CREATE YOUR OWN FAMILY NEWSPAPER - HOMESCHOOLING IDEAS

Whether you're taking a break from homeschooling activities over the Easter holidays or maintaining your daily homeschooling schedule, we're sure that you'll welcome an idea or two to help keep your children occupied or entertained. 

ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS AT HOME

Despite not being able to leave the house, it's a busy time for us parents having to juggle work, life and having our little ones at home. We're guessing that you're as grateful as the GLTC team are - there are many parents amongst us - for any tips, tricks, suggestions and printable resources. 

CREATE YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER

One thing that I, Rachel, am doing with my two boys (aged 7 and 9), is creating a weekly-ish family newspaper - or a front page of a newspaper.

How?

Well, we started by looking at a real newspaper and noting down all the key features - a name, date, price, heading size versus paragraph size and style, and the different types of articles.

After coming up with our name (The Weekly Times) and a very reasonable price of £2, we then talked about what the boys would like to write and read about in their very own paper. They decided on the following:

• News - an article about something they've loved or enjoyed during the week.
• A book or audio book review.
• Sports feature.
• Lego creation of the week.
• A word search.
• A joke.
• A drawing or photograph of something spotted in the garden or on a walk.

Just enough to give them a little task or update to work on every day but not too much that the whole learning week becomes centred around the newspaper. 

We've chosen to do ours by hand rather than on a laptop or computer, mainly to limit screen time but also to brush up on handwriting skills. You can obviously opt for whichever platform works best for you and your little ones.

I cut out a large broadsheet-size piece of paper from the Easel Paper Roll and use a pencil and ruler to mark out sections for each article or drawing. The boys then complete their articles on separate pieces of paper which we glue in place.

A FAMILY MEMENTO

My main reasons for wanting to create a family newspaper and encouraging the boys to get involved are twofold. One, it's a great way for them to keep learning: reading, writing, being aware of their surroundings, critiquing, creating, and so on. All valuable skills. As they're predominantly in control of the content, it's something that they're excited to do, too.

And two, this is going to be a year that we all remember for a long, long time; potentially a year that our children will talk about for years to come. Other than the occasional snow day, schools don't shut. We've never been asked to stay at home. I'm keen for them to have a record of this year, of the things they've done and how they've felt. Making a family newspaper might seem like a sweet little exercise in place of school work and to pass the time but it will also be a physical document that we can keep and look back on in the future.

HOME LEARNING RESOURCES

Want more tips and tricks? Not only can you search the GLTC blog for fun activities and craft ideas, we've also created a dedicated page for Home Learning Resources, from handy schedules to scavenger hunt printables. We'll continue to add more over the coming weeks so do keep checking back - or follow us over on Instagram to be amongst the first to hear when something new is available.