Some ideas for helping your children learn.

The most important thing when you want to get a child to learn something is to make sure they are ready and motivated to learn and every day there are hundreds of opportunities to do so that are fun and encourage your child/children to learn. Games like eye spy are

Consider the questions you ask, make sure that your child has room to respond more than yes or no. We all know that reading is important and I have mentioned before about prositive role modelling, littlies love the interaction of reading with their parent, learn to bark at print quickly because they know that their parent is excited when they do it, this is normal behaviour and should be encouraged practice is what its all about. However, reading provided another opportunity to ask questions like do you think pupp is happy or sad, why have them look at the pictures and use visual evidence to support their answer. 

Have you considered the mathematics around your home, we all know counting and kids pick that up you can also use blocks for more than counting, you can group them you can pattern them green green red red green green etc. Lego is excellent for spacial development and boys usually excell in this because they are often given lego or blocks dont leave your girls behind encourage them to build with blocks also. When they build a house remember to praise them for their design, you can ask them to tell you about the house, how many people do you think can live there and why. Having kids help prepare meals is also excellent for communication, safety lessons, encourages them to try new things because they had a hand in the preparation and also provides an opportunity for maths, estimation skills how many potatoes do we need carrots, peel cut chop does it look enough, we do it ourself in our minds but if we verbalise it then the littilite see how our thinking works as well.

Gardening always fun and a little plot or pots provide an opportunity for your child to watch things grow, encourages scientific thinking, what do plants need to grow? Its simple and basic but gives them a memory and something to talk about in news. Buy a cheap glass from an op shop and line a glass with white paper, blotting is best but Ive used plain printing paper, fill the inside with soil and slide a bean between the glass wall and the white paper, do this after your child has planted their seeds in their garden plot or pot. Water and thay can see whats growing under the ground simultaneously. Planting a few different plants as well as some well loved favourites will encourage kids to try different things and watching them grow gives opportunity for the kids to develop language vocab, think, skinny fat think spikey soft.

TV know what your kids are watching and discuss thing about the shows, say for example a character gets hurt by something someone said/did ask your child what they would do if they were that character? Why do you think they said that? How could you fix it? What could have been said that wouldnt hurt but help you learn? These encourage higher order thinking, develops the brain. Dont be frustrated if your child say I dont know? guide them by suggesting alternatives and what do you think? This also helps children develop resilience by knowing that there is more than one way to solve a problem. You can also develop good morals and values by discussing inappropriate behaviours. eg If a young character is yelling at an older one rudely its OK to say thats rude/mean ask how must they feel, how would you feel if it were you?

Shoe laces if they arent ready to learn or its too hard try to make a game out of it, remind them that at school they will need to be able to do it because you wont be around and talk it through as you demonstrate....demonstrate it on your foot talkingit through then demnstrate it on their foot from behind so you are tying their shoe the way they will see it. If you are in front of them they are seeing it upside down and get frustrated when it doesnt work for them.

Time management, pack you lunch box the night before with your child selecting foods they like pop the drink bottle 1/3 full in the freezer (maths 1/3) talk it through tonight we will put one third in your bottle and tomorrow we will put two thirds to make it full. Do you want your sandwich cut in half or quarters see two halves make one whole four quarters make one whole.

Its not essential that they KNOW it all it essential they have experience/s in different things so that when they come across it in school they have memories they can connect to and so it makes sense. By doing things at home you are encouraging them to learn, helping them make sense of their world and showing them that learning is fun and that home, school and the world are all related.