When It Was Announced That Schools Would Be Shutting Indefinitely for All but the Children of Key Workers, I Admit I Burst Into Tears
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When it was announced that schools would be shutting indefinitely for all but the children of key workers, I admit I burst into tears. Mainly I was upset for my son, in year 6, whose happy primary years appeared to have come to a confusing, abrupt end. I could feel an anguished emoji, like Edvard Munch’s The Scream, rising within me. I am a freelancer based at home. Now our family of four would be on lockdown there, with the kitchen table functioning as a classroom. Even if we stayed healthy, how would we cope with the added work, delineate our time and keep our two boys, aged 11 and 8, entertained? In our home, a high-low culture war broke out between the grown-ups. I researched subtitled world cinema classics for children, virtual gallery visits and where on the internet the eight- year-old might go to blow his French horn. My husband pooled the boys’ Christmas, birthday and pocket money for a pre-lockdown excursion to Argos to buy a PlayStation 4. Later he drew up a list of every Marvel film, to be watched in sequence. Then he casually revealed that he had paid £60 for a year’s subscription to the Disney+ channel. There were even (age- inappropriate) Judge Dredd colouring-in printouts. Come Monday morning, however, he was lawyering at his desk, while flexible zero-hours muggins here was downstairs negotiating the terms of our new distance-learning initiative. The kids were happy to stick to something akin to their school timetable and try to replicate cherished elements such as Wednesday’s singing assembly. Rule number one was that during the school day (9am-3pm) there would be no pestering for tech time, but media deemed educationally helpful, from French films to nature documentaries, would be plundered. So here, taking the structure from the national primary curriculum, are some of the resources I hope will help to keep us inspired and on an even keel. Every day more creatives and companies are adding to their digital offerings, which we will try to update you about. PHYSICAL EDUCATION Joe “the Body Coach” Wicks should get a public-service peerage for his free half-hour stress- busters. They kick-start every weekday at 9am, undertaken enthusiastically by all four of us while the cat looks on in bewildered disdain. The school recommends at least 60 minutes’ exercise a day, and has suggested yoga and mindfulness links to the Yoga Ed channel on YouTube. Although primarily aimed at dancers stuck at home, Tamara Rojo, of English National Ballet, is offering a daily barre class on the company’s YouTube channel. MATHS Should you wish to supplement daily sums and challenges sent by the school, the former Countdown star Carol Vorderman has waived the fee for themathsfactor.com, which matches the UK curriculum. Or take the chance to remind kids how maths relates to the everyday: do sudoku, measure out ingredients for baking, make them calculate Covid-19’s impact on your pension... LITERACY The school will have set spelling, writing and comprehension exercises, and suggested at least an hour a day of reading. If you have a reluctant reader, or are simply overwhelmed, the nation’s children’s authors have mobilised to help. As the lockdown was announced, the literacy charity BookTrust began Home Time, a rota of author and illustrator events such as the children’s laureate, Cressida Cowell, reading How to Train Your Dragon. It can be found at booktrust.org.uk/hometime — read it and weep with gratitude. The National Theatre archive is available free of charge to schools that sign up at nationaltheatre.org.uk/ntcollection; and check out Marquee TV’s streamed productions from companies such as the RSC and the Royal Opera (marquee.tv). COMPUTING Encourage children to use programs such as Bloxels or the free Scratch to create games. Erase All Kittens makes coding fun. MUSIC Teachers and groups are using Zoom and other platforms to keep lessons going. We tuned into Myleene’s Music Klass on YouTube and welcomed the friendly distraction. Clemency Burton-Hill’s book Year of Wonder: Classical Music for Every Day, which showcases a piece of music for each day of the year, is good for introducing the breadth of classical and contemporary listening. If it is a singalong you crave, sign up to Gareth Malone’s home choir, Great British Home Chorus, or head to Instagram for #TogetherAtHome, a series of lockdown gigs prompted by Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin. ART A child who just wants to sit and draw, or make comics, is a blessing right now. If they need inspiration, look up illustrators and comic authors on Twitter and Instagram: many are offering drawing challenges, some with feedback. Interesting art apps include Tayasui Sketches and Drawing Desk. OUTDOORS If you have a garden, sign up for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. The Wildlife Trusts (wildlifetrusts.org) are rethinking their out-and-about activities, but you can still do their big butterfly count, and craft suggestions such as making a bird feeder using a loo-roll tube (if you’ve got lavatory paper). SCIENCE Television and the internet are your friends here, for channels such as National Geographic and, of course, David Attenborough documentaries. Budding scientists and engineers will find lots online, but are also being encouraged to enter the Great Exhibition at Home, a seven- week project that works with teachers to get kids thinking about how science and engineering can help to protect the planet (big-ideas.org). FRENCH We are going to try subtitled films. My ideas so far are the school documentary Etre et avoir, Jacques Tati’s timeless comedy Playtime, Belle et Sébastien, My Life as a Courgette and the wonderful animation Belleville Rendez-vous. For handy kids’ apps, try Gus on the Go. Any more ideas gratefully received! TELEVISION This may be the hour to become a super-subscriber. To help stumped families, channels are releasing content made for cinematic release or Easter, and making it more readily available. BBC The BBC has already dropped a brand-new adaptation of Malory Towers on iPlayer (it’s due for release on CBBC in April) and updated the platform to make finding family entertainment easier. You can watch shows such as Horrible Histories, the first series of His Dark Materials, the Malorie Blackman adaptation Noughts + Crosses, the charming, summery Worzel Gummidge two-parter that appeared over Christmas, and the popular versions of David Walliams’s books. Our family’s absolute favourite is the animal documentary/comedy series The Zoo, for Hugh Dennis’s droll narration and the irascible German gorilla Jurgen (“Zat’s a silent J”). For younger children, CBeebies is a trusted sitter for hits such as Hey Duggee, but also for educational shows like Alphablocks. The Snail and the Whale is on iPlayer at the moment as well. Sky/Now TV Four Kids and It, Jacqueline Wilson’s contemporary update of the E Nesbit classic, has been brought forward to Friday on Sky Cinema. It’s a lockdown-approved way to transport your family to Cornwall. Michael Caine voices the Psammead, Russell Brand sends himself up and the dishy Matthew Goode plays a dad. Trolls World Tour will be released on April 6, and there is a new animated version of a much- loved bear, The Adventures of Paddington, an animated Gruffalo to savour, the lovely animated adaptation of Tove Jansson’s Moominvalley and the surreal The Amazing World of Gumball. Disney + Frozen 2 will be available from tomorrow, which in my two-boy household might be handy for detention. (They are Elsa-haters, sob.) They will be more excited by the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian, from Jon Favreau, who kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then of course, you get those Marvel movies, the X-Men series and classic Disney and Pixar films. Kids interested in the “how to” of animation will enjoy the Pixar shorts series SparkShorts. Togo and Queen of Katwe are sound dramas. The new service also has National Geographic: handy for home educators. Netflix The best television series we have watched together is the three-series adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, with Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Warburton, Will Arnett and Lucy Punch. Many families I know love Anne with an E, an Anne of Green Gables adaptation with Geraldine James. New last week was the child-led knights and swords drama The Letter for the King, inspired by the Dutch author Tonke Dragt’s children’s classic. Amazon In response to the Covid-19 stay-at-home shutdown, Amazon is allowing customers to stream a lot of family content previously only available to Prime customers, including Arthur, Wild Kratts and the original drama The Dangerous Book for Boys. AUDIO Seek out Fun Kids, a dedicated children’s radio station. It has launched a daily Stuck @ Home pod — the Why Don’t You? de nos jours. From next week, it will also be available on the BBC Sounds platform. Amazon’s Audible service has waived charges on a cache of children’s audio books, including the Audible Originals adaptation of JK Rowling’s Tales of Beedle the Bard, released on Tuesday and read by Warwick Davis, Noma Dumezweni, Jason Isaacs and Jude Law. Previously £12, it’s now free to pre-order. Other fine giveaways include Alan Bennett’s classic recording of The Wind in the Willows and Scarlett Johansson narrating Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. .