I for one (and I suspect many, many more parents) have vowed to never ever homeschool again. It’s not that we don’t love our little cherubs and want them to achieve their best selves. It’s that we do not possess the skills, or the patience, to be their teacher, alongside everything else we’ve had to deal with in the last couple of years.
However, if my brief stint at homeschooling has taught me anything, it’s opened my eyes to the sheer scale of the things our children need to learn. I’ve kind of taken it for granted that my son and daughter will be able to tell the time, or know what the date is, without actually having to learn how to do it! So I’m making a concerted effort to try and help them at home more. I’ve definitely got time that I can swap from social media surfing to more constructive activities, and it’s only going to pay off all round.
The good news is that even if you are (genuinely) short of time, there are some great resources available that will help your child learn with no teaching experience required! We’ve had great fun playing with some of the wooden games available from Jaques of London; did you know that they also offer a range of educational toys too? All made to the same high standards that have seen them become one of the UK’s most favourite toymakers for over 200 years.
Telling the Time
The Let’s Learn Teaching Clock is a simple design to introduce even the youngest of learners to the concept of clocks and telling the time (as well as number recognition). The teaching clock features brightly coloured number tiles and moveable hands, so your child can get fully involved. It’s made of sturdy, durable sustainable wood and non-toxic paints. The attention to detail is amazing, each of the wooden number pieces features an animal on the other side, so that your child can match the animal to what they eat in the slots!
The beautiful wooden pieces 
Match the animal to what it eats!
What’s the Date?
My First Calendar is another great resource which is bright and colourful, and easy to use. Featuring different sections for days, dates and months, it also has different options for seasons and weather. The Magnetic Calendar for Kids is fully magnetised, so it will last all year, and means that you can change the weather multiple times during the day! It’s great for building recognition of the names of the months and days, but also concepts such as converting the day from a number into a ‘position’ (1st / 3rd / 25th etc.) – another one of those special quirks about the English language which makes no sense when you try to explain it!
Placing all the magnets ready to go 
Today complete!
Jaques of London has an amazing range of educational toys and games, and their website is super simple to navigate. There’s everything from puzzles and mazes to play food and shape sorters. You can sort by age or type of item that you’re looking for, or just absorb yourself in all the beautiful wooden toys for kids the site has to offer!
*We were gifted these learning resources in exchange for an unbiased review.