I would like to start with a disclaimer from the poetic Baz Luhrmann

Ladies and Gentlemen of Corvid-19
Wear Sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future,
Sunscreen would be it
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meanderings …
I will dispense this advice now…

Organise and schedule

By this I mean get a piece of paper and break the day into manageable chunks. For the average primary school kids this means blocks of 20-30 minutes maximum.

Stick to the schedule it’ll be good for you and good for them.

Included Exercise and Outdoor Time

• Set up a course in a field or the garden or somewhere local in park. Get them to run about 1-2 km. A 2km parkrun takes my 5 year old about 12 minutes to do so we are not taking epic here. If you run with them then you’ll be getting fitter too.
• If it’s raining, go online and find resources like GoNoodle.
• Use the wii or other games console to get them doing dance mat like exercise.
• Yoga online with YouTube or get a Yoga book out of the library and set aside 15 minutes a day to all do yoga

Activities

Ths Scouting Organsiation have also just send out an email with a link to The Great Indoors. See link below.

We’ve pulled together over 100 existing activities from our programme planner that are perfect for parents and carers to do with their children if they’re stuck at home over the next few weeks.

Socialisation

• Why not connect with a friend via skype or facetime each day.
• Set up lesson time on zoom so kids can interact with each other.
• My daughters best friend lives in Northumberland, they can spend an hour on facetime and roblox playing a video game and chatting. Why not get them to do some learning together with local friends but also kids further afield. Think of games they could play together over a video link, battleships springs to mind.
• Get grandparents involved. Older people are going to feel increasingly isolated over the coming months as we try to avoid contact with the vulnerable. Ask Grandparents to give a 20 minute lesson on facetime. They could make up a quiz for the kids and do that or do spellings with them. This way grandparents are getting social contact and you are getting a 20 minute break to catch up with emails or have a well earned cup of tea.

Teach Life Skills

• Cooking, you can also included lessons on measuring and healthy eating.
• Cleaning, hoovering, cleaning the bathroom, washing up.
• Chores – get them to feed the pets, fold the washing and wipe down cupboards
• Gardening – plant seeds (you might need the produce by June!!)

And of course the actual academic schooling.

• Use the resources the school sends out.
• Have a look at Twinkl there are loads of resources and they are offering free access during the Corvid-19 outbreak.
• Get them doing Times Tables and Spelling on Apps so you can get the time you need to do your work.
• Try and incorporate schooling into outdoor time, map reading, naming things in French on a walk.

I think I will also close with some words of wisdom taken from Baz Luhrman too. I have been selective from his Sunscreen lyrics.