New year, new school, new opportunities for growth! Read our article as we share some tried and true tips for parents and children in the lead up to the first day of primary school.
A Whole New World Awaits
New classmates, new teachers, new school environment — your child’s tiny world is about to get a lot bigger. With these changes come opportunities for personal, social and cognitive growth.
The Countdown And Preparation Begins
In these weeks as you count down to your child’s first day of school, you may be wondering, “What will school be like for my child? Will my child be able to cope in the new environment?”
Parents can help by being proactive — research from professionals at Duke University suggests that establishing a strong communication channel with your child’s teachers helps and so does monitoring changes in your child's behaviour or mood when he or she first starts school.
Whether at home or in school, we’ve got some great tips for every stage of preparation that will help you (and your child) pave a smooth journey towards the new school term in January.
1. Create A Routine That Works
Studies have shown that routines help children feel safe and secure. Set up a routine that works for your child — whether it’s a shower before dinner or an afternoon snack before naptime, it’s important that your child gets into a routine that he or she is comfortable with.
2. Identify Friendly Figures In School
Helping your child identify teachers or staff he or she can go to for assistance is important. When your child recognises trustworthy figures of authority, he or she will feel more secure in the new environment.
Related Article: Gear Up For Primary 1
3. Prepare An 'Emergency' Fund
You may want to consider setting aside an “emergency fund” for your child. Placing extra money in a separate wallet or purse to be kept in his or her school bag means that your child will still have access to money if he or she misplaces pocket money. However, you should set some strict rules about when this money can be used.
4. Test Out That Transport Route
It may be a good idea to have a few dry runs of your child’s journey to and from school to help your child familiarise himself or herself with the route. Help your child identify key landmarks and remember the specific place where he or she will be dropped off or picked up from everyday.
Related Article: Raising A Responsible Child
5. Set Mini Goals To Achieve Together
Help to make the experience seem less daunting by setting mini goals for the first day of school. Start with small tasks like “Leave the house on time” or “Remember to bring my water bottle home” or “Meet one new friend in class today”. These mini goals give your child something to look forward to on his or her first day of school!
Download Our Special Guide To Surviving And Thriving In Primary 1
The Learning Lab would like to extend our help as you and your child are preparing for Primary 1 and the new adventures that lie ahead. Download our fun and informative guide filled with 25 great tips to help your child survive and thrive in Primary 1!
Learning provides children with infinite opportunities for growth and skills building. Raising children who are eager to embrace the process of learning is a sensitive commitment that requires attention, observation and plenty of communication with your child.
The good news: children have an innate curiosity. They are not only ready to learn, they are very much willing to learn!
“Children are born learning,” says scientist Andrew Meltzoff, who led a study on early-childhood learning at the University of Washington in 2006. “The most remarkable fact is not just that they’re learning but that they engage in active hypothesis-testing”.
Try these following tips to nurture a love of learning in your child and let us know how it works for you.
Turn Frustration into Motivation
Guiding your child in understanding the causes of his or her frustrations is a healthy way of building emotional intelligence and nurturing positive learning attitudes.
When you observe your child struggling and growing impatient with a task, you can help him or her discern the emotion by asking questions like, “What exactly about this task is frustrating to you right now?”
By creating a distinction between the task and the frustration, you help shift your child’s perspective. By making it clear that the task and the emotion your child is feeling are not mutually inclusive, you teach your child to take ownership of the situation and to take responsibility for his or her reactions to it.
Another good question to ask is: “How can we make it better?”
This opens up your child’s thought process and supports his or her next steps of learning.
Encourage Reading at Home
Reading is a huge part of learning and kids who love to learn are often exposed to playful and educational narratives from nursery rhymes and story books at an early age.
Introduce your child to a variety of engaging reading materials. We recommend Science books to expand your child’s knowledge beyond his or her immediate environment; story books to boost his or her imagination and sense of individuality; puzzle and quiz books to exercise the analytical mind.
Set time aside for storytelling where your child can pick a book of his or her choice and you can each take turns reading aloud or acting the scenes out.
Giving your child access to a healthy selection of books at home enriches his or her curiosity and love for learning.
Make Learning Relevant
Students can get frustrated having to learn information that isn’t relevant to them. But as a child, have you ever questioned why you had to learn the things you learnt?
For every kid who has said "why do I need to learn this, anyway?"
There’s an adult who has said "I wish I paid more attention to that in school."
At The Learning Lab, we make learning relevant and relatable to our students by facilitating plenty of practical exercises, experiments and activities in class. We try to explain theories and other literature in a way that makes sense to them.
At home, you can also support what your child learns in school by doing fun projects together.
For instance, to explain how matter changes form through the process of freezing, you can put water in a clear container, put it in the freezer and occasionally check on it to observe the liquid transforming into solid. To demonstrate how liquid turns to gas, you can boil water and watch it turn into water vapour, which is visible in the form of steam rising from the boiling water.
Download these 3 fun and easy Science experiments and bond with your child at home.
All you need are some materials you can find around the house, a couple of towels (because things could get messy) and a good sense of fun.
Teach Your Child to Understand Non-Verbal Cues
We all learn from our environment and the people around us, whether we are conscious of it or not. Learning to observe and understand non-verbal cues, for instance, is important in learning social dexterity.
Non-verbal cues, which include facial expressions, voice tone and pitch, gestures displayed through body language and the physical distance between the communicators, are important observations in learning how to understand and how to relate to another person or in a group dynamic.
Other useful observations you can teach your child to learn are keen sense of time and timing, changes in temperature, changes on his or her body, changes on his or her moods, and of course, the observation of nature and its endless works that inspire great artistic and scientific works.
By touching on less obvious areas of learning, such as written or spoken language, your child can expand his or her understanding of the sensitivities of human interactions.
Encourage Your Child to Embrace His or Her Interests
Some children can be very timid in expressing their enthusiasm over an interest. How do you then know what your child is keen to pursue?
While some things might not seem academic at first glance, entertainment can be a good springboard for further learning.
Some children can be very timid in expressing their enthusiasm over an interest. How do you then know what your child is keen to pursue?
While some things might not seem academic at first glance, entertainment can be a good springboard for further learning.
If you go into a bookstore with your child, for example, observe which type of books your child is drawn to. This can tell you if your child is into more abstract things (such as science fiction), adventure (like the classics, e.g. Tom Sawyer), art and design (comics) or Science and the natural world (almanac, picture books). Sometimes your child’s interests can include all of many of these combined, and that can be a good thing. Diversity allows your child to expand his or her horizons.
If you go to a children’s party, observe which spaces and people your child interacts with. Is he or she attracted to social spaces or quiet spots? Indoors or outdoors? Do you find him or her in the company of expressive children or with quieter adults? This can tell you if your child is more comfortable in smaller groups or in larger groups. If he or she enjoys the limelight or prefers the backstage.
On the other hand, if your child seems to know his or her interests, you can nurture this passion by providing opportunities where he or she can pursue activities, workshops, and classes that can further enrich your child’s knowledge on the subject and improve his or her practice.
We hope you've found the tips above useful. To further enrich your child's learning journey, we have published the second part of this article here: Ways To Raise Kids Who Love To Learn: Part Two
Stay Ahead in Term 3
The resumption of school offers a wonderful opportunity for your child to pick up the pace in their learning progress and allay any concerns they have in areas of uncertainty. Click here to find out how our Term 3 curriculum can equip your child with the confidence and knowledge to conquer the rest of the academic year.
The Learning Lab is now at 9 locations. Find a location that suits your needs.
If you have any questions about our programmes, please email us at enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg or call us at 6733 8711 and we will be happy to assist you.