Top Tips: How To Keep Your Kids Busy While They Learn From Home

Schools across the forces world are having to implement remote learning because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

This means children are now learning from home at the same time as their parents are working.

The Easter break will soon be upon us and with many countries imposing restrictions to combat COVID-19, it won't be the Easter holiday you're used to.

So, what can parents do to keep their children busy?

Amy Cunningham (Year 6 Teacher, KS2 Leader and English Coordinator) and Ed Parkinson (Year 2 Teacher, KS1 Leader and Maths Coordinator) from Attenborough MOD School in Sennelager, Germany, have some top tips for any parents juggling teaching their children and working from home.

1. Keep To A Routine

Teachers are setting daily activities for children to do while the school term continues. Over Easter, many teachers will be setting extra optional activities to keep children busy if parents are working from home.

"One of the most important things I would suggest is keep to a routine."

Amy makes the point that while it is the Easter break, it won't be the break you're used to. Many countries have imposed restrictions on their citizens, meaning that kids won't be able to play outside with their friends or visit family.

Edward suggests that parents keep to a routine to help give structure your child's day and keep them active.

Create an area in your home that is specifically for learning. This will help your children concentrate on the activity you or their teacher has set. Continue their usual activities, like reading.

For all activities, have a time limit. This will ensure it's not a pressured environment, which is important as children already have a lot going on in the world. It's okay for an activity to take more than one day. If they don't want to do it one day, do it another.

2. Use Your Surroundings

While social distancing restricts you interacting with people outside of your household, you can still do plenty.

Get outside as much as you can. If you're in lockdown, you can still use your garden or take your kids on a walk or cycle, as long as the host nation government permits this.

Attenborough School often focuses on the environment in their curriculum and have their own Forest School. Edward and Amy suggest your children go out and collect natural resources to create something.

"The National Trust have a list of 50 things to do before you're eleven and three-quarters"

You can encourage your child to exercise inside too. Joe Wicks, the British fitness coach, streams live PE sessions for kids on weekdays at 9am UKT.

Amy and Edward have some other activities you could set to keep your child entertained:

• Colour Rainbows For The NHS - draw and colour in a rainbow, then stick it to your window to show your support for the National Health Service. It's also fun to look out for other rainbows in windows when you go out for your daily walk.
• Toilet Roll Challenge - you may have heard about the keepie uppie challenge, but why not use your empty toilet tubes to create something, just like BFBS Germany listener Ben did.

3. Communication

It's really important to keep in touch with friends and family, so encourage your kids to phone or FaceTime their friends or grandparents.

Apps like FaceTime allow group video calls, so why not set up a virtual playtime with other parent's kids.

Many children have access to tablets or smartphones, so encourage them to send photos of their activities to their friends and family, Amy suggests even creating a home video.