Wednesday 29th April 2020
Although the initial prospect of home schooling had been a little daunting (I’ve been teaching for 11 years now but I teach big ones, not little ones!), with the support of warp-girl’s school and the seemingly endless amounts of resources which are around, it hasn’t been too bad at all. We have been kept very busy with the variety of things which she is tasked with doing by her teacher and that’s before we even get on to all the other activites. There is things for reading and writing and maths and exercise (we didn’t have much success with Joe Wicks, but have had better luck with the very friendly (and very bendy!) lady on Cosmic Kids Yoga (even if I do need a little sit down afterwards). One thing which I have found particularly interesting (and useful) is the number of books which have been published, for free, to help kids understand what is actually going on at the moment. I think to begin with, it was quite exciting for warp-girl; doing school work at home and to have me there with her doing my own ‘school work’. Before long she had just accepted that this is what we do now. Her teacher sets the work online, warp-girl does the work, then we play…and repeat. But she has from time to time asked about seeing friends or other family members, or asked when we can go to the park, and I think it is all too easy to forget that this is a whole strange, new situation for her just as much as it is for us grown ups.
These new books take various approaches; there are ones which methodically discuss Coronavirus (whilst still being extremely child friendly) like ‘Coronavirus: a book for children‘, which is drawn by ‘The Gruffalo’ illustrator, Axel Scheffler; ones which take a child’s perspective of COVID-19, such as ‘Dave the Dog is worried about coronavirus‘; and ones which focus on feelings, like ‘Everybody Worries‘, by Jon Burgerman. I don’t think warp-girl had been as affected as other may have been by the huge changes which have had to happen – and she already knew about ‘germs’ being the things that make you feel ill and how we can get rid of them – but these books have made it a little easier to explain and discuss such a massive and seemingly grown up topic with her. If you have children they are definitely worth a read…and maybe even if you don’t!