101 Ideas for Homeschooling this Week

Anna Dusseau - 30 Mar 20

1.Play pirates! Turn the sofa or duvet into a pirate ship, dress up, pack for your voyage, use the globe to locate where you’re going in the world and finish with a treasure map or the secret diary of a stowaway!

2. Cloud spotting. Lie on your backs in the garden, on the balcony or an open space and look at the sky. What shapes do you see in the clouds? Get the paintbox out and turn this into artwork, or check out a geography book or documentary to learn more about cloud formation.

3. Story cubes. Either use the story cube dice, or else take turns giving each other a task to tell a short story with 3 ingredients and a location. For example: tell me a story involving a hippo, a chocolate bar and a pack of cards which takes place at the beach.

4. Background music. Whatever your children’s ages and academic level, sometimes a bit of calm music helps concentration and the flow of ideas. Try something relaxed and non-invasive like Classic FM, Scala Radio or BBC Radio 2.

5. Pasta maths. Get out the pasta or even use grains of rice, dried beans or buttons, to have a maths game with your little ones. Take turns asking maths questions and use the props to demonstrate how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.

6. Your turn to cook! Hand over responsibility for the family meal to your children and be sure to get them started with a recipe book, so that they can enjoy the process of looking through the options, reading the recipe, searching for the ingredients and putting it all together.

7. Study den. Let them build a den or nest behind the sofa or under the kitchen table using duvets, throws, cushions and scarves. Once the den is ready, you might find this is a great space for them to snuggle up with books or even a bit of writing.

8. Put on a play. As big or as small a task as you want it to be. This could use puppets, or you could make sock puppets and can tell a story that is known to your children, or be invented. Older ones might want to write a script, or create tickets and a poster to advertise the play.

9. Collage. Grab all the old magazines and newspapers and put together a collage, cutting out pictures and headings (or key words) that catch your attention. Explain the idea of a topic to your children. Do they want to group their ideas around a topic?

10. Still life art. A fruit bowl, flowers, or even teddies set up around a pretend picnic would serve as a good stimulus for still life art. Try different materials, such as paints and then another picture using crayons or felt tips.

11. Spring clean. Why not get them stuck into a big organisational task? Tip out all the toy boxes in the living room and let them spend as long as they like looking through everything and sorting the items into the correct places, as well as a box for the charity shop and, probably, a rubbish bag.

12. Language immersion. If you want your children to speak another language, now is a golden opportunity to kick start the process. Why not begin every morning with a short TV episode such as Peppa Pig or Dogtanian, available on YouTube in the language of your choice?

13. Dance performance. Choose one of your favourite songs and let them listen to it on repeat. Give them say 20 minutes to prepare a dance recital. They can make it extra special with costumes and props if they want to.

14. Pen and podcast. We do a lot of drawing or writing while listening to a podcast. From scientific shows such as Wow in the World, to ethical debates like Short and Curly, or even podcasts in another language such as Les Odysees which we listen to in French; the choices are endless!

..are you loving it? For the full list go straight to www.homeschoolguru.org and select ‘activities’ to check out the full post.

Anna Dusseau

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