Parent’s Engagement in Children’s Learning During the COVID-19 Quarantine
Learning should not be a challenge for kids during the lockdown period.
Thousands of school going children were happy to get a long vacation two months ago. But now it has become a challenge for them to remain busy as they are confined inside homes. Studies have to continue and children need to be occupied. Parental engagement is important so that education remains uninterrupted.
Learning loss has to be avoided. Take a cue from Siddhartha Public School’s advisory for parent engagement in children’s learning.
This is a time when kids are easily bored playing video games as they cannot run outside. They want to return to the school campus and classes. Most moms and dads have the onus of getting kids updated with learning with or without new tools. Without affecting their own productivity, parents have to work towards a new learning process and stop kids from jumping off the walls, sofas and dining tables.
How will Engaged Learning Work at Home?
Reading Aloud with Actions
Kids of different ages remain focused with reading activities. Books improve language and even literacy rates. But mere reading is not sufficient. It has to be backed with interaction and a little bit of ‘family drama’ to make the entire activity ‘fun’. How is it done? While reading, make them anticipate the next part of the story or ask them to make up an incident. It keeps the brain’s functioning, attentive and active. In fact, kids can play characters. It will help them to remember stories better.
Look at Family Photos Together
Explain to children what family relations mean. The narrative abilities get honed with this exercise. Speak about grandparents and various incidents related to their lives. Children love to learn with visual aids like photographs. Make them familiar with members of the extended family. They can talk to distant relatives on the phone and learn about their activities and know their cousins better. Exchanging news, activities they do are useful too.
Walk Outside
Walk outside within the compound and maintain social distances. The clean air and sunlight is essential for everyone. This is a simple exercise and a welcome break from being confined. It is also an integral part of learning exercise. If going outside is restricted, have interactive virtual events and meetings so socially everyone is engaged.
Teach Cooking and Gardening
One of the best ways to teach, interact and keep children engaged is through activities like cooking and gardening. It is ideal for older kids who can help moms. Through experience they can get interested in several such activities. Baking is very popular with children. They love cakes and sweets. Let them make their version of baked goodies, take a picture and upload it for others to see. It will encourage other kids also to do the same.
Tackling Emotions and Anxiety
All kids may not understand the lockdown period. They may get irritable and anxious. They are unable to visit favorite restaurants and malls. Ask them to express the anxiety. Hopefully you will be able to help the kids to cope up in other entertaining ways till everything gets back to normal.
Various educational institutes like Siddhartha Public School have started online classes so that children do not miss the year’s curriculum. The teachers are interacting via video conferencing and telecommunications to keep the learning process interactive and entertained.
