To help the many hard-pressed parents up and down the country, wildlife Charity WWT has launched an online ‘wild’ home learning hub to teach primary-school-aged children key parts of the science curriculum.
The WWT charity has more than seven decades of experience in teaching school groups. Its experts have come together to tailor their curriculum-linked resources, making them ideal for parents to use at home.
The mini-lesson plans have been divided into simple-to-follow bite-sized chunks, including an all-important outdoors element. Separate plans have also been created, aimed at children aged five to seven and those aged seven to eleven.
Every Monday morning during the lockdown, the WWT will introduce new resources covering a broad spectrum of topics relating to conservation. The charity understands how difficult and confusing this current time is for both parents and children and will be tailoring its resources and content to help educate young children at home.
WWT National Learning Manager Mark Stead said, “Under normal circumstances during the summer term, thousands of primary pupils would enjoy a school trip to one of our wetland centres, including WWT Martin Mere, each of them leaving as a budding David Attenborough.
“And after decades of doing this, we’re sitting on a wealth of learning resources. So we thought, what better way to help out than to tailor them, especially for parents at home, so you can easily keep your mini-conservationists up to speed with their curriculum?
“We’re releasing a new lesson each Monday. Just like Joe Wicks, but with science. And we promise you won’t pull a hamstring or get out of breath.”
The WWT runs Martin Mere Wetland Centre in Lancashire, and the weekly lessons will be covering themes the Martin Mere Wetland addresses on a daily basis. These include areas such as habitats, climate change, the identification of wildlife and migration. Making learning even more fun, visual resources will be available to support the lessons; fun additions include quizzes and ‘how to make’ videos.
The WWT’s ‘wild’ home learning hub is aiming to be not only educational but, fun too.
They want to nurture an emotional connection between children and nature alongside ensuring children learn in the right way. In doing this, the WWT wants to inspire current and future generations to protect the natural world, something all of us are appreciating more and more during the current restrictions.
Click on wwt.org.uk/homelearning to access the hub.