16th April 2020 The 5 ways to wellbeing - Keep Learning

An introduction to wellbeing and how we can use the five ways to wellbeing during the Covid-19 crisis Keep Learning

Welcome to the third in our series of wellbeing tips - Keep Learning. Continued learning through life enhances self-esteem and encourages interaction with others (often socially, although this can be via electronic media at the present time) and encourages a more active life.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the opportunity to engage in work or educational activities particularly helps to lift older people out of depression.

The practice of setting goals, which is related to adult learning in particular, has been strongly associated with higher levels of wellbeing.

Here are a few suggestions of things you could try right now: Find out something about your colleagues Read the news or a book Do a crossword or Sudoku Research something you’ve always wondered about Learn a new word.

For more sustained learning, there are many things that we could consider trying. A lot of us have more free time now than ever before and whilst we may have been too busy before to consider making time to learn a new language or perhaps take up a new instrument, we could make use of this unexpected free time to take on such a challenge. For our children, learning is something that usually happens in school and which, aside from some gentle nudging to complete homework or do reading, we as parents don’t have to think too much about. Depending on the age of our children, we are now trying to home educate as best we can, whilst doing our own jobs and attempting to strike the balance between parent/caregiver and teacher. It is important to remember at this difficult time that our children will mostly remember how we reacted to this situation as a family and how safe they felt.

It is also important to remember that most children are out of school right now and that we, as parents are not expected to teach our children in the same way that they would be educated at school. The most important thing we can do for our children at the moment is to keep them at home and keep them safe. Ensure that they have access to the educational tools that school are sending out for them and encourage them to engage with learning so that they too boost their wellbeing by meeting targets and keeping their brains active. Suggestions for Adults

Learn a Language - There are some free online apps for learning languages; DuoLingo is free www.duolingo.com and babble www.uk.babbel.com is offering free content during the lockdown. Now is a really good time to learn something that could enhance your career, there may be computer packages or programmes that you have been meaning to get to grips with. You could try and do some online courses which are specific to your job. If you are interested in computer programming, Code Cademy has a learn to code for free offer www.codecademy.com

Learn a new instrument – There are several online videos for learning how to play a new instrument, you can also order books for learners from online retailers and you can rent instruments to see if you like them before you commit to buying them. You can even find a music teacher offering lessons online www.yourspacemusiclessons.com

Page 2 Learn to cook something different – we often have a set of go to recipes that we use each week, take advantage of being at home during the day and try to learn some new recipes or a new style of cooking – you could do this with the kids. We are trying to perfect our sourdough breadmaking at the moment and it has certainly been a tasty learning curve - it’s definitely a good job we are managing to get our exercise in.

The Open University has lots of free courses available via their online learning hub, OpenLearn www.open.edu/openlearn. This is a really good way to see if you enjoy studying at home, if you enjoy online learning you might consider taking a degree, a masters or a diploma with them in the future. Older children may be interested in looking at this too.

The Arts – The National Gallery has online virtual tours and there are lots of virtual streaming events at theatres, art galleries and museums. There are some live concerts available and several theatre productions are being streamed online too. Again, this is something you could do with your children, particularly when they are tiring of “home-school” We are trying to do one arts and one learning about the world thing a week to add variety.

Suggestions for kids

The websites Oxford Owl and Twinkl have some wonderful resources for home learning with primary aged children. BBC Bitesize offers learning and revision materials for all ages and Scholastic has resources for older children. Art for Kids Hub is a great youtube channel for doing art with kids (fun for adults to follow along too!) and National Geographic Kids is also a great resource www.natgeokids.com/uk

Reading with little children is really good for their language development. When you want to read to your child but have a zillion other things to do, it would be really nice if someone else could do it. Cbeebies bedtime stories offers just that, with Celebrities reading stories every evening, this is available on the bbc iplayer too. I happen to know its Tom Hardy week from the 27th April to the 1st of May!

Page 3 Virtual Trips (Mars! Zoos! Yellowstone! and more! – the internet is a wonderful thing right now and your imagination is the limit)

The Nasa website has some wonderful learning activities for older children and some brilliant insights into space to share with the younger ones. www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/tag/search/Mars

Some Zoos are live streaming every day, Chester Zoo www.chesterzoo.org/virtual-zoo have a daily schedule available and it is also worth looking at Zoos across the world. The Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, USA is offering some online learning materials and also has live web cams for the elephants, lions and pandas at nationalzoo.si.edu/webcams

Yellowstone National Park – this beautiful natural park in Montana, USA has an area on its website giving information about how you can experience Yellowstone virtually – this is a lovely way to see what is happening a bit further away from home in spring time . . the bears are just coming out of hibernation!!

The Monteray Bay Aquarium in California also has online web cameras including a sea cam, a shark cam and penguin cam.

As a family this week, try to learn something new together and start one new thing each too. Keeping on learning ensures that our brains are active and that we don’t get bored by repeating familiar and comfortable tasks all the time. Challenge yourself a little, be brave, you might discover a new passion for something that you will go onto enjoy for years to come. Next Week – Take Notice Don't forget to use your school specific Whole School Approach email address if you feel you or someone you live with needs some guidance and support during this time.*

*Email inbox is not monitored 24/7. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact your GP or Mental Health Matters on 0800 616 171. We endeavour to respond to emails as soon as we can. Page 4