Homeschooling 101

So today starts another bout of homeschooling. We completely get it if you aren’t going to homeschool but if you are, some tips we found useful last time around. But in essence do whatever is best for you your mental health.

~ Kids like routine so we have put a timetable into play so that we parents can still work while the kids are homeschooling. Our kids are in primary so this works for us.

~ Online resources – our primary school doesn’t have many online resources so instead we use the free U.K. resource www.thenational.academy. It’s just brilliant and covers pre-school to secondary. It covers most subjects and you can either follow their curriculum (which for primary and preschool would be fine) or find subjects and topics that tie in to the Irish school system (for secondary).

They essentially organise your whole day for you and they have online discussions with everyone from astronauts to writers.

~ You can’t mention lockdown without mentioning #joewicks so we are back to doing his lockdown workouts when we can.

~ For Art we are using free YouTube tutorials from @donconroyartist which my kids just love.

~ @starcampireland have a free online course this week and it’s great. Some sections are suited to younger children but older children can just fast forward to the drama, comedy, art and music they want to see.

~ I also set up zoom calls with their friends – this contact is SOO important for my guys

Usually we don’t allow gaming/computers Mon to Fri but with lockdown/homeschooling that goes out the window. So our week looks a little like this.

– Morning tv then joe wicks

-10 to 1 – we do the Maths, English, Irish from the schoolbooks the boys brought home but we mix that up with the video lectures from the national academy so it’s not a boring morning. Then lunch

– 1 to 2 – if it’s dry, David will play rugby or games outside, table tennis, board games inside – during his lunch break

– 2 -3 I take my break and we go for a walk, bake, cook

– 3 -5 some days I set up a zoom call with their friends and they chat or play computer games with them. Other days it’s reading or messing about.

Then it’s a gin to celebrate you are still alive!

#homeschooling #irishmammy #irishmumblogger #andsosimple #lockdown