Home education resources for parents considering home ed because of Coronavirus

[RhubarbTea]

Right then, take two of this thread...

I'm a home educator and someone said they'd appreciate a thread on home ed resources for those parents who are considering taking their kids out of school for a while because of the coronavirus outbreak.

My child has always been home ed so I'm not the most knowledgable about the current legalities across the UK of removing a child from school, perhaps some other H.Eers could post below any info which might be useful for parents considering this.

Please also post educational resources, free or paid, which you have tried and tested and found to be useful. I'll start with a few of my faves:

Conquer Maths. Paid. Utterly amazing and goes from Reception level all the way up to age 16/18 I think. It's really useful even if you have a kid in school or after your child goes back to school. Also features times table shoot em up game which is like space invaders but with times tables!

Khan Academy. Free, good alternative to Conquer Maths and covers many other subjects as well as just maths. The English Grammar videos are quite funny.

Crash Course videos on Youtube. Free. Aimed at older children and teenagers, parents of younger or middle sized kids may wish to check individual vids through first to make sure they are age appropriate. A treasure trove of learning. DS likes the History of Gaming playlist.

IXL - paid. We use this a lot, it follows the UK national curriculum and covers Maths and English up to year 13.

BBC Bitesize. Free. An excellent site which covers a multitude of subjects although not in any great depth. Intended as a supplement to other learning for kids in school, but very useful.

We also use The Works as a great resource for cheap workbooks for Maths, English and Science. They are good for craft paper and art stuff too at a pinch.

morning all.
just wondered how you were planning your day out with the kids. I need help putting together a timetable for.the day have you got any examples
e.g 9-10am timetables
11-12 writing
????
I'm getting stressed as i want them to be learning and dont want them viewing it as a chance to lounge around all day!

Thank you @RhubarbTea for starting this thread. It’s going to be immensely useful for all the parents out there. I have not deregistered my dd either because she loves school but I had to keep her home for the past two weeks partly because she wasn’t well and I am at high risk (there was a local confirmed case walking everywhere) for learning resources I have a stash of books from the book people which I’ve bought months ago (the Collins full series one and some activity books etc - she is into books so hopefully I can keep herself busy) kooky illustrations had a lovely bug chart out to print if anyone else is looking for outdoor busy time while gardening that’s here m.facebook.com/kookyillustrationsUK/photos/pcb.686896248714126/686894405380977/?type=3&source=49 I will try to share some fun and interesting bits which I stumble upon as I am sure all the school based learning will be covered by other home educating mums here.

@Charleybabes1 I’m planning to a learning table today but I am not sticking to time as such.. I am preparing something that might interest dd and the table will have all the skills she needs to perfect including practicing cutting with her left handed scissors. But this might not work for older children I think as they might need proper schedules for their lessons

Charleybabes I think it has to depend on the child. DS is 10, and I've been advised by his TA to keep to the school timetable and to reward him with something he detests for doing something he hates. So I'm ignoring that!
We've had one week homeschooling, with work sent home from school. Much more for DS than DD which also poses problems. We start around 630-7 with maths and I aim for 20 mins on, 10 mins break. We go out at 830-930, they go running and then we play tennis, basketball or whatever. Then 10-1130. Then they can play/read until lunch. After lunch they have to be quiet too as Dh is home, so I'm getting them to learn how to type, music practice. DD can occupy herself drawing, whatever and I can sit with Ds and go through the stuff he finds hard. At 2, we go outside and they measure plants, water them and read. Then something they're interested in.

Depending on the age of your child, I'm assuming young if times tables, 1 hour seems a long time and will be hard to sustain.

For older kids y8-y12 ( and even us parents) , do consider MOOCs .

They are university courses offered for FREE by the likes of Harvard, Stanford, ... on two main platforms Coursera www.coursera.org and EdX www.edx.org .
Uk also created one which I consider pretty crappy, well at least it was compared to the quality level of the US ones when I tested them years ago, might have improved since, www.futurelearn.com . I found them extremely superficial.

For those speaking French, FUN is the French equivalent www.fun-mooc.fr

Yale offers a panel of course online, with live lessons filmed during a term oyc.yale.edu/courses

There are many more platforms of course, but aim for the big names for the best content.

Even younger kids with a passion in a specific topic could enrol. When I was doing the computer science one from Harvard, we were 150.000 enrolled with the youngest being 10 years old and the oldest 83. And one of the professor teaching was a 16 years old genius who graduated uni at 13.

Worth checking . Plenty of coding courses.

And slightly off topic unless your child is doing drama at school, these are life reading performances since theatre are closed.
They are doing all the Shakespeare plays in the order they were written done by professional actors who were casted for the role but shows were cancelled. This initiative is called the show must go on.

Not sure if this has been shared or discussed but I found cartooning club how to draw YouTube channel very useful for kids who love to draw.

We’ve always homeschooled and pay for twinkl, they do worksheets for all key stage in all subjects.

They are currently offering a free month as children are out if school, it’s worth getting and printing as much as you can in the month.

@RhubarbTea Thanks for the list!! I think a good addition would be Seneca Learning - weekly activity report is super useful and the kids seem to engage well with it :)

Thanks for the great suggestions! Day 1 - hard work but not too bad! Not quite sure how I am going to sustain working from home as well though.

You tube channel Ruth Miskin Training is doing Read Write Inc phonics videos each day for the next fortnight, one at each level. They only available for 24h each though at the moment at least.