If schools delay opening, any ideas for keeping the little grey cells active ?

I've no websites etc to recommend, but if they are typical they'll not be fond of Maths. If you can find some material that will make Maths fun (and definitely not a chore!), you'll be doing a lot of good.

Are you up to teaching them a bit about shading drawings to get a 3D effect, or how to draw perspective? Mixing colours?

Poetry sounds like a good idea but I don't have any immediate suggestions. Maybe narrative verse that tells a story, or some humorous rhymes.

Just be a grandparent and concentrate on that relationship. They’ll learn heaps of life skills and social skills and support their mental health. ?

If schools delay opening they will still have school work to do at home and it will be marked, so anything which is fun which they may miss out on.

Poetry, read them books, crafts you could all do?
It's difficult with an age range of 4 - 10 or will you not Zoom with them all together?

Hello kangaroo
It's lovely that you are so keen to educate your Grandchildren and add to their enjoyment of learning.

My advice is that it would make more sense to stick to the NC and approach it in a more cross curricular way.

The NC is just guidance, you can cover the subject matter in as creative a way as you choose.
That way you will be helping the children to learn what they need to know in order to progress to the next year's work.

In addition, and crucially, you will be enriching their learning in a way that suits their learning styles and interests.
Use the NC as a starting point. There's no need to invent the wheel!

I am a primary trained secondary teacher (in theory at least!)

This website is one I found useful when I was teaching:-

www.primaryresources.co.uk/

It has many resources covering all subjects and age groups.

But why when teachers will be giving NC work to be completed?

Perhaps you could help with what they may be finding difficult with schoolwork but I would be inclined to concentrate on fun activities; art, music, reading poetry and stories, even exercises, all the things which they may do in school but are not able to at the moment.

Pick something you are really interested in, that way your enthusiasm should help you share your knowledge or skill successfully.
I’m with callistemon, ignore the constraints of the wretched NC!

Lucca have you read the NC?
It's not prescriptive at all!

Not read it recently but I always loathed those NC levels.

You don't need to bother about levels.

It really depends on the children Kangaroo. With a bit of luck, the school might provide some ideas, which you could build on.

You could maybe start with a book such as "The biggest pumpkin ever" or "The hungry caterpillar" and work in all sorts of activities. The TES has loads of resources, some for free: www.tes.com/resources/search/?q=hungry%20caterpillar&sortBy=lowestPrice

Or have a browse through BBC Bitesize:

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zrc66v4

Sorry, that was a link to the Welsh pages.

Try this:

www.bbc.co.uk/teach/primary/zd7p47h

Some good history resources here:

schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/great-resources/

For the older ones, I have a great plan for creative writing.

They write about a walk through a forest (or down a beach) using a different sense in each paragraph.

Basically, you plan 4 paragraphs, one based on each of the senses (smell and taste go together).

Encourage heavy use of adjectives and adverbs. Try to get them NOT to use basic colour words but to replace them with words they find in a thesaurus (red scarlet, blue turquoise, green emerald).

For the smell, taste paragraph, get them to smell and taste different things. A lemon, salt, soap. Each time they taste / smell something, get them to brainstorm descriptive words that describe the bitter or sharp or tangy.

Two good websites for English resources. Probably mainly for the older GC though.

www.tes.com/teaching-resources

www.teachitenglish.co.uk/

NC levels are not used anymore

I love a good plan! Takes me back to when you realise you’ve had a great idea and get it all in place. Such a rewarding job (when you discount all the admin/target nonsense/ high handed edicts etc !!)

All the above have some great ideas Kangaroo and you might well want to hang onto them for future use.
It looks like you are off the hook, however, as primary schools will be returning on January 4th as planned.

I like that gagajo, I am going to 'borrow' it for work

I think that things are getting over complicated now to be honest.
Please don't recommend teacher resources for non teachers.
There is a lot of absolute rubbish on tes.

Oh I was about to say how helpful of Gagajo!

FannyCornforth

NC levels are not used anymore

Ok. Just saying.

F C I’m a bit bored, shall we have a Barney ?!

Can I stand at the edge and say 'fight,fight, fight