AD There are days when my children happily play by themselves and there are days when they need more entertainment. I’m happy to set up activities like invitations to play, painting or crafts, but sometimes I wish that there was someone that could just take over for a little bit and entertain my children for me. Luckily I have discovered Outschool.

Find out more about Outschool

Interactive Online Play Sessions For Children

Outschool is an education platform which offers live classes online to small groups of children. While it has many classes based around maths, english, history, geography etc what I really love are the less academic “life skills” classes. I can easily find a class to interest my children and taking part is just like having a fun group leader coming into your home and entertaining your child for a while. The classes take place online and obviously you need to be nearby, but it means I can do a bit quick of work or have a cup of tea uninterrupted. 

I really like the Outschool classes. They take away the mum guilt on days when my children are a bit bored, but I don’t feel up to playing with them. The choice of classes is absolutely huge from singing, drawing, computer games to sessions which have a bit of everything. 

In fact I found there is so much choice it was hard to know where to begin. A good starting point is to filter the classes by age and then look at what is available in the next couple of hours. Of course the most popular classes get booked up further in advance, but there has still been good availability on classes that interest us. You can also filter by class type with some of the options being drawing, gaming, escape rooms and singing.

Outschool classes are live and interactive

Taking part in a We're Going On A Dinosaur Hunt! class

Booking Our First Class With Outschool

The first class we booked on to was We’re Going On A Dinosaur Hunt! by Little Adventurers which is an Escape Room style class aimed at 4 to 6 year olds. It’s a 25 minute class and cost £7 (but costs and length of classes varies). It was really easy to enrol and it sent a reminder shortly before the class started. I then clicked on the link at the right time and was taken to Zoom.

The teacher quickly relaxed my daughter and got her joining in so she was bouncing around in front of the computer and having fun. Last time we went to a birthday party with an entertainer my daughter took over an hour to relax enough to join in so seeing her engaged within a few minutes with the online class was great. We had tried to do Little’s dance class online during lockdown and she got bored, but the Outschool classes are specifically designed for teaching remotely combined with a small class where there was two-way conversations made a difference.

What I love About Outschool

-You can sign up to regular classes, but there are plenty of one off sessions so you can just take a class when your child is in the mood for one or you have time.

-The classes are live and interactive. Thanks to the small groups children become engaged quickly and join in. 

-Outschool has classes for children age 3 to 18 and whatever your children are interested in you will find something for them. 

-The range of classes is huge and they all sound so exciting. Looking for a class for my 6 year old on a Sunday afternoon some of the options were: drawing Pokemon, becoming a zoologist, singing and dancing to Disney songs, Spanish, alphabet bingo, ‘would you rather’ thinking club, karate, piano lessons… and the list goes on and on. See what I mean when I say there is a huge range?

-If your child needs a booster on an academic subject then there are lots of fun or more formal classes for that too which might appeal more to your child than a traditional tutoring set up.

-Outschool classes are perfect when you are spending a day at home if you are looking for something different for your children to do. It doesn’t feel like more screen time, more like taking your child to a party.

Try Outschool for Free

If you like the sound of Outschool then you can try a class or 2 for free with $20 of credit when you sign up via this link and use my code UKSAVE20K. Don’t worry that the amount is in dollars, Outschool currently provides classes in 183 countries. There are plenty of classes at UK times and you can see which country the teacher lives in when you look at a class details.