Parent Guides

How to start a new job during a pandemic (with three kids at home)

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the bubble team’s newest member, Sarah Hesz, joined the company this month. Faced with the prospect of starting a new job in the middle of a pandemic with her children unable to go to school or nursery, Sarah’s been using the app’s ‘regular help’ feature to book a sitter. Before joining the brilliant bubble team, I founded an app called Mush, a social app for mums with one million downloads, so I’m a bit obsessed with how tech can make parenting easier and more fun. I have three kids and have been a bubble user since it launched (so this …

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Lockdown spa: Kitchen scissors, YouTube tutorials and face paint

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One new and slightly panicked interest we all have in common since lockdown is DIY beauty and grooming. Within days of being asked to stay home, men were posting photos of their lockdown headshave.  Others began to nurture quarantine beards. As roots began to peep, WhatsApp chats became box dye advice forums and pink hair ruled. Hairdressers advised clients’ scissor-wielding partners and housemates via videolink, like bomb disposal experts calmly coaxing a sweating action movie hero to snip the blue wire, not the red. And there have been mistakes, particularly on (although not limited to) the heads of small, wriggly …

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Let it go! A note from bubble’s teaching advisor

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bubble’s teaching advisor Sarah Zeqiri has one piece of advice this week, inspired by two-year-old daughter Mabel’s screen heroine Elsa of Arendelle… Let It Go. I think we can all agree that this remote learning malarkey has been a steep learning curve for all if us. I’m here sitting on both sides of the fence; setting work on learning platforms for my students (with varying success!) and also getting my own kids to log on, download and complete the work being set by their teachers. We worry that if our children don’t do all their school work perfectly that they …

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How to do date night (when you can’t get further than 50 feet from your kids)

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Lockdown with kids is many things and romantic isn’t one of them. If you’re also cooped up with your significant other, you may be reminded of the newborn days – competitive tiredness, extreme sugar consumption, constant crying, crumpled leisurewear and an occasional urge to run away and join the French Foreign Legion. The cheeky-Fiorentina-and-Marvel-movie date nights of pre-virus times seem like an impossible, glamorous dream. And once parents have attempted to fulfil the daily obligations of care, cooking, working, walking, schooling and cleaning, the idea of a lockdown ‘date’ feels like one thing too many. But parents deserve a night …

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Dear Sarah: bubble’s teaching advisor answers your homeschool questions

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Since the start of lockdown, bubble’s teaching advisor Sarah Zeqiri has been sharing her tips for making homeschooling work. It’s now possible to ask Sarah questions about any aspect of homeschooling through the bubble app: just open live chat and start your message ‘Dear Sarah’. Here are two of the questions she’s helped parents out with so far: Dear Sarah, I’m having real trouble getting my 5 year old (year 1) to engage with doing any work, every task we sit down to complete she refuses to do, I’m getting so worried that by the time she goes back to …

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The lockdown habits that will be hard to break

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Even in the first week of lockdown, pre-coronavirus norms already felt like they belonged to a different lifetime. “This advert hasn’t aged well,” my husband said, shaking his head as the TV displayed images of people clearly not from the same household congregated less than two meters apart in an office building, with one woman – eek – eating cereal directly from a co-worker’s bowl WITH HER FINGERS. She didn’t leave the cereal 72 hours to decontaminate; she didn’t even wash her hands. Lockdown life is already ingrained. Instead of hugging and trading nits, kids shout a cheery, ‘STAY AWAY …

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Little Learners, Low Cost

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  With lockdown extended and teaching inspiration dwindling along with the household budget, bubble’s teaching advisor Sarah Zeqiri has some brilliant suggestions for rekindling your homeschool mojo for less than the cost of a large Veggie Supreme. Kinaesthetic learning (learning through movement) is ideal for small people. Not only are they more likely to remember what they’ve learned but it’s great for gross and fine motor skills. But how can you provide these learning opportunities at home without blowing a bundle on resources? Here are some of my favourite low cost items and ideas for what to do with them. …

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How to ace Easter Sunday during lockdown

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When some Police forces and local councils declared chocolate Easter eggs were a ‘non-essential’ item last week, many parents experienced a moment of minor panic. While chocolate may not be an essential grocery item, to those little people who look forward to the Easter bunny’s visit as much as Father Christmas’s, a no-show from the bunny was going to be tricky to explain. Fortunately, the official warnings were deemed heavy-handed and restrictions on the number of Easter eggs  shoppers can buy have been lifted. Still, pickings are slim and not everyone’s been able to get the usual things – foil …

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Healthy and happy at home

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It’s been a confusing few weeks for our little people. While kids are adaptable and mostly happy to enjoy some extra family time, the sudden change of routine, the new rules around handwashing and social distancing and even the fact that they’re not allowed into a locked playground while out for a walk can throw them.  bubble’s teaching advisor Sarah Zeqiri is at home with her three children, Ella, 16, Dexter, 10, and two-year-old Mabel. Here she offers these brilliant tips for keeping children happy during lockdown, helping them process their emotions… and staving off the dreaded cry of, “I’m …

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Homeschool Helper: Taking the stress out of teaching time

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It’s been a couple of weeks since parents of school-aged children found themselves suddenly cast in the role of  teacher to their kids. It’s been a steep learning curve: week one was spent shoving children in front of Joe Wicks at 9am while simultaneously getting the hang of multi-person video calls (‘We can’t hear you! Is your mic on? You’re sideways, Beverly!’) and printing out realms of worksheets from school doomed to be drenched in milk from upturned cereal bowls five minutes later. Week two brought acceptance – and the feeling that this has all been going on for a …

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