Who else cannot believe it has been over 6 weeks since this all started already, I honestly thought if I had 6 weeks to spend at home, my house would be completely organised and hinched in every corner, however I can safely report that very much the opposite is true. There are pockets of big hinching, but to be honest with you the house is probably in a worst state than when we started.
Tidying up, is one of the biggest frustrations for me, its great when the kids play independently but the mess it makes drives me crazy. But the reality is with both of us working from and trying to teach them, its just not feasible to have everything as perfect as I would like. The important thing is that the kids get to make some fun memories through all of this, and hopefully not forget all their learning building blocks up until now.
We took our Easter holiday break and did not do any formal learning, the kids did a few workbooks or number practices when they asked us to do them but on the whole, we ate a lot of chocolates, baked, watched movies and tried to forget which day of the week it was with all the confusing bank holidays.
So two weeks ago we continued this journey into home learning, I guess with the gift of time there has been 3 big changes:
1. My husbands workload has increased so he is not as active in the teaching anymore.
2. My enthusiasm has decreased as I find myself having even less time to come up with new ideas.
3. The kids are not so keen either, the novolty of learning at home has worn off and they just want to be outside... which as kids is where they should be on beautiful spring days.
But the show must go on, and with no changes coming yet to this new normal, we have been up to a few new activities I would love to share with you all. One of my biggest challenges is coming up with ideas for both of them, ideally the same thing so they do not argue over it but adjusted for both of their levels.
This is my favorite part of the day, just leaving them to their own devices and witnessing the magic they come up with, from role play to creating animal scenes. The biggest change over the last few weeks has been seeing them playing games together for example hide and seek, treasure seeking, I spy and cops and robbers. They have played well together growing up but I have never seen them coming up with these ideas by themselves. Like they say a little boredom is always a good thing.
Independence is something we try to encourage as much as we can. I normally draw it in because of the extra mess it creates, which is something we could all do without at the moment. But simple things such as squeezing a bottle, whisking an egg, pouring, tidying away at the end of the day are teaching them so much without us having to go out of our way to do it. This section has the most photos as this is what we have done for the majority of time. Formal learning being concentrated into short bursts throughout the day.
We have focused on two main concepts of halfing and odd and even numbers. Most of the resources for this come from our school work, but I do try to make it more interesting by combining with other things we are looking at and also using lots of colour objects to reinforce ideas.
Majority of our phonics work also is driven by school, they both really enjoy watching alpha blocks and geradine the giraffe to help with phonics. In addition the website phonics play. My eldest loves being a spy so I wrote a morse code to encourage him to practise some more phonic words and spelling them out.
Literacy
This sticker pad from Melissa & Doug has been amazing, it is reusabale with five different scenes and keeps them entertained for ages ( 10 minutes). A great way for them to build a story on their own and retell it you.
We have been doing both adult led and independent reading - for more information see my post here..
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| fine motor skills and colour sorting |
We took our Easter holiday break and did not do any formal learning, the kids did a few workbooks or number practices when they asked us to do them but on the whole, we ate a lot of chocolates, baked, watched movies and tried to forget which day of the week it was with all the confusing bank holidays.
So two weeks ago we continued this journey into home learning, I guess with the gift of time there has been 3 big changes:
1. My husbands workload has increased so he is not as active in the teaching anymore.
2. My enthusiasm has decreased as I find myself having even less time to come up with new ideas.
3. The kids are not so keen either, the novolty of learning at home has worn off and they just want to be outside... which as kids is where they should be on beautiful spring days.
But the show must go on, and with no changes coming yet to this new normal, we have been up to a few new activities I would love to share with you all. One of my biggest challenges is coming up with ideas for both of them, ideally the same thing so they do not argue over it but adjusted for both of their levels.
Activities
Free Play
This is my favorite part of the day, just leaving them to their own devices and witnessing the magic they come up with, from role play to creating animal scenes. The biggest change over the last few weeks has been seeing them playing games together for example hide and seek, treasure seeking, I spy and cops and robbers. They have played well together growing up but I have never seen them coming up with these ideas by themselves. Like they say a little boredom is always a good thing.
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| Make believe with paw patrol |
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| Lego Construction Site |
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| The final lego masterpiece |
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| Play Doh - so create for imagination and improving hand muscles |
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| Polar Bears vs Jungle |
Life Skills
Independence is something we try to encourage as much as we can. I normally draw it in because of the extra mess it creates, which is something we could all do without at the moment. But simple things such as squeezing a bottle, whisking an egg, pouring, tidying away at the end of the day are teaching them so much without us having to go out of our way to do it. This section has the most photos as this is what we have done for the majority of time. Formal learning being concentrated into short bursts throughout the day.
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| Virtual Fruit Kebab making class |
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| Snack time with build your kebabs |
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| Cake Decorating |
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| Sprinkle pouring - essential life skills |
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| Dressing and accessorizing ourselves |
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| Cake Making |
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| Mixing slime - quantities and physical reaction changes |
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| lots of muscle strength needed |
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| Fine motor skills - combined with counting for my older one |
Numeracy
We have focused on two main concepts of halfing and odd and even numbers. Most of the resources for this come from our school work, but I do try to make it more interesting by combining with other things we are looking at and also using lots of colour objects to reinforce ideas.
 |
| Learning Odd and Even Numbers using the hungry caterpiller |
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| Learning how to halve items using food mag pics |
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| Shapes and learning to halve |
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| phonics, shape and life skills all in one |
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| Colour sorting, fine motor skills and building skills |
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| fine motor skills and colour sorting |
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| Creativity |
Phonics
Majority of our phonics work also is driven by school, they both really enjoy watching alpha blocks and geradine the giraffe to help with phonics. In addition the website phonics play. My eldest loves being a spy so I wrote a morse code to encourage him to practise some more phonic words and spelling them out.
 |
| Using Morse Code to make phonics fun |
Literacy
This sticker pad from Melissa & Doug has been amazing, it is reusabale with five different scenes and keeps them entertained for ages ( 10 minutes). A great way for them to build a story on their own and retell it you.
 |
| Stickers and creating story boards |
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| Focusing on fav books and characters |
Reading
We have been doing both adult led and independent reading - for more information see my post here..
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| Independent reading |
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