Hello everyone, I hope you’ve had a good weekend.

If you are anything like us, you might have gone back to basics a little bit! We have dusted off some classic board games and kept ourselves entertained this weekend. Heck, we even sorted the dreaded porch shoe cupboard out due to our escalating boredom! Wasn’t it just typical that after a lovely week of warm sunshine, when the weekend came it was cold and grey?!

As several of our staff are working from home with young children, I thought I’d come up with a few tips to keep them entertained whilst you are working from home. I’ve caveated this as for primary school kids, as babies and toddlers provide a different challenge altogether.

Thankfully I’ve come out of the other side of that and my two are now 9 and 6. But they are very demanding and we’ve had more than one chat about how they need to be doing things for themselves whilst we are busy working from home. I’ve been getting up early to get a few hours banked!

Ok, so here goes…

PE with Joe Wicks

If you haven’t heard of PE with Joe Wicks and you have children at home, where on earth have you been for the last six days?! This is a daily workout brought to you by Joe, who has his own You Tube channel called The Body Coach which you can type in on the You Tube homepage. Hit subscribe and you can join in the live 30 minute work outs from Mon-Fri at 9am. Classes are relatively easy to do and you’ll find yourself energised for the day. And maybe aching the next day!

Story time with David Walliams

Good old David to the rescue with his daily story time sessions, giving your kids a chance to sit still for half an hour and listen to his dulcet tones. As well as being a comedian and actor David is a bestselling children’s author who has plenty of excellent books in his repertoire. My kids certainly enjoy this daily session which begins at 11am and lasts for 30 minutes. Simply tune in to his website where you’ll find all the daily broadcasts.

Dancing with Darcey Bussell

Another online daily workshop for all ages, children can prance around ‘til their heart’s content (or when it finishes after 20 minutes!) with Darcey overseeing all proceedings. Fancy yourself as a bit of a mover? Then join in the fun every day from 2pm. You can access this on Facebook by joining the group called DD Mix.

Creative writing

We’ve been setting our two creative writing tasks with a different daily theme, and they seem to quite enjoy it. Also, making it a timed exercise gives you some much needed uninterrupted work time. Not saying your children will enjoy this exercise, I’m just sharing what seems to be working at the minute! My eldest goes into good amounts of detail too, I think she might have something of a creative streak in her. Some of the stories they have produced have been pretty funny too, I’ve shared one here with you from my youngest.

Apps

Of course most parents with older children will have explored all the wealth of useful, informative apps out there for children – and there are many that I could mention here. My two quite like word games like Word and Wordscape, where you get served a set of letters and have to make words / crosswords out of them. That one is good for keeping the brain active and getting them to think about composition. It also might help them with future spellings. There are lots of free apps for curriculum subjects like mathematics too.

Television – Horrible Histories

I couldn’t not mention the fantastic, award winning Horrible Histories here, which is a hugely well observed comedy show firmly rooted in historical truths. All manner of subjects and periods of time are covered here from the monarchy to Saxon England, and facts are delivered in such a way that children find it fun, engaging and entertaining. Its very funny too! My eldest has developed a real keen interest in the Tudors and it is literally all down to watching this show. Hats off to the producers! As such I never feel guilty about putting them in front of the television when it’s this they are watching.

I’m sure everyone out there is being as creative as they can with their young ones but sometimes it can be tough, as well as a challenge to keep it interesting for them, too. Other things we have introduced include cookery, art, gardening, chores (tidying rooms etc) – and on the agenda this week is going to be cleaning! Also, I must teach my eldest how to make me a good brew!

Happy home working everyone!