Hopefully, the activities I posted last time have helped to fill some dull moments.
We’re really lucky – we have a lot of outside space to spread out in, but not everyone is that lucky.
Here are some more resources I’ve been made aware of since last time I posted, plus a few things I’ve covered on other blogs in the past.
If you don’t mind children having a little screen time, Teach Your Monster To Read, by Usbourne is a cute game that’s free to play via your internet browser – and there are no adverts. You can also get it in App form, but this does cost money (we invested – it’s brilliant). Starting with individual letters and working through to whole sentences, this friendly game is ideal for children in the very early years of school or for precocious readers.
Audible have made a selection of audio books free to stream. With classics like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Beatrix Potter, and the House at Pooh Corner, as well as more odern offerings such as Mission Unpossible by Dan Gutman, this is a wonderful opportinity to indulge in having someone else read to you.
If you’ve got a printer, you can do a quick search for colouring sheets. Personally, I’m a huge fan of this free colouring book by Liz Climo. I love the humour of it and options to make your own captions.
Scholastic have made a wealth of resources available for children at home. These are organised by ‘grade’, using the American system. It’s worth having a look through all of the resources to try and guage which you think would be suitable for your children – there are some really lovely things in all the categories and most could be adapted to fit any age group.
And I know I’m always going on about Neil Gaiman, but there’s also a lot of resources on his website.
One of the things that’s been most successful here is opening a ‘CD Library’. If you have CDs, and if your child has the means to play them, now might be the time to indoctrinate them with your musical taste… We took our CD wallet in from the car, set the 5 yr old up with an old compact CD player/cassette/radio and the 8 yr old up with a set of Hifi seperates from Husband’s misspent youth. They pick a CD a day and they’re absolutely LOVING it. Limiting the number they can take means that none get left scattered on the floor – they stay in the machine until another CD is required.
I’ve got some DIY activities planned for the coming week in an effort to support what my youngest was doing at nursery before the schools were closed. These are map-based and should be a lot of fun.
In addition, I’ll keep updating anything else I find in terms of free resources.
And remember STAY AT HOME.
Big love
-Farn ❤
THE INQUISITIVE NEWT 