Advice + Tips

I’ve been getting an increasing number of messages from people who are at home with kids in lockdown. I feel it could be imminent for us here in the UK too. So in order to try and help I am going to write and do a few things to give parents stuck at home with kids an idea of how to not go totally insane. First on the list, stockpile the gin/wine/chocolate….!! 😉

I thought perhaps a helpful thing might be to show you how I would structure the days and weeks if we were to suddenly be isolated to our house. It’s a little bit of a mix of what I did in classrooms and what I do to survive as a stay at home parent.

Firstly choose a theme for the week. It can be anything. Here are ten ideas on themes: Pirates, dinosaurs, space, nature, kings and queens, the seaside, superheroes, the seasons, animals in your country, our family. Try to see if any activity or game you do can somehow tie in with the theme. I would then dig through all my books and toys to find anything I had even remotely to do with that theme and get them out.

Ok so how do the days look? Here is how I would ROUGHLY structure a day at home with the kids so it had some education, some fun, and some chill time (for them and me). This would only be the case for Monday to Friday - weekends are slower and a bit of a free for all on screen time and lazing in pjs until midday. This is not a rigid plan but it’s a guide to help me give some meaning and purpose to the day. Also if you have your schedule somewhere the kids can see it and you refer to it together they are more likely to get on board:

Some tips to support this:

• Five minutes before each activity ends I would say: it’s tidy up time and get them each to put away one or two things.
• I don’t expect the activity to fill the ENTIRE time slot every time. If they want to go off and play they can.
• The night before plan ahead a bit if you can. Decide what you’re going to do for each little slot. Which phonics game to play or which board games you will let them choose from etc. The more prep you do the easier your day will be. There are all my ideas on the menu bars of this website.
• If you are splitting the childcare and working with your partner then do half a day each. Play to your strengths - if one of you is better at educational stuff do that, if one of you loves to be creative and get messy do that.
• Send them outside twice a day if you can regardless of the weather. Even if just for a few minutes!
• If they are really into something then ignore the schedule (don’t stop play and fun just to keep to a schedule if everyone is happy) and just pick it up again when they’ve finally had enough of whatever they were focused on. Save whatever activity you had planned for the next day.
• Use online resources. There are LOADS. Twinkl are giving people a month free and this is what teachers use. Try also education.com who have free worksheets. If you don’t have a printer copy them out onto paper yourself or recreate the ideas in chalk on a floor or on a white or blackboard etc. you might have.
• It is OK to say to the children - “I am having a rest right now, please go and play.” I think working parents especially find this really hard to say to children because when they get time with them it’s precious and they want it to be totally devoted to their children, understandably. As a stay at home parent I don’t feel this way, and perhaps you might feel the same if this has been suddenly thrust upon you. The kids get SO MUCH of me all the time, it is absolutely fine to tell them that you’re resting for a bit and ignore them for 15 minutes so you can just sit. So if you’re feeling like it is all a bit much, allow yourself to explain that you need a little bit of time alone and go somewhere you can see but can’t hear them and just have some peace for a bit. I often go upstairs when they are in the garden and watch out the bedroom window. Obviously if you have a baby this isn’t possible, unless you can time it with a nap!
• If you have talking speaker thing - set reminders for the timings of your day so it seems like the speaker is giving instructions not you - “oh did you hear that kids? What did Alexa say is next?”
• It doesn’t matter what your schedule looks like but having one can really help break up the day into manageable chunks.

So an example of the actual activities I might do in a day are below. The theme is dinosaurs. I have dug out a few dinosaur toys, and books we have and downloaded The Good Dinosaur from the TV. I’ve also found some dinosaur songs and videos on Kid’s You Tube and book marked them and printed off a few dinosaur colouring in sheets and dinosaur words.

This is just one example of what I might do. This would be fine for kids aged 2-7 I reckon, although you can easily do this schedule with any primary school ages kids and just make the activities a bit more challenging for older ones.

I have absolutely NO IDEA if this will be helpful to you. I have just jotted it down today off the top of my head as this is what I would do if placed under lockdown. It wouldn’t be easy, definitely not. I expect there would be days where I shout “oh F**K the stupid schedule” or just plain ‘aaarrrggghh’. But there’s no need to panic for ideas of how to keep the kids entertained. I can show you LOADS of things on my social media pages on a daily basis and if we are all at home I will do a daily live chat/activity too. And really, how rare an opportunity is this? A chance to teach our kids, experience them, all be together as a family. For those who feel guilty for not being at home much here’s your chance to really bank up some points that will keep you going for years to come. 😉

I hope everyone is OK. I know it’s strange and scary but I’m here to help. My emails and DMs are open. I won’t be able to personally reply to them all, but I will read them and if I can see a certain request from lots of people I will do my best to help in any way I can.

I am going to write another blog post ASAP on ‘Skype / FaceTime playdates and games we can do across the airwaves’ which will also include LOADS of my favourite play account so we can still connect and play even when in isolation at home. Sending love to you all wherever you are. Let’s just five minute play our way through it shall we?