DATE: SUNDAY 28TH JUNE 2026
ISSUE: 10 – MAKING HOME EDUCATION FUN
HELLO EVERYONE,
Does anyone remember when LLP was called “Home Ed Fun” right back at the very beginning? That was our name before we became Learn Laugh Play, and seeing the two side by side, it is pretty clear how important it has always been to me that what we provide is a way to make learning fun.
It is my firm belief that fun is the magic ingredient that makes learning special, memorable and effective. So this week is a gentle reminder, to me as much as anyone, that if our children are enjoying their learning, we are doing it right.
One little thing before we start. We are trying out comments at the bottom of today’s newsletter, and I would love you to leave one so this can become a place where we all share with each other.
Lisa x
CLASSES THAT MAKE LEARNING FUN
Public speaking, debate and drama club
Age guide 7 – 12 – Thursday 10am
Age guide 12 -16 – Tuesday 1pm
There’s nothing quite like the joy of a child who’s forgotten to be self-conscious because they’re too busy being a dragon, or a detective, or a Victorian street seller. Drama builds confidence, reading, and quick thinking, and the children rarely notice they’re learning anything at all.
Maths feels completely different when play comes first and Maths through Play and Breakfast Times Tables are two clubs where Maths starts with play.
Maths through Play – Age 4 – 6
Thursday 10am
Breakfast Times Tables
Age guide 7 – 13 – Wednesday 9am
Age guide 7 – 13 – Wednesday 11am
Age guide 7 – 13 – Friday 9am
Age guide 7 – 13 – Friday 10am
THE 9AM CLUB – REAL LIFE MEET UPS & REAL LIFE FUN!
If you’re starting to think about September and want something with a bit more structure and more regular small group contact, the 9am Club opens in September. It’s a small group of no more than 12 children, Monday to Thursday, with real maths and English lessons tailored to support each individual child exactly where they are at, study skills and wellbeing — plus weekly marking, a one-to-one with Courtney three times a term and an end-of-term report. The whole point of the 9am Club is that children feel safe and thrive because they know their classmates and build a strong personal relationship with them and their teacher.
Real life meet ups
One thing we haven’t really said much about yet, is that our intention with the 9am Club is to support you as families to have termly (optional) excursion days, where the children can spend time together in real life and really have fun as a group. This is going to depend on who signs up and geographical location but our intention is to make it happen for as many of the children in the group as we can at least once a term!
If you have children in Key Stage 3 or older teens with SEND who need something just for them, there is also a waiting list form that you can fill out for 9am clubs that we hope to start once the first one is up and running.
You can find out more about the 9 am club here.
FOUR BRAND NEW PINWINS
The next four PinWins were unlocked on the website this week, and I’m so excited to share them with you. The badges are absolutely beautiful, but it’s the learning behind them that I’m most excited about. PinWins has given us the chance to create independent learning that really matters — the real-life, empowering stuff that schools just don’t teach, which gives home educating children such an advantage over school children, in my opinion.
Ancient Civilisations lets children explore four different ancient civilisations through some seriously fun and original activities. It works beautifully as an introduction for a child who has never touched the topic, and there are plenty of activity choices for children who already love ancient history and want to dig further. The badge is also really cool!
Smart Shopper — understanding money, value, and how to spend wisely and not get caught out. There is some brilliant real-world maths woven all the way through for all ages, from creating your own play shop and making a money time machine to working out price differences through the years, comparing prices and best value, budgeting, and even exploring the ethics of shopping. It provides 48 activities suitable from 5 – 14 that let children do practical number work that genuinely sticks, because they can see exactly why it matters.
Decisiveness — learning how to weigh things up and make the right choice is a skill that serves children for the rest of their lives. Decisiveness is a skill, and like any skill it gets stronger with practice. This badge is a real boost for their confidence, letting them explore different strategies for making decisions and slowly learn to trust themselves and their own judgement. The badge is a very quirky little cat taking his own path, head held high!
Emergency Ready — knowing what to do when things go wrong, how to stay calm and keep yourself and others safe. The activities are presented in a really safe, hands-on and genuinely fun way, so children come away feeling capable and prepared rather than worried, with knowledge that most of us only ever pick up by accident.
You can find out more about all four here:
By the way, the feedback from PinWins families so far has been amazing. So many children are thriving through this style of independent learning, with the child’s freedom to choose right at the heart of it. We have our first PinWin Award Ceremony this Wednesday and I am excited for the children to be awarded their very first PinWins!
A MESSAGE
FROM LOLLIPOP
The other day I decided that learning should be FUN, so I set myself a fun day. I tried to learn to juggle (and dropped everything), I tried to bake a cake (and forgot the flour), and I tried to paint a masterpiece (and ended up tripping up and sitting on it!). By teatime I was covered in paint, cake mix and one very confused sock, and at first I thought I had learnt nothing at all.
But I’d laughed all day. And when my friend Paddington phoned me later that day and asked what I’d learned, I thought about it and said, “I love trying things, even when I’m rubbish at them.” Which, when you think about it, is probably a lesson we can all be inspired by.
Love Lollipop 🐾
THIS WEEK’S FAMILY FUN CHALLENGE
Here’s a fun challenge you might want to try this week with nothing but a bit of imagination. It’s called Yes Day Learning — for one day (or one hour if a day feels too much!), your child gets to make ALL the choices about what they learn and how. They want to learn about sharks by building a shark out of cardboard? Yes. They want to write a story but dictate it to you while lying upside down on the sofa? Yes. The only rule is that you follow their lead (as long as nothing dangerous is suggested 😄).
Choice is genuinely motivating for children and a lovely way of finding out what truly lights up our children. It often tells us something lovely about who they are right now.
BECOME AN LLP AMBASSADOR
If you love LLP and you keep telling other parents about it, we would genuinely love to reward you for your efforts! We are looking for a small group of parents to become our very first LLP ambassadors!
This is a very low key but fun commitment. Here is how it will work. You share a little of your family’s LLP life once a week on your social media, or in a Facebook group. In return, you get an ongoing free place in a class of your choice, plus ongoing annual community membership for your family. You also become part of a separate ambassador group, where our ambassadors will connect with each other and become an important part of the LLP team.
You do not need to have a huge social media following — it is more important that you are active and that people are typically interested in your posts. If you can help us reach the families whose children are struggling in school, and we can make it easier for them to home educate, then that would be an amazing thing.
If that sounds like you, send me a message or email at [email protected], and I will tell you everything you need to know.
TWO FREE CLASS OFFERS ON THE WAY
We have two free class offers coming up, and we cannot wait to tell you about them.
The first one is to help new families find us and experience LLP for themselves. This one lands on social media in the next few days, and it is for families who are new to LLP only.
If you are already an LLP family, do not worry! We are setting up something really cool and completely free just for you, and we will be announcing it towards the end of next week. We are busy building it right now and it is going to be very exciting.
Keep an eye on social media this week and next week, and tag any friends who are new to home education or just curious about LLP in the offer for new families if you can.
SUMMER FUN IN THE HEAT
If you have been struggling with the heat this week, here are a few indoor activities to keep everyone out of the sun and a few shady activities for the garden.
Indoors, set a baking or ice-cream-making challenge and let them weigh, calculate and problem-solve their way through it. Run a film afternoon with a twist where older ones review what they watch, or build a den and disappear into a good book. Let your child choose a documentary that turns “doing nothing” into a lively discussion or a random research project.
For the shade, water painting on the fence or patio is brilliant for younger ones — big brushes and a bucket of water turn into handwriting practice or number sentences, and because it is all movement and whole-body learning, it is exactly the kind of thing Courtney teaches in her handwriting class. It is not like any handwriting class you have seen before and yet the results are amazing!! An activity for older children in the garden is some proper outdoor photography or a sketching challenge. Freezing small objects into ice and timing how fast different methods melt them is good hot-weather science for any age. And a shaded card or strategy game tournament is a lovely way to pass a sticky afternoon together.
Learning doesn’t stop just because it’s too hot to move. It just gets a bit more horizontal. Stay cool out there.
We hope you have an amazing week!
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Lisa and the LLP Team
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