Win Learning Resources goodies worth over £200 *NOW CLOSED*

Sharing their learning experience and having fun on line has brought us closer together.

My daughters and their partners have been juggling working from home with home schooling for children aged between 11-17. They see themselves as parents 1st and educators 2nd, not putting the youngsters or themselves under additional pressure in what are difficult times, while trying to encourage some learning to take place. Its a tricky task to get the right balance and I’m very glad to be just the granny and not the mum!!

I have been homeschooling my grandson aged 6 but not virtually, he lives with me and his mum. Mum works upstairs and I keep him busy. If the weather is good we spend time in the garden so we are flexible about what we do. I do believe that half an hour one-to-one learning fractions is the equivalent of hours of school. Whatever we do we talk and he asks questions. He’s a great little gardener too and can tell you anything about growing vegetables. Websites like kids countdown maths and playing scrabble where he has to count his own scores make maths great fun. It helps that he is fascinated by science from electricity to the Birth of the universe to the natural world and an enquiring mind and a love of reading, It has been a lovely experience.

I miss my other grandchildren. I stood 9ft from my 12 year old grandson last weekend and he said “oh nanny, I wish I could hug you “ so I don’t think this experience could change my relationship with any of them.

For a 4 year old making the learning organic and tied in to their surroundings. Playing while incorporating learning at the same time. Lots of praise for good attempts and trying.

Plenty of encouragement and try to make it fun. Try to be flexible, and go with the weather, lessons can be done outdoors if it is nice.

A timetable and lots of fun creative things to do

Kept in touch on FaceTime and read stories to the grandchildren. This helped keep our relationship strong. Keeping learning to short periods helped as they are very young.

Showing an interest in their progress by asking questions about how they got on with particular tasks, finding out what is next and praising them for completion.

I have been teaching two grandchildren aged 7 and 9 for an hour each, every day via zoom. I use BBC bitesize and concentrate on the English classes. I won’t say it has been easy, it is quite frustrating not being in the same room to check their writing, spelling etc. During each hour, I get them to do a few star jumps or a couple of runs around their kitchen in my effort to refocus them. I would say it’s been better than nothing but definitely not as effective as a day at school. Hopefully it has helped them.

I found keeping to a routine as helped a lot. Lots of positive praise and making learning fun. I think its been a learning curve trying to keep in touch during lockdown. My two year old granddaughter didn't get it and wouldn't speak to me. All is forgotten now though.

My gd lives with us so when schools were closed and home schooling began we found ourselves completely out of our comfort zone. Being responsible for a young child’s education is huge. We were lucky that the school set work but getting our gd to take us seriously as teachers was a battle. What helped? Plenty of breaks, using everyday items to teach maths, adding up pasta shapes, cutting apples to show fractions, loads of junk modelling... all hard work done before lunch, then art, creative learning, planting seeds, baking after lunch. Makes it sound like we got it down to a fine art. It has been the toughest 4 months ... our relationship has been tested and we have often felt like throwing in the towel and leaving it up to the teachers to pick up the pieces in September... but we have persevered and hopefully our dgd will not be too far behind when they go back even if my husband and I couldn’t agree on the same maths methods like where you borrow from and pay back when taking away?

Keeping to a routine, but ensuring varied activities and keeping it fun and enjoyable.

My two grandchildren are 3 and 4 so not at school yet, although they do miss nursery. We have been seeing them and talking to them on FaceTime (Well not so much talking as they tend to ‘bomb’ in and out whilst we’re talking to the parents).
I have also been sending them challenges to help keep them occupied, anything from treasure hunts out of the home whilst on their walks and inside the home, to making up parcels posted to them containing craft materials with instructions for making cards, toilet roll animals, etc. They are always very keen to show off the results of their challenges when we FaceTime.
They live two and a half hours drive away and we haven’t seen them in the flesh, so to speak, since early March. We don’t know when we will see them again as I am just about to start chemotherapy once again so will have to be very careful and when they ask us when they can come to stay it’s really upsetting. Thank goodness for FaceTime.

Our little grandson is 3 so we send him little parcels which he loves. He’s gone from a ‘car obsession’to a ‘dinosaur obsession’.
We video ourselves reading him stories and his mummy says he interacts with the screen.
FaceTime has been a blessing to ensure we see him developing his skills, and expressing himself.

Luckily my GS is only 3 1/2 but is sucking up education fast provided by my daughter and various teaching aids we are providing. Keeping touch by facetime has been hard but rewarding

We’ve been playing “ Guess Who” on Zoom, great fun,
Especially when it goes wrong!

Fresh air and outside play mixed with study times

Granddaughter only 5months but lockdown and working from home has given quality time with lots of sensory activities and water play in the lovely weather. More difficult for niece with 3 active boys of 3' 7' and 9 so this prize would be wonderful for them. She used internet school work alongside lots of physical activities but as with lots of families not easy.

I did zoom lessons online with my reception age granddaughter for a few months until she went back to school a few weeks ago as mum was working from home and the school had sent a lot of homework to do. It was lovely as I saw her a couple of times a week and saw more of her than I had been doing before the Corona thing.

We did do some of the school work and I was able to reaqd books online sharing them with her as well as board books I held up. I had to coax her to do actual reading herself and write a little.

I found the most successful thing that she enjoyed was when I got lots of photos of her and her mother and brother and family and put simple sentences on each one, making them into pages for a book about her. She remembered the photos and knew the people and, being a unicorn princess at the time, loved having a book about HER. I was able to make fresh pages now and then.

She also got file cards I sent her and she drew on them and made a story to tell me with them She showed them in the same order and told me the story several times, in one go and other days. We also sang songs and watched videos together. Some suggested by the school.

Another way to get her to write was that I sent her postcards with simple text on and an envelope with pre-addressed and stamped postcards to me, her cousin and grandfather and other grandmother for her to write and send to us. I miss it now she is back at school.

Keeping a regular time for video calls with fun and exciting activities to keep them interested has increased my closeness with the long distance grandchildren. I made some finger puppets of their favorite charters who appear on each call. They get so excited and makes them laugh a lot. Joining in on homework from the school web site posing other interesting facts to keep them engaged. Drawing pages of animals to make into a book posting a couple of pages a week with a story line. They love receiving mail and send pictures and stories back in a prepaid envelope. Keeps my brain active and such a pleasure.

Simple things like cooking at home, they are using maths (weighing and measuring), nutrition, science (how eggs for example makes a cake rise), they are reading the recipe, and they are learning important cooking skills to learn how to make a meal. Not all of their learning is through a textbook or what the teacher tells them to do. We aren't so good at the online vitual calls, so we have been writing letters and sending pictures, which is a lovely way to stay in touch, as well as phonecalls so it hasn't changed our relationship.

My little grandson loves singing, so we sing lots of songs. He loves being outside so we try to combine where we can using lots of practical activities where he can work things out for himself. We also try to extend his speech by repeating what he says and adding words in. To a large extent, given his age, we take a lead from him.
A total joy to be in his company

my grandson needs praise and regular breaks, so we have made lessons fun by going outside

Take something that captures their interest, and work from there. Be flexible with what happens when, and abandon strict routines in favour of 'go with the flow' activities

I've introduced them to personal hand written letters from the 'olden' days. They've taught me 'Messenger' from today. Both heart warming and bonding.