Resources for parents

Education Resources from the ABC

The ABC have put together resources that tie in with content available on ABC iView, plus other resources like mini-lessons.

The Parents Website – Leaving the bubble

Leaving the bubble: Helping anxious kids prepare for a return to the classroom might be an article worth a read on going back to school.

Earth School from TedEd

30 Quests for students around the world to celebrate, explore and connect with nature from TedEd.

42 Fun websites to learn and teach social studies from home

The website Bored Teachers has compiled a list of websites categorised by age for social studies topics. It’s an American site, so the terms are different, but there’s some fun stuff there.

Legoland has released free learning activities for kids

kidsactivities.com has an article on the various free learning activities and printables that Legoland has released for kids.

3 Mindfulness activities for kids

The Conversation has an excellent article on ways kids can be helped through this difficult time written by Ben Deery (Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Melbourne) with Emma Sciberras (Associate Professor at Deakin University) and Nicholar T. Van Dam (Senior Lecturer in Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne). It includes the three below mindfulness activities.

Dinosaur University on Facebook

I couldn’t see who has put together the Dinosaur University page, so I’m cautious about recommending it, however there are some pretty cool crafting activities and other things on it, as well as live Facebooks events several times a week.

55 Educational and Play Activities to Keep Kids Busy Inside

timeovertechnology.com has put together this page which includes podcasts for kids, educational resources, audiobooks for pre-readers, suggestions for screen-free activities, some baking (or close to baking) ideas, some garden activites and activities for pre-schoolers.

Shadow drawing 

Check out this nifty task – take some kids toys outside into the sun, get a sharp shadow onto the paper and draw away! This article from simplemost.com

Shadow Drawing

Talking to children and young people about COVID-19

Christine Grove is an educational psychologist and lecturer in education at Monash University. She’s written this piece on how to talk to children about COVID19, with links to additional research, support and activities.

Talking to children and young people about COVID-19

Benjamin Banjo Frog

Local artist Lois Jessop worked with her animator son, Tobi, and the late, great Australian actor Charles “Bud” Tingwell to create an animated story that can be read letter-by-letter for young readers. If you’d like to purchase a copy, it’s $15, please email her on tobopstuff@gmail.com

A list of free, online, boredom-busting resources

ChatterPack has put together a webpage with links to a whole heap of useful things, including:

Virtual Tours of museums, historical sites, galleries, aquariums and all kinds of places

Free online learning including learning languages, short courses and the like. May be more suitable for older children or adults

Geography and Nature sites which have resources and activities, including games and podcasts

Music links that will take you to free  online concerts and gigs from classical to pop

Arts and Culture links to podcasts, art, draw alongs and.a whole heap more

Literature including free books and activities

Miscellaneous and entertainment which has a whole heap of sun stuff

Anxiety and mental health with links to a whole heap of things that we all probably need more than ever right now

Prayer Resources for those who are religious, though it is very limited in the religions covered

The link is above, but also here.

Free kids and parents cooking classes from Delish

Delish are having live cooking classes every day a 1pm EST (that’s US time, which works out to be 4am US, which is not very convenient for Aussies). They’re keeping the videos up for 24 hours on Instagram, so if you can’t watch live, you can go back and revisit!

Colouring Pages by Nathan Patterson

Nathan Patterson is a proud Wagiman man living on the south cost of Victoria who has made some colouring pages of his art available for free on Facebook – here’s the article and link from ABC Indigenous.

He also has a beautiful colouring book for sale at Iluka Designs.

Scavenger Hunts

Here’s one from The Forgotten Toy Shop

And here are a couple posted by Emily Van Gundy Stockwell, a teacher from the US.

Hints for homeschooling (more appropriate for younger children)

Today I attended a webinar called The Crash Course for Homeschooling presented by the Institute for Excellence in Writing, and here are a few useful hints:

Try to establish a homeschooling culture – what goal/s do you hope to reach? What will you do today?

Be kind to yourself and your children. You can’t do it all, and it’s already a very stressful time.

Breaking activities into a couple of broad categories can help, such as Science and Arts. Try to something in each daily if possible.

Get outside if you can, whether you’re able to go for a walk, go to a local park or even just get into your own backyard.

Not all screen time is bad. Using subtitles with videos can help children with reading.

Physical activity is good – try to do something physical. Can you set up an indoors obstacle course? Play a game of Simon Says? Have a dance party?

Many kids love to memorise – how many of us could finish the following from our childhoods… “Two all beef patties…” There are heaps of poems around that kids will love to hear and maybe even to memorise to then perform to family and friends via Skype. A good site is Family Friend Poems.

Reading aloud can be a lot of fun, whether it’s the child reading or being read to. There are a lot of videos being produced of authors and actors reading books – a fabulous site is Storyline Online.