially

Iabvu but I want to complain that the teachers keep marking Dd's work She completed a worksheet, I take a photo and upload it. That used to be the end of it. But recently the teacher has started to post comments on it, for example highlighting a math error and asking Dd can go back and correct it. I know iabu because they probably think it's a neat way to interact. But it's giving me the swears Getting that worksheet done might have been like getting blood from a stone, absolute cat in hells chance I'm going back to it!

some more links for learning games:

www.busythings.co.uk/play/ they have a few trial and are doing 1 month for £1 at the moment. Lots of subjects and can set ks level/year group.

Top Marks for maths games