What resources are people finding good to occupy the kids educationally?

Has the school given you any guidance? Ours didn’t give a huge amount, but from the last email we got just before the Easter hols, I get the feeling that there’ll be a bit more structure after the two weeks, so I’m not stressing about it right now.

kandr10 wrote: »

Also that it’s all worksheet based. I don’t find it worth the printing, be it for class or for my own child. You get maybe 5-10 minutes work out of each sheet and it’s expensive to print for that kind of payoff.

Yeah I got stuff from twinkl last month and thought wow this is going to be great! But at the end of the day it's just work sheets and it didn't offer any advice or guidance on how to get the kids to engage with the material and learn from it, it's really resources for teachers

They could also try some coding apps like scratch, lightbot, hopscotch. They could make movies using a basic app (iMovie if you’re apple users, or equivalent). There’s also a few apps for making stop motion movies which are fun to do. If they’re into Lego for example they could build something and use it in the movie. They could draw/write a storyboard first. it’d be a good long term project.

Access to world book online is now free through scoilnet. They have interesting project tabs. Might be of interest for browsing.

https://www.scoilnet.ie/scoilnet-services/world-book/

National geographic kids is now also free online through the libraries website.

It sounds like you have maths covered with khan and mangahigh. Revising and making sure they know tables inside and out is the only other thing I’d advise.
For literacy as another poster said, reading is invaluable. They could write about it afterwards but just reading as much as possible can’t be underestimated.

This is the poster - Irish version.

What programs can be used on a computer so that you don’t need supervision or anything else?

I'm interested in program on the computer for my little one. At the same time useful, safe and age-appropriate. So as not to overwhelm.

After research I've found Magic Desktop - the platform that provides age-appropriate educational content in a safe environment. Looks very promising. Does anyone have experience with it?

I would agree with board games. There are many genuinely good board games (i.e. not snakes and ladders or monopoly) that teach good educational skills like numeracy, strategy and creativity. My daughter is 6 and I have nieces and nephews of all ages and from playing with them I would suggest the following (most or all can be found in Easons or Smyths or easily online):

My 6 your old can play of these:

Ticket to Ride - Collect coloured cards, then spend matching sets of them to place your trains on the same colour tracks. Young kid version available (Ticket to Ride: First Journey), but normal version is for 8 and up.

Santorini - Simple strategy game were you move a meeple one space on a grid board and then place a building level (bottom, middle or top, as appropriate) on an adjacent square. If you manage to move your meeple onto the top level of a building, you win. But other players can block off the top of buildings with blue domes on their turn.

Labyrinth - Pathfinding maze game were you push tiles into the sides of a maze to change paths so that you can reach the particular treasure on your current card.

Carcassonne - Tile placing game were you collect points if you complete landmarks that you have put meeples on (eg walled towns, roads, abbeys).

Mysterium and Dixit - Both very creative card game, with very similar mechanic using card with unique art.

In Dixit you place a card face down and give a description, then everyone else adds a card face down and they are mixed and revealed and everyone else must get yours. You wont get points if everyone guesses yours (your clue was too easy) or no-one guesses yours (clue was too hard). Tons of expansions with new cards. Get Odyssey version first if possible, has enough components for up to 12 players.

In Mysterium, one player is a ghost giving clues (cards very like dixit cards) to the other players who are trying to figure out the murderer, location and weapon (NB: it's violent or gory at all). The ghost can't talk at all, the rest of the players work together. Goes up to 7 players.

Sheriff of Nottingham - Bring goods past the Sheriff, but can take a chance to smuggle contraband. Put cards in your bag and declare to the Sheriff (rotating role each round). If Sheriff believes you, you can go through. If they don't and open your bag, you pay fine if you lied/there is contraband, or Sheriff pays you compensation if you were telling the truth. Can also offer bribes to let your stuff through, or to encourage Sheriff check other peoples bags.

The following require decent writing and spelling so my 6 year old is not quite ready for them, but if your kids can play scrabble, then they can play these no problem

Knit Wit - Word game were you come up with words based on word cards attached to spindles. You don't score anything if someone else comes up with same word so you need to be creative.

Letterpress and Paperback - Similar card games were you try to build words out of letter cards. In paperback you start with the same set and buy more cards into your deck during the game. In Letterpress, you draft each round (deal 5 each, keep 1 and pass until hand until 5 are kept). I prefer Letterpress a bit, as I find it has a bit more variation earlier in the game.