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Staying safe indoors? Transform your home into a fun learning environment!
March 26, 2020
4 min
Positive Parenting
Are you staying indoors more often now to keep your family safe from COVID-19? If so, this is an ideal opportunity to nurture a love for learning in your child – by turning your home into a fun-filled learning environment!
At My First Skool, we believe that strong parent-preschool partnerships are the foundation of a happy and healthy child who enjoys consistency in how they learn – both in school and at home. Today, we’re sharing some creative ways that you can transform your home into a stimulating environment that promotes learning in little ones.
1. Doodle boards
One of these activities involves doodle boards, and can be done at home! Try hanging drawing boards on your walls and encouraging your child to doodle on them. This activity allows your child to express their thoughts through sketches. For example, if your child wants to play with their favourite toy, they can draw a picture of that toy to let you know exactly what they want to do.
Parents can follow up by asking your child related questions, such as, “What do you like about this toy?” or “What fun adventures can we have playing with this toy today?” This way, you can understand your child better and spend more quality time with them.
2. The curious parent
Every parent knows that children have boundless curiosity, often asking dozens of questions in a row without tiring. Well, it’s time for parents to start asking questions too – in a game that’s designed to stimulate your child’s curiosity!
The key is to ask intriguing questions that will challenge your child to think, such as “Why does the lamp light up when you turn the switch on? or “How does the oven cook food?” Focus on asking “why” and “how” questions that will spark their imaginations and inquisitive young minds. Create opportunities for children to converse with you – asking questions, while sharing their thoughts and ideas of how and why the things around them work.
When playing this game with toddlers, you can simplify it by asking your toddler to looking into the mirror and create funny facial expressions. For example, you could ask them questions like, “How do you feel when you break a cup?” or “When mummy gives you a hug, how do you feel?”
3. Green fingers
Bond with your child over a common hobby that will bring some greenery to your home – growing plants. This activity is especially useful if you have a balcony or backyard that could use some plant life.
To get started, create a small gardening area for you and your child to share. Now, choose a few plants and start growing them. For variety, you can purchase young plants from a florist and care for them, as well as start growing a few other plants from seeds.
Along the way, you can teach your child about how plants grow, how some bloom with flowers during certain seasons, the concept of photosynthesis, and more. Your child can also learn about responsibility as they care for the plants and water them (with your guidance) every day.
4. Fashion fiesta
Do you have old clothes that you’re intending on throwing away or converting into old rags? Here’s a fun activity that you can do instead – give new life to these old clothes by repurposing them.
Lead your child in this imaginative activity by asking them how they think a certain piece of clothing can be reused. Give them hints to encourage them, suggesting that old clothes can be used for a variety of purposes – such as changing them into item covers to protect household items from dust, or perhaps even transforming the look of the clothing into something that they’d enjoy wearing around the home! (For example, if your child loves drawing, they could use permanent cloth markers to draw on an old shirt – making is a unique, one-of-a-kind creation that they can show off to friends!)
5. Size this up
Remember the days when your height was measured by a marking on the wall? You can capture the fun of seeing those large measurements by placing giant-sized rulers around your home. Besides being more wall-friendly, these giant rulers are also a great way to start conversations about numbers with your child.
You can ask them to guess the height, length or breadth of items around the home, then measure it with your giant ruler. This fun activity is simple to do, requires no set up (outside of purchasing a giant ruler), and is a great way of getting your child interested in numbers, while also learning basic mathematical concepts (like taller, shorter, longer, etc.).
Get started today
As a parent, you play an important role in nurturing your child’s love for learning. So, create a fun learning environment at home and get your child started on the right track! To make sure they continue having fun while learning in a positive environment, take a tour of a My First Skool near you and enrol your child in our childcare or infant care programme. Register here.
