We really hope you’ve managed to have some sort of weekend, with some relaxation, rest and recuperation so you and your child are ready and rejuvenated for Week 2 of home learning.
Remember some tips from last week:
- try to develop a timetable for the tasks and stick to it – children benefit from the routine and it becomes easier
- build in practical tasks like cooking or planning an online shop so your child can use and apply the skills they have
- use different devices to access the tasks if you’ve more than one child, or let them have a go at the same task, but provide extra support for the younger, or additional challenge for the older
- if a task looks too complicated for your child, be flexible – they could access the task set by a teacher in one of the other Sphere schools, or they could access some learning from our menu of home learning resources.
- let your child’s teacher know how they’re doing – it’ll help them to stay engaged if they get some feedback (and our teachers are loving seeing all the great learning that’s coming in – check out their Class News pages!)
- importantly – be kind to yourself and your child: this is a difficult time for us all, so if they’ve done just two of the tasks, plus some reading (20 minutes would be great), some exercise and some other learning from our menu, then that’s a really productive day!
A top site to check out…
To kick off a new week. we want to really recommend BBC Teach. It’s home to thousands of free curriculum-mapped videos, arranged by age-group and subject. In the menu bar at the top, select primary (or secondary for older children) and you’ll find a whole array of options for each school subject, split into Key Stage 1 (Years 1, 2) and Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6).
A few other sites to maybe check out…
Teach your Monster to Read has lots of games to help your child learn to read. It covers everything from letters and sounds to reading full sentences. The computer version is 100% free.
Scholastic Kids’ Club is a great site for your child to browse – they can read about books, do games, activities and sometimes competitions, and the Book Wizard guides them to some reading recommendations, tailor-made for them.
Look out for Phonics Play’s comics which are decodable (this means ‘readable’ for the stage of phonics your child is on). If you’re not sure what stage of phonics your child is on, you could always start at the beginning for a useful re-cap, or email your child’s class teacher.
And you might want to encourage your child to access this if they’re feeling stressed…
Kooth is an online counselling and emotional well-being platform for children and young people, accessible through mobile, tablet and desktop and free at the point of use.https://www.nhs.uk/change4life
All of these have been added to our menu of home learning resources.