For Our Children
We’re in lockdown. And many of us with children, including those who are paid to work at home, need ways to enrich our environments. Especially as playgrounds, swimming pools and libraries are all closed. Home schooling is new to most so that’s a challenge too.
Sometimes the children we love are hunkered down somewhere else, but we can still be in touch of course: the other morning, I learned from my cousin that she’s reading to her beloved small grandchildren on Facetime. Inspiration!
And then Thalia, one of the generous people who run The Sapling, about children’s books — it’s great! — tweeted.
I thought immediately of artists and educators now and then associated with Spiral who I KNEW would have excellent suggestions. They sure did, though I’m aware that some/many of these suggestions won’t work for differently abled children. Any specific suggestions specifically for some of these very welcome.
Also, what about the special challenges of constricted living spaces, little access to open air and other resources beyond the packages supplied by their hard-working and imaginative school teachers? With no internet/devices (have already heard of people with no money to top up their phones)? What about combining paid work with care? Dealing with conflict? Again, any links/suggestions very welcome.
First up, Erica Duthie an educator who runs Tape Art New Zealand with Struan Ashby and has two almost grown daughters.
Erica
My backup when we had littlies were–
chalk drawing including making roads and houses so the kids could navigate the drawings…
card board box homes…
boats we could drag the kids around in…
forts of furniture…
tea parties with cups made out of leaves (ripped and turned into cones with stalk used to sew the shape together) and make believe food…
making fairy villages — including making nest and dens and washing lines, pom pom making, mobile making, pick up sticks…
dress up fantasy…
making pressies for grandparents and cards…
the exquisite corpse game (where you divide a page in three and fold so only top third visible and turning backs on each other draw a face to the neck, then turn over and give to next person to draw to the knees, and next person to the feet and then open up!! Much fun, can do it with people, animals, aliens mix of all…
distraction and allowing breathing time for me when I was really stuck I would get out water… let them wash some dishes, play in back, water in garden. Anything involving water seems to ground the kids,
Good luck!
And audio books for a break from the chatter: free for 1–18 year old audience stories, on Audible.
Fiona Lovatt, a teacher, artist and poet, trained with the legendary Keri Kaa and Jack Lasenby (and others, of course!). A former school principal, she moved to northern Nigeria in 2011. There, through her Lovatt Foundation, she houses and educates those orphaned in the strife there,in effect often in lockdown. Dispatches: Northern Nigeria gives an idea of the COB: Children of Borno programme. Like Erica, Fiona uses the immediate environment for inspiration. She has five children and a grandchild.
Fiona
I love that suggestion of hanging out across the generations with some video hook up.
Also nice to send mail if we still have such services operating. [We do!]
We can learn again how to engage children in all the various tasks that need to be done and then to pick up some new crafts and hobbies.
We can learn again how to polish silver or sharpen knives, take a door off its hinges and hang it up again.
It is a great time to learn/ teach how to change washers in a tap, clean out the plug holes, sew, garden, cook and preserve, learn not to throw anything out…
Treat home like an island, where some things that we currently think of as ‘rubbish’ will later on solve a problem or present an opportunity.
Clean and sort everything.
Classify everything in the house…making groups of things according to what that are made of or where they came from or how old they are.
Have treasure hunts for e.g. 6 glass things (or any variation); and put them back.
Use a stop watch.
Set up an obstacle course where no one is allowed to touch the floor.
Rearrange how the rooms of the house are used.
Rearrange the furniture.
Restore the furniture.
Experiments with a bicycle wheel… Learning about forces.
Role playing… Pretending to be shoppers with the shopping list, shopping bag, dressed up for the purpose…
Try another language. Try a new register.
Go through the wardrobe and work out the hand-me-downs and use the treadle sewing machine to lift a hem, shorten the sleeves, tuck in the waist. The deconstruction of clothes makes a great maths lesson for budding tailors.
Cut outs. Collage and papier mache.
Use nonfiction books to make up quiz questions. The children read something and then use the information to phrase a question to ask the others.
We are Tintin fans so sometimes the children will act out a series of pictures on one page and the others have to name the characters and the book that the sequence came from. This gets really funny when they hold up a frame and do freeze-frame versions of the book.
Marilyn Head, a teacher, science advisor and policy analyst/advisor, home-schooled four children and has a grandchild. I asked her for some tips from the top of her head.
Marilyn
Think short and snappy.
Set a few ‘must do’s’ (eg reading, writing, maths as well as household chores, music practice, walk or bike ride or anything like that) and then have some follow up things if they want to.
Don’t worry if they just want to do the bare minimum; you don’t want to waste your time being a police officer and they’ve probably got far more interesting and creative things to do.
Let them choose the order. If they see that they can manage it easily, they’ll be much more cooperative, and this way leaves a lot of opportunity for kids who like school work to get down to it.
Play games — board games, card games , backgammon, hide and seek — it’s great if you have a table tennis table, basketball hoop etc.
This is probably a good opportunity for parents to try their hand at some of the online games. Get your kids to teach you. Maybe make it interesting by playing for high stakes like making the tea or doing the dishes. It’s much easier to engage kids about stuff they’re interested in.
When things get messy, water can be the answer — a long hot bath for teenagers, a play bath for younger ones. Endless opportunities to talk about condensation, puddles, bubbles or cut planning, engineering, conservation etc and then there’s all that maths and physics: volumes, displacement etc.
Poetry /songs can be useful discussion starters.
Measuring/mapping — measure and draw plan of house as is. Now plan it as you’d like it, for a bigger or smaller family, if it was in Iceland or Botswana. (Don’t necessarily have to write it down, can just talk about it — things will come up which they’ll want to know the answers to and they’ll learn things themselves.)
Some kids like routine and others hate it. Some will take all day to do one thing and others will do it all before 9 o’clock so they can have the rest of the day to themselves. Not much you can do to change their nature so don’t even if it means someone’s sitting up finishing at 10pm!
Cooking, sewing, knitting, building, gardening. Dressups are always a winner!!
Ask questions rather than give answers.
Marian
Some resources from me.
Free movies: my fave is the Canadian Film Board’s fine collection, with some truly stunning features, documentaries, animation, children’s films and a good indigenous collection.
Paula Green’s Poetry Box, a New Zealand poetry page for children. Paula does wonderful things. And all free.
Can some of us reach out online to children and young people in other households? Play games with them, read with them, sing with them, chat with them, have concerts and performances, make up intricate stories and tell jokes?
Nanogirl’s Lab, with a new adventure daily, costs $1 per day. Created by nanotechnologist and engineer Dr Michelle Dickinson, Nanogirl™ is a superhero with a difference. Her powers don’t come from magic — or spider bites or alien suns! — but instead through her study of STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Nanogirl™ and her friends use their skills to engineer their way into — and out of — trouble, inspiring and empowering young people around the world to tackle some of world’s biggest questions.
And a couple of reminders about long-time pleasure-generators —
&, as night falls, shadow animals
Stay safe everyone!
MORE ABOUT SAFETY
- Handwashing Handwashing Handwashing… Keep handwashing fun and thorough with a tailor-made poster. The tool at Wash Your Lyrics automatically puts the lyrics of your favourite song over handwashing instructions.
- If you’re not safe with those you live with, here’s some info. NZ 1737 is the number for an online counselling service for domestic violence and abuse. 111 the number for police.
- DON’T BREAK YOUR BUBBLE!
Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris provide the best info in the world, I reckon, about COVID-19. Here’s the latest, Level 4 is GO.
And this, from Sharon Murdoch.
PS This glory! https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0885wz7/the-reality-of-confinement-with-a-four-year-old
