Low-key, Low-mess, Screen-free, Somewhat-educational ideas to help keep you sane (and maybe even have fun!) until the schools go back

I’ve had very many ‘I just can’t do this any more’ moments since last March. When news breaks about more lockdowns, more restrictions, less access to support networks, more isolation – those are moments that make me feel like I just can’t take the next step.

When the news broke that schools were definitely not back ’til at least March the 8^th, maybe there were some parents out there who had one of those moments too. In those moments, lifting our eyes heavenwards and crying out to Jesus is where our true help comes from. Not a list of ideas of how to make it through our day. These ideas can’t bring you a peace that passes understanding, they can’t heal hurts, they can’t bring rest for your soul. Only Jesus can do that.

But that doesn’t mean that practical ideas to help ease the burden of this crazy pandemic life don’t have a place. To that end, I’ve compiled a list of some of the things that we’ve found, through our few years of home-educating, have been easy to pull off when mummy’s tank has been running low. Because sometimes we may have the mental energy and reserves of patience necessary for finger painting and glitter – but othertimes, just no! This is for those times!! None of them are especially novel or ground-breaking, but I hope you might find some of them useful.

• Get out of the way and just let them play!

Leaving my boys to play by themselves can sometimes give me the ‘mum guilts’ – what if they think I’m not interested in their lives? What if I’m not investing enough in them? What if there are teachable moments that I’m missing? But independent play, especially imaginary ‘pretend’ play, is vital to their growth of personhood, relationships and education (I highly recommend ‘For the Children’s Sake’ by Susan Macaulay Schaeffer, daughter of Francis Schaeffer, for an excellent and guilt liberating exploration of this). So, if they’re playing happily – leave them to it! Obviously we need to be available if they come across issues they can’t work out for themselves, and to encourage kind and loving play. But time spent playing on their own is about the farthest thing from wasted time!

• Den building

Sheets, torches, snacks, some pillows, a couple of books – job done. If you want to add some geography alongside all the other educational value, you could even imagine the environment you’re in and what different modifications/additions you might need for that environment.

• Lego building

We love Lego building!! Lego is amazing in so many ways! We were given some lovely bigger Harry Potter sets for Christmas which we have been building together, taking turns to complete the steps. Getting sets off eBay without boxes can be a reasonably affordable way to get a set big enough to make together. Add some music in the background and it’s a wonderful way to spend some time together that anyone can enjoy (or at least anyone old enough not to eat the Lego).

• Listening to music

One of my boys, when he’s had enough of the crazy of our house, will sometimes come into the kitchen when I’m cooking and ask for music on my phone. Then he plonks himself down at the table and listens his way through an album – occasionally lifting his head up to give me some piece of commentary, but otherwise we listen in silence.

Sometimes, usually when we’re altogether already after lunch or dinner, someone puts on some music and we try and guess the pieces. We did this with Carnival of the Animals, trying to guess which animals the music represented, which worked well. Particular favourite versions of this game, however, include ‘Guess the Star Wars Character’s Theme’ and ‘Which John Williams Soundtrack is This From?’!

• Theme Days

Ok, so this one is a bit more effort – but we’ve found it to still be pretty low-key and lots of fun!

This came about by accident when our holiday was cancelled last June and the boys suggested we turn the house into Hogwarts. Since then, we’ve had various Harry Potter days, along with others such as Numberblocks, Minecraft, board games, and ‘Read books and drink coffee’ (three guesses whose day that was!).

The idea is we take turns picking the theme, and then we plan food/activities/games around that theme. You can be as creative and all-in as you want – or not! For Numberblocks, we made square foods, play-acted some of the episodes, played with maths blocks, and played a couple of maths games. For Minecraft day, the boys came up with Minecraft-themed foods and we did a Minecraft quiz, lit some sparklers in the garden for TNT, and did a bit of Minecraft baking (full disclosure – this day was obviously not a screen free activity!).

The extra advantage of these days is that the boys really enjoyed planning what to do on the day, so it was almost two fun activities for the price of one. 😊

• Read alouds

Reading together, snuggled up is something we love so much. We’ve enjoyed so many books together, sharing our thoughts together afterwards. Audiobooks have also been wonderful for this too, especially when I’ve been trying to keep a toddler entertained too and not really been able to read more than half a sentence at a time! We’ve found that most books can actually be enjoyed by everyone – after finishing Harry Potter recently, I downloaded Winnie the Pooh, which the two bigger boys were not massively impressed at the idea of. However, after a couple of minutes they were laughing away, and when I said it was time to turn it off there were pleadings for just a few more minutes from both.

• Picture books

Often thought of as only for younger children, these are actually wonderful for all ages. Picture-book biographies in particular are fantastic for introducing new people and ideas in a way that everyone gets something out of (me included) in one sitting. And then we get to talk about the pictures and the different ways things are portrayed in word and illustrations. Sometimes it’ll spark something in one of the older ones and we can then go and dig deeper in more in-depth books. We recently read about the round-the-world race of Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, which I found so fascinating that I asked for their respective books for Christmas – picture books are definitely not just for the little ones!

• Board games

Not every day is a good board game day! Days when children seem set on bickering no matter what – that’s probably a day to give them a miss! But otherwise, board games are something of a favourite here, and one of our boys in particular is often thinking of possible expansions or inventing ideas for his own games. I’m not sure any of them have made it to a playable state yet (though we’ve always said we’ll play them with him if they do) – but the fun is in the planning and imagining for him and then telling us about his ideas.