Weekly learn at home blog

Week 11: Focusing on life skills

This article has been written by parent blogger Emma Bradley.

Like many we took our feet off the pedal for half term week and relaxed a little more on the home school front. It does seem that we are slowly coming to the end of the home learning journey and it is bringing mixed feelings for me. I have enjoyed being more active in Erin’s learning and there are some parts that I want to continue as I think that we have both benefited from the input. I have a much better understanding of what she finds easy and what she finds more challenging academically. When we look back on this period, I think we will be surprised at how much we achieved, and we will have created some amazing memories and learnt some important life skills. Whilst we never chose this, it has been an interesting time and we have probably all learnt quite a bit about ourselves and our children.

This week we had a focus on life skills, and I wanted to do some basic first aid with Erin to equip her with skills that can be lifesaving. I taught her the recovery position and explained when to use it. Hopefully it is not something she would ever need to do but it is better to be prepared. We also learnt how to treat small burns that might happen in a kitchen and how to treat small cuts. These are the types of injuries you can expect at home. I also made sure that she knows where we keep plasters and our basic first aid equipment.

Following on from learning about Haiku poems last week we looked at acrostic poems. This is where you have a word running vertically down the page and you write a sentence beginning with each letter. This works well when analysing a character or location in a text. For example, you could take a character and then write something about them for every letter. This is good for helping children recall key facts or ideas. Using an Acrostic Poem can be applied to any subject, many teachers use this method in the classroom! We then wrote up our acrostic poem in best handwriting, Erin has beautiful writing, but it is a skill that needs practising. Thankfully Collins have some workbooks for that!

We also got organised by putting a lot of her work in folders. We have not kept everything but the things that she has spent time on or shows what we have been doing in lockdown are too important just to recycle. We have put some in a book and other pieces in a folder. She will be able to take them into school to show what she has been doing at home and we can then keep it to document this time. I have also taken pictures of the things we have made which will be stuck in the book.

If you want to check your children’s understanding of a subject, getting them to write a quiz to test you is a good ploy! Many children like testing their parents or friends and a little bit of reverse psychology like this works wonders to see how much they can remember about a topic. Rather than testing them, you are turning the tables and letting them be the teacher. When doing this I would deliberately get some wrong to see if they spot my errors! If a child can explain or teach you something this demonstrates a really in-depth understanding of the topic.

The last thing we have done this week is build a bug hotel. Well when I say we, I tasked grandad with making the main frame and we then collected reclaimed and natural products for the inside. Bugs need lots of gaps and crevices to build their homes. This led onto us discussing natural habitats and ecology. This was my own version of a mini forest school!

We packed a lot of home learning into our week again which has been good and I know that Erin has gained some valuable new skills in the process. This next week will take a more structured approach as half term is over!

 

Missed Emma's previous learn at home blogs? Read the previous installments today: 

Week 1: Introducing your weekly learn at home blog 

Week 2: The new normal 

Week 3: Keeping emotional health in mind 

Week 4: Little and often 

Week 5: Keeping busy

Week 6: Settling into a routine

Week 7: Taking a practical approach

Week 8: Looking ahead

Week 9: Getting creative

Week 10: Getting Outside

About Emma

Emma Bradley, a qualified secondary teacher and current primary school governor with many years experience of working in different childcare and education settings. She has three children, the eldest is Chloe a second year university student, a son Dylan who is 16 and just found out his GCSEs are not going ahead and Erin who is 10 and still at primary school.