Homeschooling while working

The first week of homeschooling is nearly coming to an end. How did it all go for me?  I am a key worker but allowed to work 2 days a week from home so I'm currently writing this blog from home supervising the kids doing their 'walking to school' routine before their start their 'school' day. My husband is also a key worker but works at nights.

But how did I manage both homeschooling and working? How am I coping? Is it actually working?

They announced school closures last Wednesday. I initially was relieved that finally they have announced the school closing. However, the school said it could be until the next school term, my heart fell. I had to homeschool them and can't take them out!!!!!!!! Poor me and poor kids! After, silently raging at another hurdle that life has thrown at me (why can't my life be easy.) I'm a big girl so I wiped my tears and went to full on action mode. I went through the curriculum again and correlated it with what the kids were learning at school to design my own curriculum. This includes learning life skills and other things that school don't teach much but are relevant to life. 

How did I create our curriculum? I used the national curriculum framework on the government website and the learning resources uploaded on the kids's school website to draw a new curriculum from scratch.  I already have workbooks so drew inspiration from them. Thanks to twitter, I then came upon lots of free resources to make it more fun for the kids. The resources I used where:

• twinkl (use UKTWINKLHELPS to get 1 month free)
• K5 learning
• Primary resources
• Scholastic
• PuffinSchool
• Khan Academy
• Tynker
• British Science Week
• Literary Trust
• Outschool.com

The workbooks which I find extremely useful and very good are:

• CGP
• Bond papers
• Letts

I then made a timetable. It's not a strict timetable with times but a general one. The mornings are reserved to maths and english and the work is usually carried out on workbooks and worksheets which they can do independently without much input so don't need an adult input. After lunch, it is more interactive activities such as cooking, building things, PE, RE, etc....

On the days I work from home, I help them with their work, go through corrections and teach them subjects.

 I have found some amazing resources on social media:

• Captain Fantastic Entertainment on Facebook
• Cosmic Yoga Kids on Youtube
• PE with Joe Wicks on Youtue
• Free book resources both on Twitter and Facebook
• Some authors or popular artists also share their talents on their social media pages
• Housebound with Kids is a great group made up of parents/carers on Facebook sharing ideas

 It takes lot of time and patience to put all of this in practice.  What is coming ahead is going to be difficult on all of us but I hope it works this will help us keep all sane.

May the force be with you!!!!!!!

Tulley's Farm

Tulle's Farm in Crawley hosts lots of different events and we visited during Halloween. It is voted as the no.1 Halloween Family Event. It was reasonably priced and had a spooky time.

There was everything the kids asked for. It is suitable for all ages and therefore quite busy.  Scary mazes, rides, a quiz trail in a corn maze full of scarecrows and where we picked actually corns. There was a 4d cinema which was entertaining. After queuing for 45minutes, we finally got on the the famous tractor ride which was so good. The whole ride was full of spooky and weird surprises with characters hopping on and off our tractors scaring us. 

We tried our hand at a new game called corn blaster which involved shooting corns at targets. There was also archery.

We then headed to a spooky house which the kids got scared at every turn. With dead skeletons and a feeling  of rodents running around, wouldn't you be scared either? 

There were nice little food stalls with good choices to eat from. And while you ate, the stage could provide entertaining or you, yourself, can provide the entertainment by singing on stage. We also during our break, looked around the gifts shops. If you like to go all out for halloween you need to visit these gifts shops because some of these decorations were mind blowingly scary.

To round our trip off, we headed to our final maze with ghosts princesses and clowns. The kids actually run out of the maze thinking the clown was chasing them!

I would definitely recommend if you like to spend Halloween the traditional way minus the pumpkin carving!

Polar Express!

Last Christmas, we went aboard the Polar Express train ride. This is the official Polar Express hence quite popular so book in advance. I booked in October and the pries depend on the days i.e more expensive the week before Christmas but cheaper after or in late November. The prices were reasonable. We had to travel to Norfolk which took forever but it was worth it.

We received our golden tickets and headed to the ride. You had an option to come in your PJ  but since we traveled from London, we couldn't.  We were welcomed to a warm atmosphere of lots of character  from the movie walking  around and snippets of the movie playing on the screen. Once the time was closer to hop aboard, we saw a funny performance to get us into the festive mood.

Before we knew it, it was time to board the steam train to see Santa. The whole train ride lasted about 1hour and we were entertained throughout with  live performances from the Conductor and chest, singing songs. We were given a small lyric book so we could sing along. We were offered hot chocolate and a cookie before we continued laughing at the performers and singing some more. We came across Santa and Santa even came on the train. He gave a noisy present and spent gave time to all kids!

When we arrived back, we headed to the gift shop which had all the official merchandise of the movie. The kids had a jolly good time!

Isle of Wight

4 days in Isle of Wight was all that we needed to discover the whole Island. I mainly picked Isle of Wight become Mahi's love for dinosaurs. So what did we do once we arrived on the Isle? Yep - straight to a dinosaur museum . Dinosaur Isle is located in Sundown which was easily reachable by bus. We took a 3-day bus pass to get us around and hopped on a bus that landed us right at the doorstep of the museum. Dinosaur Isle was great. On top of all like the life sized dinosaurs, they were plenty of of activities to do. They were the usual fossil huntings but also colouring activities, puzzles and  an interactive way to learn the prehistoric times.  Approximately 2-3 hours was spent there as Mahi kept running back and forth reading everything and making sure of all the information he read was correct. The gift shop was extensive, and my kids who can't decide anything in a small shop, were truly confused as to what to buy. So that took another 30mins to get them out. The museum was on the beach so despite it being windy, the kids wanted to 'dip their toes' in the sea but yes, they were properly swimming in that freezing sea. Once they were satisfied that they were completely frozen, we headed to our airbnb not far away from the seaside. We needed our rest after an eventful 1st day on the island.

The next day we headed to Newquay, where we are going to stay for the rest of our trip. Everything was easy to reach from Newquay. Heres what we packed in less than  week:

1. Blackgang Chine - a wonderful amusement park not too far from Vintner, in the South of the Isle! It was a beautiful day too and there were so many zones to visit including a fairy, sea and dinosaur zones. It was truly a beautiful place that I can't put into words how amazing the place was for me and the kids. There were lots of cafes dotted around to relax too and the views were stunning.

2. Robin Hill -  this is the twin park of Blackgang Chine but in Newport. You can buy combined tickets. This one is also an amusement park more suited for older kids as it has more fun stuff like a suspended nets, huge slides, roaming animals and rides.
3. The Needles - the most popular tourist attraction in all of Isle of Wight. The weather wasn't great so we didn't do a boat ride or took the chair lift next to the Needles but the kids did paddle in the water. My kids are demented to have swam in these cold waters. The Needles looked more beautiful in person than in photos.
4. Dinosaur Expedition CIC - what better way for a future palaeontologist to shadow an actual palaeontologist while they work. So that's what I did. I contacted the manager who kindly agreed to my plan, picked us up from Newquay and drive us down to first, a fossil hunt. They run family guided tours on the seaside hunting fossils.  The whole morning, we were out there looking at actual cast of dinosaur footprints and some gems. We didn't come across any fossils but Mahi was totally engrossed and fascinated but what we were discovering that he didn't want to leave. We then headed to the little museum where actual fossils found during the hunts are placed. There were more activities. Mahi was just in his element. it was a tiny museum but the amount of knowledge Mahi absorbed, made him more determined to become a palaeontologist.
5. West Wight Alpacas - who would have thought that I, me who doesn't like animals, would actually walk an alpaca around for 1hr without being scared?!!! And that's exactly what I did. I didn't freak out and my alpaca was very well behaved. Mahi's one was the naughty one but he managed him well! We had such a great fun learning about alpacas and llamas.

This is how we spent our time in Isle of Wight.

How to deal with "I'm bored mummy"?

Every parent's worst nightmare is to hear "I'm bored Mummy!" Despite you arranging play dates, having millions of toys, organising fun days out, etc, kids always want more. There was time when I arranged days out every weekend to avoid those dreaded words but now I've cut all that down (I was spoiling them too much by taking them out every week). So now those words make an appearance very weekend without fail. Hence, I had to come up with a plan and quick.

I made a "I'm bored" jar. The jar includes things to do when they run out of ideas such as arts and crafts,  build a den, perform a story, etc. It does keep the kids entertained... sometimes. I also subscribed them to subscription boxes which they loved and made great family time.  I wrote a blogspot here: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4124083420943040106#editor/target=post;postID=6166131026687296463;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname.  However, they could become quite expensive.

We do lots of arts and crafts too at home. Here are some of our favourite ones, which can be messy too:
1. Homemade play dough - all you need is oil, 1 cup of flour, 0.5 cup of salt, 1 cup of water, 2 tbsp of cream of tartar. You need to put all these ingredients in a pan and stir on the hob. It will get harder and harder to stir so you need to use a lot of muscle power. Once you got a nice lump, take it out and let it cool. Once cool, separate the dough into how many colour doughs you want and make a hole in the middle. Fill the hole with the colouring of your choice and knead it until the colour has covered the dough. No mess and the kids will love it.
2. Volcano - this never gets old. What we do is create a prehistoric land and build a volcano. The volcano include bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. And what you get is an exploding volcano.
3. Shaving foam fun - do you know how fun shaving form is? When the kids used to take bath together, to keep them entertained and busy, while I clean the house, i came across the foam art. It literally involved shaving foam coloured with food colouring and a paintbrush. The kids would paint themselves with this and the walls of the bath. It's so simple but it kept the kids busy and happy! Shaving foam can be used as finger paint too. Puffy dough with foam and cornstarch.
4.  Fake snow - again easy but so much fun. Cornstarch and conditioner.


We also do the standard things such as board games, cooking, baking, watching movies, going to park, cycling and so on. But I also love teaching them childhood games such as the lava game, elastic game, skipping rope games.

And yet, kids always need more! We can never win! But I hope this helps you!

Explaining sensitive subjects to kids

It seems that the world is going mad. I don't recall my parents talking to me about sensitive subjects as often  as I'm talking with my kids. The only sensitive subjects I recall was the Sri Lankan civil war, the horse meat issue in France and Princess Diana dying. However, with my kids, it seems I'm talking about sensitive subjects every month. If its not terrorists attacks, political disasters, gun/knife violence, it's viruses!!!! So how do I approach sensitive subjects with my kids:

1. I gather all the facts - I always make it a conscious effort to know everything about the incident instead of throwing false information at them. It's easy to be biased but with kids, we need to be careful. I don't want to influence my kids with my opinions.

2. Knowing how much information to give- From the incident, what will directly affect kids? How much do they need to know? I just give them what they actually need to know and not too much detail.

3. Being patient - When you say something sensitive, kids have lots of questions Some may be silly and some very intelligent. Don't laugh at any questions and give them honest answers to all their questions bearing in mind the amount of details you need to disclose to kids. They are going to hear different versions and new information from different sources and you need to be patient and consistent with your kids. 

4.  Being proactive -  Laksha gets anxious very quickly. I know that even if I answered her questions, underneath she's still bubbling a little. So I do share plans with them if I can make one. So with he manic panic that the coronavirus is causing, I told the kids how we are going to deal with it as a family and are more relaxed about it.

Keeping an open conversation with kids in these mad times, it's essential. I  want my kid to know the true situation but also know when not to panic. Trying to raise intelligent and sensible kids in a dumb world is so difficult!

Works Book Day Costumes!

I love this time of year and getting creative. However our school, only does it every o3 years so nothing is happening for us this year! In all those years, I didn’t buy any costumes as they are extortionately expensive for them to wear it for just a day. So I make them yourself. Here’s some easy to make and award-winning (!) costumes.

1.Pennywise (Lucky won best costume last year)- I had a long shirt and stitched some pompons for buttons. We just brought white tights, lace gloves. We had a tutu skirt that was used as a neck thingy that clowns wear.   Plenty of facepaint for the clown face and a red wig we had lying around and ta-dahhh. We had Pennywise! Money spent -£5

2. Harry Potter (Mahi eon best costume at nursery) - we had a Dracula cape,old shirt, waistcoat and sweater. All I had to do was make the tie and logo, draw glasses, scar on his face and we had our own Harry Potter. Money spent: £0

3. Harry and the Dinosaurs - my easiest costume with no effort. All I had to do was put him in shorts and a bucket full of dinosaurs. Money spent: £0

4. The Singing Mermaid (Lucky won best costume in year 1) - this was the first ever costume I made and found it so stressful but I wanted to make it memorable. I brought some green and blue cloth and kind of stitched a top and a skirt looking like a mermaid tail. We bought a blue wig and 4days of stressful evenings/nights were all worth it. Money Spent: £15

5. Where’s Wally - Brought a red sweater and a inflatable walking stick from Poundland. We already had a white/red hat, black trousers. Stuck some masking tape on the red sweater into stripes. Drew glasses on Mahi’s face and he was so hard to find amongst the crowd!!! Money Spent: £2

See, you don’t have to spend a lot for your kids to remember their awesome costumes. What are your easy-make and cheapest costumes?