How I took my nephew to the zoo in the middle of the Covid19 Pandemic

Since the forced confinement, it has been very challenging for children(and some adults) at home. If one or more parents / carers are working remotely it can even be more of an issue to keep the younger ones occupied. The younger the child the more difficult it becomes. The number (and age) of siblings can also add to the challenge. I have seen friends posting videos of themselves working from home with their children playing music or running around the living room while they were trying to work. The way we are trying to ensure continuity of service is changing.

I hope the ideas below will help you keep busy and remove cabin fever.

I had been familiar with zoom for work meeting and webinar but I have now started using it to bring groups of friends / family together. The fact that you can share the screen means that you can expand the field of what you share. I have taken kids young people on virtual tours around the country and the world; from doing a virtual visit of the Louvres Museum in Paris https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne to looking at the live cam in the Edinburg zoo:

https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/rockhopper-penguin-cam/#rockhopperpenguincam

I have had virtual lunch with people , where we just eat together in front of each other at the computer. Young people can meet up with their classmates.

this week I have played chess virtually, taught French, English and Maths, been around the world exploring art galleries and museums. If you have people with the facility, you can actually keep them engaged and entertained virtually.

I have also been getting very creative in the kitchen, making do with what I have.

I realise how hard this must be for people who’s profession requires physical contact like hairdresser and beauty therapist. All they could potentially do, is give online tutorial , but it’s limiting.

The key to entertaining kids virtually is to vary the pace and keep activities short. It’s hard for an adult to stare at a screen; the younger the child, the more difficult it becomes.

The attitude we have towards the way we deal with this crisis will also impact on how a young person learns to deal with their own future crisis. Even though we do not have a ‘how to deal with a pandemic manual’, the way we react to what’s happening will be absorbed and mirrored by people around us. I co-produced a fairy tale with my godson about a kingdom being attacked by the kingdom of corona. Through the story we explored how he felt about the situation and following the classic fairy tale format we ended up with a happy ending.

Below are some links that you might find useful.

Audio  books , they can listen to a story and then write a summary / draw the story 

https://stories.audible.com/discovery

Virtual chess 

https://www.chess.com/play/computer

Museums all have virtual resources 

this is the one for the museum of London 

https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/schools/learning-resources?utm_source=enewsletter&utm_medium=mol-teachersnetwork&utm_campaign=onlineresources-march2020&utm_term=learning-resources-lead-text&utm_content=button&dm_i=3BMS,10Q50,4A12MT,3VL61,1

English and Maths for all levels 

https://uk.ixl.com/math/

Home learning resources 

https://chatterpack.net/blogs/blog/resources-list-for-home-learning