Updates from the council on coronavirus

Check the latest advice on COVID-19 →

Activity packs for children staying at home due to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis

Can you help share paper-based activities to families without internet access at home?

Parents and carers will be concerned about their children’s education, and the impact of missing school, whilst they stay at home due to the coronavirus emergency.

There are lots of free online learning activities available, but some families do not have access to the internet.

A collection of resources are listed below. If you think you can help, please print the pages you think children will enjoy and share with your friends and family members who may find the resources helpful.

Please note:

  • Some packs are quite large [zipped] files.
  • You will need Adobe Reader or other PDF software to open files.
  • Printer and paper required.
  • Printable activities have copyright ownership – please check terms of use.

Go Play Sandwell Resource Pack

Ideas, resources, links and opportunities to engage with at home or across social media platforms.

How to access the online content through Go Play Sandwell's resource pack:

  • Follow the above link to the main Dropbox dashboard.
  • Click on one of the folder categories.
  • Select a folder to access the themed content.
  • Select from the multiple choice of online resources, by clicking on one of the files.
  • Save the resource directly to your computer to print or view on screen.

Guidance for families of school children learning at home

Education Otherwise has guidance for families with school children currently learning at home due to the COVID-19 emergency. The guidance addresses common questions and concerns received from parents.

Family Information Service

The Family Information Service (FIS) has rounded-up educational and fun resources by ages and topics for families staying at home. Find out more on Sandwell FIS Facebook and Twitter.

Please share the post on your social media channels. It should help a lot of families find educational and fun things to do with their children while they are stuck at home.

Sandwell Residential Education Service

Amazing ways to learn with our creative arts and outdoor learning centres

All kinds of resources at SRES at Home to keep children and young people learning and having fun at home. Keep checking back for updates. We'd love to see what you get up to, so if you'd like to share anything with us just use #SRESatHome.

Art and Craft

  • Get Creative, Stay Creative - packs bursting with ideas and simple steps to help you get creative and stay creative, from making crazy portraits to toilet roll owls and painting with coffee. They all use simple household items - so no specialist equipment required.
  • Easy paper butterfly origami - the team at Edgmond Hall are making fab butterflies!
  • Spring inspired weaving - create some amazing spring inspired art in a few simple steps. 

Interactive and Performance

  • Challenge 'The Man who knows everything' and his brilliant brain. Live and interactive!
  • Newave Arts: Music@Home with The Chord Basher -  splendid tutorial videos that you can follow at home.
  • Classic Stories - Live! Chapters from classic novels such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Outdoors Indoors

  • 25 Home Challenges - keep the adventures alive while you are at home
  • Create a time capsule of all the things you make, collect and do, put in a safe place and set an opening date.
  • Birds nests and feeders - help build a nest and see which is most popular for your local birds.
  • Get Growing - Edgmond Hall share some tips and experiments about how plants grow.

Learning at home: My Activity Books

TTS Group has created a curriculum-focused independent learning resource with over 120 home learning activities all planned and prepared!

  • Free downloads to print and share.
  • Activities for all curriculum areas.
  • Easy to use with all tasks explained clearly.
  • All activities help to revise and embed curriculum learning at home.
  • Home learning books provide a great opportunity for parents to learn with their children.

Home Learning for EAL: Project Packs

Flash Academy has provided a free home learning project pack that has been designed to support home learning for EAL (English as an additional language). The pack covers topics from storytelling and literacy, to geography and UK culture, and an EAL pupil podcast opportunity so that pupils can practise their English speaking skills at home.

The pack includes:

Week 1 - Staying Healthy
Week 2 - All About EAL (includes pupil podcast activity)
Week 3 - Activate Your Imagination
Week 4 - The World Around Us (includes page of fun challenges)

Fun and free bundles for inspiration

Activity Village wants to do their bit to help, so has pulled together some of their favourite activities into free bundles, and for the next few weeks at least, they are free to download.

The resources are "fun" rather than educational - and offer some inspiration and distraction:

Twinkl supporting learning at home

Twinkl is supporting continued learning at home by offering parents free access to all Twinkl resources for a period of one month - now extended due to continued school closures.

Twinkl has put together a simple, step-by-step guide about this offer of help, for teachers and schools to use: How to Utilise Twinkl during the Coronavirus Shutdown: A Guide for Schools. The guide is not designed to replace official guidance, but is intended to advise on using the Twinkl website during this period.

Setting this up is easy to do - go to the Twinkl website and enter the code UKTWINKLHELPS

If you are an existing subscriber, Twinkl advise that you can use this code to upgrade your current membership - check out the offer online.