Home School Lesson Ideas

Our Home School Ideas

March 2020

Thanks to the Coronavirus Pandemic, we are all stuck in this awful situation and to top it off, the kids are now stuck with us attempting to set up home schools and trying to teach them!

What the hell am I going to do with my bundle of hyperactive energy?! This boy needs stimulation, he needs to be free to run around like a loon, he is also bloody clever, so he needs to keep his brain active! I am scared he will fall behind in his learning, I am scared we are not going to be enough … but that may actually be more my issue than his!

Now I suffer from anxiety, but always try to concentrate on the positive, but more than anything, I am worried about failing my child, I am worried that when he goes back to school he will be behind, saying this I have worked in plenty of educational settings before, I have worked in classrooms and with primary aged children, so I understand the basis of how kids learn through a mix of structured play and finding their interests and developing them further, I know the importance of keeping their reading, writing and Maths skills active, and I know that if the kids struggle with any part of what you are doing, then you need to find a fun way for them learning it … so I am fairly confident, together with schools guidance, online research and a little imagination from us we can bring together a timetable of lessons and fun activities to keep my lad interested enough that we can help him keep up with his education.

Don’t get me wrong, I know it is not going to be easy, his patience, our patience is not the same as a Teacher-child relationship, but our family will do whatever we can to keep him occupied and my lad is lucky enough that we have all agreed to pull together and take turns to help him to keep learning!

Our Home School Time table …

It’s obviously not ideal for everyone, but I thought I would share with you how we are handling our home schooling, what our timetable looks like and ideas we have thought of so far, in the hope that it can help you with any ideas of what you can do too! … I’m pretty sure it will keep us busy too during this rubbish time ahead!

Firstly, using my previous school work knowledge, I put together a timetable of the subjects we will cover and how long should be spent on each activity. We will decide the day before which subjects we will cover and tailor it as we go along to suit what materials we have, what our boy is interested in and what is actually achievable!

My lad is currently in Year 2, so he is in Key Stage 1. Lessons should only be in short blasts of 20-30 minutes, if our boy is loving the work he is doing, then I try to go back to it another time, so I know it will be positive when we approach it again!

We have three adults living in our home, so we are lucky enough to share the responsibility. We have all chosen subjects we enjoy for any topic work and it also gives us a break to do the other things we need to do, it gives our boy a break from us and hopefully, it will stop us from going mad ourselves!

I have tried to split the sessions into 30 minutes and adding energetic breaks at the right times to spread out any subject that may be challenging for us all. We are also trying to think of fun activities to finish our days that tie in with any topic subject. i.e Topic = ‘How to tell the time’ & ‘How a clock works’ – Fun Activity = ‘Make a clock’ (Engineering lesson) or Topic = ‘All about Volcanoes’ – Fun Activity = Coca Cola + Mentos Experiment (Science lesson)

Our P.E lessons are a mix of things like Joe Wickes pe lessons (Youtube), Bike riding, Assault courses in Garden, Cosmic Kids Yoga (Youtube) and making energetic TikTok videos. If there are any spelling mistakes in topic work he writes up, I am starting English sessions with a few words for him to write correctly. This also helps with handwriting. We then are using printed off activity sheets or English skills workbooks. For Maths we use mostly Mathletics & TT Rock Stars (Online) or activity sheets.

There are so many resources available online, or you could contact your school to send you some!

Home School Lesson & Topic Ideas …

Below is a list of all the subject ideas we have come up with together. We included our boy in the decisions too, so he was fully on board in the first place!

We are not strict with session times, we are being pretty flexible and using the timetable as more of a guidance. Although for English and Maths, we have decided we would like to do at least 30 minutes, as this is the most important subject … luckily enough our lad agrees!

I hope this helps anyone needing some ideas or guidance somehow. This situation is obviously not ideal, we are not Teachers, we are not expected to know all of this, so we can only do our best. It will be tough for many, our family included, but I do have some knowledge on how education works and the basis is the same for all ages, so if anyone has any questions, if I can help in any way, please do not hesitate to email me, or comment below x

I will also be adding some posts on Instagram & Facebook, so you can always keep an eye out for more ideas we come across as we go along. We are all in the same boat, but the most important thing is we keep the kids as educated as we can and in the long run, it will help us all keep busy … and hopefully sane too!

Good luck everyone!! x