Coronavirus Kent: Education apps and online systems as children in Kent home school

On the first day of social distancing my child ate through...

Anyone familiar with the story of the Hungry Caterpillar may have had a chuckle at this meme doing the rounds on social media this morning.

One of the things I mentioned in last week's blog was how we could go about limiting the constant request for snacks whilst they're at home.

I've seen some fantastic suggestions online from a small bowl or basket of snacks for the day that children have to self-limit and space out through to fun kitchen tuck shops in which kids can spend £1 each day and have the potential to earn more for chores or activities completed.

For Oscar and Liv - I'm going to attempt on weekdays to keep to something that reflects what they've been used to at school - which is fruit mid-morning and mid-afternoon, lunch around noon and then a slightly more 'appealing' snack at a time roughly in line with the end of their school day.

I'm naively hopeful that sticking to what they are relatively conditioned to will set apart their weekdays from their weekends when I won't be trying to persuade them into a carrot stick instead of a biscuit or cracker at 10.30am.

Other successes on Day 1 include getting dressed before 9am and 30 minutes of brilliant PE with Joe Wicks. This was really useful in signalling the start of the day, keeping them busy whilst I looked at their instructions from school and catching up on my own work.

What hasn't been so great - and is absolutely no one's fault - is the snail's pace at which some of their online classroom platforms and apps are running at.

Computers have said 'no' A LOT already today.

Clearly with so many children working at home, and many probably using the same resources to guide them, getting them logged on has proved really tricky so we've had to use some colouring, workbooks and other games we had lying around the house to fill the time instead.

But we plough on. Snack anyone?

More on life on the home schooling front

For more suggestions of things to do with the kids in Kent visit www.mykentfamily.co.uk