Home Education in Lockdown Week 3

The third week of life in lockdown is over and we had a lovely Easter weekend too, albeit with a dramatic meltdown from the youngest of our quarantine team.  Most of our week seems to have revolved around space, which was the kids chosen topic of the week.  They seem to enjoy having topics as it gives them something to focus on which is helping them through this situation.

What We’ve Been Using This Week

So, as per the previous weeks we’ve been watching Lets Go Live with Maddie and Greg at 11am each morning.  This week was space themed and included a discussion of travelling to Mars, with some great guests too!

The kids made their own astronaut helmets out of cardboard, tape and paint.  Plus the plastic off my then uneaten Easter egg packaging for a visor!  They needed a fair bit of help with this as some parts were fiddly, but both did a great job!

Maddie and Greg made their own astronaut pudding in a bag, so of course we had to make it too.  Doesn’t look pleasant but both kids loved it!  Basically oats, icing sugar, colouring and mint flavouring all squished together in a bag with a little water to ‘rehydrate’ it!

The kids love their science so we used Pinterest to find some cool space science.  Including these fizzy moon rocks, which are simply bicarbonate and coloured water squashed into ball shapes.  Then they used a pipette to suck up vinegar and squirt it onto the ‘rocks’. Same reaction as their favourite volcano experiment!

On Facebook they’ve been enjoying watching the Glasgow Science Centre videos.  One of the recent videos showed them making ‘gloop’. Which is actually cornflour and water mixed together to make a non-Newtonian fluid, which the 6 year old played with for hours.

We didn’t really use much else as it’s been so sunny the kids have spent a lot of time out in the garden playing or our one walk a day running around in the woods.  We even managed to get the paddling pool out for one warm afternoon!

Littlest also helped me plant some seeds, so we have both flowers and vegetable seeds ready to sprout.  Looking forward to them popping up!

Exercise

The kids have been happily playing in the garden with various games they’ve devised.  However we’ve also had a lot of fun walks and playing a mini version of cricket in the local football field.  It’s definitely still hard to maintain social distancing in certain areas where there is a narrow path as a bottle neck.  But we’re doing our best to get out most days and let the kids climb trees, run across fields and look for tadpoles.

Mental Health

I’ve felt much better this week, I think the key is keeping busy for me.  However I’ve definitely noticed a rise in the children’s frustrations and meltdowns.  Particularly from the 6 year old who seems to take it out on his brother a lot.  The 8 year old has been overheard telling his little brother that they only have each other to play with at the moment so he HAS to play.  Which doesn’t always go down well!  I’ve also overheard our 6 year old singing a made up song (he likes singing) about how much he misses his friends and can’t see them because of Coronavirus.  So although the kids don’t say much about it, it’s clear that they are feeling a bit out of control at the moment and their emotions are reflecting this.

The Outside World

Messenger seems to be the go-to, with silly filters and games to play with friends.  We haven’t used Zoom again for a little while.  Although we did choose to Facetime my parents to watch the kids Easter egg hunt in the garden on Sunday and chat afterward too.

Life in lockdown has clearly meant a lot less of real world time, especially for the kids who can’t even go to the shops like we do!  Although personally I would rather not go to the shops as it’s rather strange and unsettling now.

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