Home educating whilst working from home

My wife trained as a teacher, and has taught all age groups (toddler to adult) over the last 20 years.

This proved very useful a year ago when we homeschooled our son. My wife has written up some hints and tips for any of you who are working and looking after children.

Anything written in bold is from me, anything else is my wife.

Hi! We are all in this weird (but fortunate) position of working from home whilst also looking after our little darlings. It’s an odd situation to be in and one that I doubt any of us will master as it is pretty much an impossible task to do both jobs on a full time basis.

However, maybe some of these ideas and hints and tips will help you to get more quality work time in, and so more quality family time later in the day.

General tips

Some general tips - positive reinforcement is the most powerful tool in your book. ‘Catch them being good’ - comment on how well they’re playing together, how much care they’re putting into an activity, what a great Lego build that is - and pick a particular bit to focus on for a specific comment, like, “I really like how you’ve used that wheel as a bumper”.

Don’t expect too much of them or yourself - this is an anxious time and whether they talk about it or not they carry worry. Often this worry will present itself in more challenging behaviours, like irritation, anger, clinginess. Talking to them at an age appropriate level about what is happening in the world will help them - and allow them to open up if they are worried. Many kids won’t even know that something is worrying them, they just won’t feel right. Talking to them about worries and how we grown-ups can carry their worries on our shoulders as well as our own can help, as can a worry monster or worry jar.

Schools have our children for 6 hours a day. In reality, for every hour of learning time allocated in a school you can generally expect the kids to be working and learning for up to 30 minutes of that session. The older they are the more time they’ll actually learn for within a class, whereas the younger they are the more play based it would be.

Schools allow for disruptions and interruptions, going to the toilet, sorting out disputes, transition time between activities and lesson, explanation time designed to hit all the learners in the class, getting resources, settling down time and so on. When it’s just you and your children there’s a lot less of this - and so they are going to get their learning done a lot faster than you’d anticipate. With my son, I plan for 1.5 hours to 2 hours of actual learning time to get his entire day’s worth of activities from the school completed at a reasonable level. (His school are supplying an entire school day’s worth of learning tasks). I am a teacher by profession so it is easier for me to understand what’s expected of him, and how to help him, but even so I’d not expect learning to take more than 3 hours at a maximum.

Use technology sparingly - I keep my son’s allowance of Xbox and iPad time for those meetings that I cannot be interrupted in.

You are not a bad parent if putting your young child in front of the TV or Xbox for a few hours each day is your only option. This is an extreme time.

There are TV shows which have education baked in. The UK television station CBeeBies (its the kids version of the BBC) is excellent.

Accessible in Australia here: https://www.bbcstudios.com.au/channels/cbeebies/ and https://au.cbeebies.com/ for online games. And in the US here: https://us.cbeebies.com/

Also YouTube will have episodes of CBeeBies programmes you can put your child in front of. For example the Octonauts is amazing: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXLLQkbYE-G9jYrra7R4Qsw/videos

https://www.sassymamasg.com/best-educational-kids-tv-shows-preschoolers-teens/ has more ideas.

Regularly remind your child of what you’re expecting them to do. More than you think you need to. If it helps, have a green and a red piece of paper next to you. When it’s green they can interrupt, when red, they can’t. 

They will be missing their friends. We as parents also need to fill that gap as much as we can, so we need to be silly with them and play with them. We bought a yoga ball last week and we have around 30 minutes of active play with it every day.

Do Joe Wick’s PE workouts on Youtube. There is a new one every day. If you’re brave or used to HIIT, do it with your child.

Whenever possible, get them out of the house. Go on a teddy bear hunt (look in windows for teddy bears and rainbows). Do a nature walk, looking for something green, something that smells nice, something smooth and so on. Go for a walk or a scoot. Use your yard or garden. 

We try and tag team where we can. Monday’s for me used to be GSD, no meetings please. Now Monday’s are the days I can keep an eye on our son. I’m getting less done, but I’m not beating myself up over that.

On the days I can’t fully look after my son I still try and be present for small parts of the day. To help you achieve the same I’d recommend adopting a variation of the Pomodoro technique. With this technique you try and do deep focussed work for 25mins and then come out for a breather for 5 min break. I’ve adapted it to be 50mins deep work with 10min break.

The idea in the break is (when you are in the office) you go for a walk, look out the window, delete some emails, send some memes in Slack, answer some messages.

At home I’ve adapted that to: Say hi to my wife and check she’s doing ok, chase my son round the house, play a quick game of football, check if anyone needs a snack, check if I need a snack, check the new Lego model my son has made.

Introducing those breaks into the day has made working from home much more productive, and I feel more connected to my family.

Independence skills

Your kids have basic needs that need to be met, wherever they are. At school, as they increase with age, more independence is introduced, but even the Kindy kids and preschool kids are expected to be able to put their bags away, use the toilet independently and make sure they are drinking enough. So, here are some home ideas for helping support your kids to do these things by themselves. 

Snacks and drinks:

• Depending on the age of your children, have water bottles / sippy cups and snacks in a box / on a plate / tupperware containers / packed lunch box for them that they can take as and when they want it. I use a small kid’s bento box and fill it with 4-6 different small snacks, all stuff I’m happy for them to eat as part of their daily diet (fruit, sandwiches, muffins, carrot sticks or sugar snap peas, popcorn, yoghurt tubes etc). That way they don’t need to interrupt you for food or drink. You know your kids and their abilities / age appropriate snacks best. Be prepared for them to eat the lot and not want much lunch, hence filling their snack boxes with the stuff you want them to eat. Or you could have one like mine who NEVER STOPS EATING, in which case, best of luck!
• If you have trouble convincing the older ones this is okay, tell them about independence skills. If they’re at school they would be responsible for what they eat for crunch & sip / morning tea and lunch anyway, so they would be quite used to this.
• If you have a kid that forgets to eat (or will just eat everything immediately), set timers on an iPad / Phone / Siri / Amazon dot - whatever you have to hand. Then they know they have to eat when alerted to it. If you don’t have - or don’t want to use - technology for this, then make different coloured ‘extensions’ to a clock or colour sections in like this:

Teaches time telling or at least introduces the concepts of time management and time telling too! (bonus!)

Going to the bathroom - not sure I need to explain this one? Maybe a visual reminder in the bathroom to wash their hands / flush / clean themselves (depending on which one they tend to forget!)

Independent play and learning

If they really struggle to keep away from you - but are old enough that they are capable of playing independently for a given period of time, use a timer. Set it for 10, 15 minutes and tell them you’re not available for that amount of time. Reward them each day - I’m a massive fan of reward charts! Each time they manage to keep themselves busy for that period of time, they get a smiley face on a chart / sticker etc (just be sure they can actually achieve the amount of time set or you’ll have meltdowns to deal with). If your kid is 6 or older they could work towards something they really want, be that iPad time, some new Pokemon cards, whatever. A week for kids age 5-7 is probably about the right amount of time for them to earn it in, 8-10 a fortnight, older than that can be negotiated with them, and younger, 4-5, 3 days is a good goal. (Example, my boy is 8. He wants more iPad time. So for every 30 minutes of independent learning he does - because he hates having to do the learning his school have set him - he will get a smiley face. I’d expect him to do this 3 times in a day, so I’d set his goal at 15 smileys. Once he’s achieved that, he’ll get the reward that we would have agreed at the start of the week).

• Cheap MP3 players with audiobooks are really, really good for helping them to stay occupied. It can also help to prevent arguments and provide you with some quiet...
• If you have more than one school aged kid, work out if they’ll do better in the same place or if they need to go to seperate rooms. You’ll know whether they’re likely to help or hinder each other!
• General rule of thumb for concentration is that they can concentrate for two times their age at the minimum, and five times their age at the most. Of course, some fall outside that boundary and others will be able to concentrate on Lego for hours, but writing for two minutes. 

Activity ideas:

Outdoors:

• Got a yard with a fence? Use paintbrushes with water - they can ‘paint’ the fence.
• Large chalks for drawing on the ground.
• Put cars / dinosaurs / small animals etc in a different place than usual. Put a pile of flour, sand, ice, grass clippings or mud outside and put the small toys in it. Set up a car mud track outside for them to follow. 
• Set up a chalk ‘goal’ on a wall if you have one with no smashable windows. They can use a ball to try and hit the goal. You could grade it if you wanted, or have some higher with higher scores, and lower with lower scores. 
• Egg challenge. Each child gets an egg (hardboiled or not, your choice!). Provide them with string, tape, scissors, cardboard, packing materials if you have some, cling film, paper, feathers - whatever you have that could cushion an egg. The idea is that the egg is dropped from a height (you standing on a chair, off a balcony or terrace, out of an upstairs window) - and the egg has to survive intact. There are lots of this sort of challenge online. 
• If you have time available (I do make myself laugh….!), use Pinterest for more ideas. Also Twinkl is a great resource.

Indoors:

• If your child has been set work by the school, sit with them before your working day starts and go through with them what they need to do. Write or draw out a timetable if that would help (visual prompts are generally used in classrooms). From what I understand, different schools are doing this in different ways. Some are sending a whole day’s worth of learning on a slideshow, with apps on tech to allow them to complete activities and upload their learning. Others are providing loose ideas on what to do - these will need a little more time from you initially as you’ll likely need to help them to understand what is expected of them. Generally a good rule of thumb is to give 2 or 3 very precise expectations for a specific task - for example, if they need to read their home readers, then give them the pages they need to read from and to, and tell them you’ll be asking them questions about what happened in the book later. (If you read it quickly, note down 2 or 3 questions about the text - one about a character, one about the place the story or book is taking place and one about the plot).
• Cardboard boxes are your friends. You can put the kids in them. They can be turned into so many things. The one our new chair came in has been used as a den (with Pokemon cards and a torch), a car, a goal and a method for getting around in by being pushed about. Add sellotape, safety scissors, crayons and other crafty bits (appropriate by age and ability) and you’ve got some really good, powerful, open ended imaginative play. 
• Freeze small toys and objects into ice cubes one day (together) and then the next day take them outside to be played with.
• Make ice balloons - fill a balloon or water balloon with water and freeze. Next day stick them outside with a range of kitchen ingredients such as salt, pepper, flour, sugar, food colouring (if you’re brave!) and pipettes or medicine syringes for the older ones. Those that are more interested in writing and drawing, get them to record what they are doing step by step. They can add each different ingredient, one at a time, and see what happens to the ice. If you have 15 minutes free, go and do the food colouring with them and then get them to draw or paint what they see, or they can take photographs. This is a great changing materials (STEM / Science) activity that is also fun.
• Older kids could take things apart and then try to put them back together. Give them screwdrivers and let them give it a go (being careful that they can’t hurt themselves in the process. An old fan with the plug removed could work)
• Older kids who know how to use the oven and the kettle could bake, following a recipe. 
• Cleaning - get a cleaning rota up - each child has a job. Even a child of 2 can go around with a duster / help pick things up. 
• Colander and pipe-cleaners to thread through the holes (if they aren’t going to stick them into each other or themselves).
• Pinterest has lots of great ideas.
• If your home is large enough, give them pots and pans and wooden spoons from the kitchen and let them drum. A long, long way away from you….
• Download and print out sudoku puzzles, crosswords / wordsearches  etc. If you do a search for these by grade or age you should get loads of options. 
• Lego - find Lego challenges online. Challenge them to create their own game using Lego. Give them your expectations - will it have a board to move around? Will it be a game where 2 players play, or just one? For ideas look online. My boy just invented a great one - he got a small flat 4x6 piece and put 4 of the tiny see-through ‘light’ pieces at the end as player’s pieces. That’s the start line. Then he got one of the small Lego pieces with the corrugated edges, and each player rolls it. Depending on which side it lands dictates how far they more. Simple but effective. He’s going to love that I’m going to get him to write the rules and design some packaging for it tomorrow…
• Fruit kebabs - simple and sweet - chop up fruit, add marshmallows / brownie or doughnut chunks etc, give them kebab sticks and get them to make kebabs (points go to most colourful - hence the most healthy - ones). Dragonfruit, mango, berries, banana, kiwi chunks all work well. 

Final thoughts

If you find this helpful, let us know and I’ll put something together with ideas regularly throughout this time. Feel free to ask for more specific ideas, or behaviour management ideas, or anything really.