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.
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.
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!
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!
Children are natural explorers. As their young minds try to make sense of themselves and the world around them, they will seek to try new things and push beyond existing boundaries, often surprising adults with their thirst for knowledge.
Your child is no exception. As time passes, his or her intellectual curiosity will become more sophisticated. When this happens, it may become necessary for you to find ways to enhance your child’s ability to ask the right questions and look for more meaningful answers.
In other words, you may need to help nurture your child’s critical thinking skills. According to The Foundation for Critical Thinking, “critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skilfully analysing, assessing, and reconstructing it”.
For young minds such as your child’s, critical thinking also plays a pivotal role in building the capacity to communicate more clearly and make independent assessments, both of which are important skills to possess in adult life.
We have found that the process of enhancing our students’ critical thinking skills works best when we throw the ball of learning back into their court. During English classes, for instance, our teachers facilitate discussions on multifaceted issues by asking students for their own opinions and views.
Rather than telling our students what to think, we prefer to engage them with questions that encourage them to arrive at their own conclusions independently. You can do the same for your child at home as well.
To sharpen your child’s critical thinking skills, try getting into the habit of asking these 5 questions below.
Asking your child why he or she is carrying out a certain activity or performing a certain action teaches the value of purpose.
In a world where children and adults frequently do as they are told without so much as an explanation why, it is helpful for your child to evaluate his or her objectives so that he or she may make sense of the situation or task at hand.
You can also reframe the question in various ways: When you do this, what will happen? Why is this important? Or simply, why do you want to do this?
For instance, if your child is brooding over a situation that did not go in his or her favour, you can help him or her identify and verbalise the root cause of the disappointment by asking “why are you upset?”
When we tell children “don’t be upset,'' we are merely giving them instructions and failing to acknowledge that their emotions can be as valid as ours. If we give them the opportunity to figure things out themselves instead, they will be empowered to take ownership of their own emotions.
Critical thinking is necessary for problem solving. Sometimes, in life, things don’t always pan out the way we hope they would.
Having the ability to identify other solutions will encourage your child to be more creative and resourceful, not get stuck in a particular way of doing things, and also manage stress better.
Again, you can reword the question in other ways, such as: What are the alternatives? What else can you do? How can it be done differently? How can it be done better?
This applies not only to life circumstances, but also to academic challenges. For example, maths is not just about memorising a series of formulae. It is also about determining what paths and solutions are available for a particular problem, as well as reflecting on mistakes and working backwards to see where the error was made.
Being able to discern cause and effect is one skill that critical thinking promotes. This translates to having the foresight to predict what could happen based on the current situation.
Fairy tales and fables are helpful in giving your child glimpses of his or her own narrative. When you read story books with your child, try occasionally asking: Where did the story change? What was the turning point? Why do you think this was so?
In addition to strengthening your child’s reading comprehension skills, such questions help him or her to recognise that every action has a consequence.
Encourage your child to build cause-and-effect chains, starting from the end of a story and moving backwards to its beginning if possible.
With a slight variation, this question can also help your child evaluate past actions and reactions. You may refine the question to “how could this character have behaved differently?”, “could you have reacted differently?” or “what do you think is a better way to react next time?”
It’s not about ruminating on past mistakes or guilt-tripping your child. Rather, it is about teaching him or her to learn from experience.
You may not want to just ask your child “what happened”. Your child may find this vague or, in some circumstances, feel like they are being accused.
Critical thinking and effective decision-making require reliable data. Without current and accurate information, your child will be forced to make uneducated guesses. This has negligible impact when children are young. As they grow older, however, uneducated guesses can have more serious repercussions.
To encourage your child to become more resourceful, teach him or her to ask the right questions and to be tactful when approaching people for information.
Start with the 5Ws and 1H: What, Where, When, Why, Who and How. Covering all the bases will help your child to verify if the information he or she receives is credible.
By making a habit of gathering data, verifying the facts and not making assumptions, your child will be able to expand his or her knowledge in various subjects.
Internet search engines have made a wealth of information available at our fingertips, which you can tap into with your child while teaching him or her Internet research best practices at the same time.
Clear communication is key to sharpening critical thinking, and it is nearly impossible to communicate clearly without asking for clarification when in doubt.
Encourage your child to speak up and clarify the issue when he or she is confused by something. This can be related to his or her schoolwork, or simply to some instructions he or she has been given.
Help your child to realise that by just asking a question, he or she can avoid making many potentially costly mistakes.
This question can also be paraphrased in the following ways: What do you mean when you say this? Can you compare this with that? Is this the same as…? Is this different from…?
Critical thinking gives your child the confidence to power through challenges smoothly. Evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins once shared:
“Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence and how to disagree with you.”
Respect is gained through informed and balanced conversations, whether at home or at school. This is a principle that we firmly believe in upholding within our classes as well.
Our curriculum, whether in English, maths or science, is designed to promote independent inquiry and awareness of one’s own thought processes. Our students are spurred on to dive deep into the concepts and facts they learn, rather than merely accepting things at face value.
Click here to discover the enriching topics that we have in store for our Nursery 2 to Junior College students.
At The Learning Lab (TLL), we are receptive to our students making mistakes. From each mistake made, regardless of whether it’s an academic or personal blunder, our teachers get to understand the students a little bit better. From there, our teachers would know what to do to go about solving these alongside our students.
The overarching message is for all of us adults, parents and teachers alike, to remind young learners that mistakes and failures are necessary tools to grow and thrive. Mistakes reveal new insights and “eureka” moments. Learning, after all, is an infinite journey with natural highs and lows.
If you have other tips or stories about your child to share with us and fellow parents, we’d love to hear from you. You can learn about our alumni’s learning journey with TLL, the life lessons they have taken away from TLL, and how they have blossomed into the fine working professionals they are today by clicking on the button below.
The Learning Lab is now at 8 locations. Find a location that suits your needs.
If you have any questions about our range of programmes or class schedules, you may contact us at 6733 8711 or drop us an email at enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg.
(+65) 6733 8711
enquiry@thelearninglab.com.sg
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