Activities to support online safety at home. These resources are from Child.net. They can be accessed via the links below or the documents provided.
For 3-7 year olds
Younger children may interact more with technology than they have done ever before during this time. There are lots of creative and educational ways to help them learn how to do this in a safe and balanced way. Use our activities below to help them manage their online lives whilst staying at home.
We’ve selected a couple of activities from across our resources to help this group manage their time online and stay safe too.
1. Family tech rules
Download our Family Agreement - an easy-to-use guide to having a family discussion on how you all agree to use the internet. After you've answered the questions and come to an agreement, ask your child to draw pictures to illustrate your new family rules about using the internet during this time. By giving your child a role, they will feel more empowered and invested in following the boundaries you agree together.
Download the Family Agreement here
2. Learn with Digiduck
The Digiduck story collection has been created to help parents, carers and teachers educate children aged 3-7 about online safety. The collection includes ebooks, PDFs, a poster and an interactive app.
Follow Digiduck and his pals in these stories about friendship, responsibility and critical thinking online.
Digiduck’s Famous Friend
In the latest of our Digiduck online safety stories for young children, Digiduck® and his classmates are set the task of finding out who their special guest will be at school today. Through chatting online and asking questions they try to decide who the mystery guest is. This story revolves around the themes of critical thinking and reliability online.
Read Digiduck's Famous Friend here
Digiduck's Big Decision
Help arrives just in time for Digiduck when faced with a difficult decision! This story revolves around the themes of friendship and responsibility online.
Read Digiduck's Big Decision here
3. Have an adventure with Smartie the Penguin
Smartie the Penguin is an online safety story for use with 3-7 year olds.
Join in with Mummy Penguin’s song and follow the adventures of Smartie the Penguin as he learns how to be safe on the internet.
Download the story and follow on resources here
4. This is me!
Read the poem created for Safer Internet Day 2020 and use as a conversation to start talking with your child about what they like to do online and what they already know about staying safe. After you read it through, encourage your child to write their own poem using the things they like to do and what they know about going online safely.
Download the 'This is Me' poem here. This is part of an Education Pack for Safer Internet Day 2020 that can be found here.
For 7-11 year olds
1. Family tech check
Ask your child to take notes on what tech you have in your home, which ones have controls or filters on, and how much time your family is spending on each one for a couple of days. Ask them to bring this information with them to a family discussion on how you all agree to use the internet during this time. Our Family Agreement is an easy-to-use guide to having these conversations. By giving your child a key role, they will feel more empowered and invested in following the boundaries you agree together.
Download the Family Agreement here
2. Be a quiz master
Ask your child to brush up on their online safety skills by working their way through our interactive quiz for primary pupils. After they have completed all the sections, they could run the quiz with other members of your family, and compare scores. Are there any areas that your family need more knowledge on? Set your child the challenge of running a mini-tutorial to get everyone up to speed.
Take the primary online safety quiz here
3. Get SMART with Kara, Winston and the SMART Crew
Show your child our 5 SMART rules cartoons about staying safe online. Once they've watched the films, there are further guidance and activities you can do as a family to discuss what you've watched.
The films include a real life SMART Crew of young people, who guide the cartoon characters in their quest, and help them make safe online decisions. Why not ask your child to film their own advice to go along with each film?
Watch the SMART Crew cartoons here
4. Screen time - spot the signs
When it comes to children and technology, parents and carers often have the same question: How much screen time should children have? Now more than ever, children will be turning to the internet for their entertainment and social connections. It can be easy to lose track of time online.
Use our bank of quick activities together with your child to help them recognise the signs they may experience when they've been online too long and the importance of balancing online and offline activities.
Download the Screen Time and Healthy Balance Quick Activities here
5. Poem time
Show your child the following video, ‘Jessica’s Wish’ https://vimeo.com/152415364 .
Discuss the following questions together:
Your child could create a storyboard to accompany the poem, and could even turn this into a short films or animations, using the original video as inspiration.
Can your child create their own poem about what they like to use the internet for?
Download the full text for the Jessica's Wish poem here. This is part of an Education Pack for Safer Internet Day 2020 that can be found here.
6. Online identity detective
The Safer Internet Day 2020 quiz explores whether children feel free to be themselves online. Get your child to test their knowledge about what identity means online, and how it shapes what we think of ourselves and others.
Once they have completed the quiz, can they write their own to run with other members of your family?