Planning to Give Nursery a Skip This Year But Worried About Your Child’s Development?

While parents begin to consider home-schooling for their little ones, many are confused about how to guide their child. What activities could be fun and educational at the same time? Read to find out. 

I have been meeting quite a few parents with kids in the age group of 2-4 years. Most of them are experimenting with or are eager to try Home-schooling for their little ones.It’s a pretty good decision, I must admit! Considering the on-going Pandemic, hectic WFH and children’s health and safety, this is indeed a well thought-out path.

However when I ask these parents how do they plan to implement it, they generally end up giving a deadpan look or are not quite sure how to go about it.

Flashcard games

Try buying a variety of them, right from alphabets, numbers, animals and stories. This helps in improving memory and cognitive skills of your child.

Rhymes & Stories

Let your little one learn rhymes and stories by listening to you reading to them. There are plenty of audio apps available for this too. Along with this exercise, talk to them about culture and tradition. Kids are receptive at this stage and you may imbibe values in them easily. Make sure you explain things to them with reasoning. This helps in shaping a strong personality.

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Paper tearing, crumpling and cutting

Encourage your child to tear and crumple used papers and even newspapers. Child-friendly scissors are readily available in the market. Children enjoy doing this. While this will definitely create some mess in the house, it will help in enhancing their kinaesthetic skills.

Playdough and LEGO blocks

Let your child explore his/her creative skills while using playdough or LEGO blocks. This enables in improving their creativity and decision making . This also allows them be on their own. Needless to say, you may be partially supervising this activity.

Colouring

Encourage your child to do colouring using crayons and pencil colours. You may also experiment with water-colours. But make sure you stay around when they use wet colours. Try handprint, footprint paintings apart from the conventional coulouring-books. In addition to this, you may also include some simple origami activities.

Let’s learn about lines and curves

Once your kid settles down a bit with the above-mentioned activities, start introducing the concept of lines (Standing, sleeping, slanting, curves) to them. They may find it difficult initially but with practice, they will eventually gain confidence.

Introduction to alphabets and numbers

You know your child best. The moment you see your child settling down with lines and curves, you may begin to teach them alphabet and number writing.

Roleplays

Let your child explore and learn about people and things through role-plays. Be a part of it- this need not be scripted. Enjoy the natural flow of the play. This helps in improving their communication skills and instills confidence in them.

Learning by doing

As per their development and comfort, give them some easy household tasks. I have seen my 5-year-old daughter participate in cooking activities with zeal. Entrust them with tasks which they enjoy doing. This inculcates sense of responsibility in them.

The above are few of the pointers to help you home-school your little one with ease. Make sure you create a realistic timetable to include activities on a regular basis.

First published here.

Image Source: Ulrike Mai

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