DATE: SUNDAY 3RD MAY 2026
ISSUE: 2
Spring into Learning – First week of May!
First week of May! Don’t forget that we still have lessons on Monday even though it is a bank holiday. You are of course welcome to watch the recordings however if that works best for your family.
COMING SOON CLASSES
Parents Games Club -Tuesday 6pm
Tired of the kids getting all the fun? Wanting to try something a little different, but is time for YOU!? Well at Learn Laugh Play, we have the answer – Games Club for Parents! Similar to our immensely popularly Games Club for children, Nick is taking things to a different level with a new Games Club for parents! Come and join him and the parental community for a dose of fun and get to meet other adults who home-educate just like you.
Animal Care Club 2 – Monday 10am
Celebrating the animals in our homes and out of them. We have 2 different animal care clubs running with different topics so you can choose the one to suit you or come along to both!
These are friendly and relaxed clubs where we encourage each other to learn by focusing on something we really care about. Learning to take care of pets and wildlife we will look at different animals and how they live. We will make treats, toys and habitats to help support the animals we love. Children will also write about their pets and journal about wildlife while exploring different animals.
TRY A NEW WAY TO INSPIRE WRITING THIS WEEK
Unlock Creativity with Freewriting
Freewriting is a brilliant “no-rules” writing technique that can help children to overcome fear of making mistakes or not knowing what to write about. It is also helpful for clearing “clutter” making it easier to be productive once all the ‘nonsense’ has been cleared out of the brain! The only rule is that the pen or pencil must keep moving the entire time—tell your child “if we get stuck, we just have to write “I don’t know what to say” until a new thought pops !into our heads
How to do it:
Set a Timer: Start with just 5 minutes of focused writing.
Model It: Sit and write alongside your child to make it a fun shared activity. It can be fun to share your writing with each other at the end of the 5 minutes.
Ignore the Rules: Make sure you tell your child to forget all about spelling, grammar, or neatness; they need to just allow their thoughts and ideas to flow from their mind to the paper without any thought of whether it is “good enough”.
You can just write whatever comes in your head, but if your child needs more structure to start with you can use silly prompts!
3 Silly Free-Writing Prompts:
The Secret Life of Shoes: What do your trainers do while you’re asleep?
The Spaghetti Rainstorm: You wake up and it’s raining cooked pasta. What happens next?
Pet Takeover: If the dog was in charge in your house for the day, what would be the first rule?
You can also use fun images as a prompt for free writing. Try this one!
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE
Charlotte Mason is considered by many to have revolutionised home education with what were considered to be progressive thoughts at the time. Her core belief was that the child is a person and we must educate that whole person, not just their mind.
“Give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.” Charlotte Mason
If you were to share one valuable idea with your child this week, what would you want it to be?
LOLLIPOP HAS BEEN CHILLING IN EXETER!
If you keep clicking on the website to find out where Lollipop has been, she said to tell you that she is really sorry! Lollipop got delayed in London and has spent a few days chilling with Lily. Lily is an LLP “graduate” who is now a full time student but does a few hours a week of LLP admin!
This weekend Lollipop will be helping Lily to check all the Zoom codes and worksheets are up in time for you to print from Sunday night onwards.
We really appreciate Lily doing this job every weekend to help to make your experience as LLP customers a smooth one!
Lily also sends Lollipop off to her next destination every week and looks after her when she needs to recoup!
New Competition!! Real Life Maths
May’s learning competition is all about using Maths in the real world. This is a brilliant opportunity to get children counting, measuring, cooking, budgeting, converting temperatures, working out patterns, measuring the garden for a new fence… The possibilities are endless and with the chance to win one of our awesome prizes, your child just might be encouraged to do some impressive Maths! You can find out more about the competition here.
THANK YOU!
If you have already set up your child’s username and profile area, and your child is now using their LLP username in their lessons, then thank you. Your child is a trail blazer! Please make sure you tell them how much we appreciate them using their username.
If you have not yet done so, please take a moment to go to your account and set up your child’s account under “Manage child profile”. The purpose of the usernames is to keep children anonymous on Zoom but give LLP admin immediate access to you, if there is an issue in a lesson. It doesn’t happen very often, but it can happen, and we need your help in making sure we can talk to you if we need to.
4 new PinWins added every single month!