12 ways to keep the kids occupied
Already wondering how you're going to keep juggling work and home school? Internet to the rescue! We've rounded up Cornwall's most loved kids activities, from museums to theatre and wildlife, that are now available online, to boost your kids' creativity and keep them engaged.
Beach Guardian/ Cornwall Council
Cornwall Council are running live STEM lessons on Facebook, kicking off Friday 22 Jan at 11.30am with Emily Stevenso aka the Beach Guardian co-founder and marine biologist, for a fun-filled, beach themed, marine biology lesson and microplastic experiment.
The session will include content appropriate for a variety of age groups, with some epic, hands-on plastic experiments that you can try out for yourself on your next beach visit. Emily will also talk about some of the things to look out for when on your daily walks, with a live Q&A afterwards.
St Ives School of Painting Sunday Kids Club
Join the St Ives School of Painting online every fortnight on a Sunday morning for a kids art club inspired by the artists of St Ives – this week (24 Jan) the theme is inspired by Patrick Heron (above) who was famous for his bold and bright paintings. He loved to look at colour in nature and create simple shapes on large canvasses – this class invites you to look at shapes and colour, and try out colour mixing yourself. Aimed at 7-12 year olds but younger ones can join supervised. £10 per family.
Newquay Zoo – Wild At Home
Keep up to date with the animals, including new arrivals the black and white ruffed lemurs (above) on the Zoo’s Facebook page, as well as find loads of interesting activity PDFs on the free Wild at Home page which span the whole curriculm from Maths to PE, divided up by KS, like this maths exercise to make a food chain using paper chain links.
If your kids love art, or the Tate St Ives, then they’ll love the kids Tate resource, full of all sort of activities and interesting information, games, quizzes, challenges and resources on all sorts of artists across the Tate portfolio, not just Cornwall.
Worksheets and activity suggestions as well as loads of things to watch, things to make and do from Cornwall’s wildlife rangers.
National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth
Meet Friday the Green Turtle live (99p watch fee) at 1pm on Wednesday 20th January. You can ask questions to the aquarium’s marine biologists live, or comment your questions you’d like to know in this event. See Friday the Turtle up close, find out more about turtles and how you can help protect them as well as ask questions, live!
PLUS, every Friday during the lockdown, you will be able to tune in to two special shows on their Youtube Channel to meet some of their amazing animals as well as stopping in at the AquaLab to explore the science behind the animated ocean exploration tv series ‘The Deep’ (CBBC @12pm on weekdays during lockdown).
Watch video interviews with children’s authors and illustrators (like this one with Martin Brown, Horrible Histories illustrator. Videos are divided into KS2 and KS3-4 and also include a creative challenge for children to complete.
Gatherings of Wild Imaginings, Rogue’s virtual wild theatre project
A fantastic collection of stories, music, poetry, online workshops and activities you can take part in, all online, from Cornwall’s magical (and Muddy fave) Rogue Theatre.
War and military related home learning fact sheets can be downloaded from Bodmin Keep full of interesting facts, activities and links to historic film clips on subjects like rationing, dig for victory and women at war.
Percy Pengelly and the Wibble-Wobble
A three part mini-series based on the original Cornish children’s book, “Percy Pengelly and the Wibble-Wobble” by local author, Jenny Steele Scolding, adapted and acted online from Cousin Jack’s Theatre.
Storytime usually takes place in Falmouth Library every Tuesday but as this can’t happen at the moment the librarian’s have recorded some stories to enjoy at home, with more to be added as lockdown continues.
National Maritime Museum Falmouth
While the museum is closed, you can catch up on the exhibits with some short virtual tours, like the one of Monsters of the Deep, above.
