Children do not need to be surrounded by notebooks and whiteboards to be taught useful information. In fact, learning is about so much more than solving math equations and learning science facts.
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Instead, it is a whole process of questioning, analyzing and discussing everything in their surroundings.
That is why these kids can pick up valuable lessons from their parents right at home.
Here are a few essentials you should be teaching your children at home:
Leisure reading
You should teach your children just how important the public library is. Reading does not have to be boring, and too often kids feel that way from the textbooks and materials they are required to read in the classroom.
There are countless materials to choose from, so no matter what your child is interested in, there is something for them.
This includes everything from adventure novels to sci-fi fantasies. Libraries, in general, have a lot of different resources that are completely free to the public, so let your child’s imagination run loose.
Explore your environment
You should also teach your children that there is so much more to learning than what is confined in a classroom. Take your children outside for a day trip, so that they can learn exactly what nature has to offer.
While you are outside, you can teach your children about all sorts of topics like history, geography, customs, traditions and even all the different types of cultures found in society.
Give them a chance to really see and apply what they are learning in the classroom to their environment.
Extracurricular activities
Do not forget that everyday activities are also opportunities for learning. While some of these tasks may seem mundane and boring, because you do them all the time without even thinking twice, they can actually prove for exciting lessons.
For instance, bring your children into the kitchen and begin baking cookies with them.
As you are doing this, you can easily incorporate science, math and nutritional lesson plans into your conversation. Besides this, you can also use sports activities like little league baseball games as a way to discuss everything from teamwork to statistics.
Learning new skills outside of the classroom is an important character-building experience that all kids should experience for enriched learning.
Culture
Schools can teach your kids all about figures and numbers, but what about culture and society? That is where you come into play. Expose your kids to all the artistic and social aspects of your town. This, of course, includes everything like museums, plays, ballets, concerts, operas, zoos and historical sites.
While this may sound expensive, it is typically not. Since most of these activities are local and low-key, they are often entirely free or come at a very low charge.
Bringing your kids to witness these types of arts will both teach and entertain your children. Plus, they can help your kids discover their passion and calling in life.
Second language
Plain and simple, in today’s society, we are not all the same. Everyone comes from a unique background with their own culture and traditions. In fact, many individuals either don’t speak English at all or have it as their second language.
That is why it is recommended that parents educate their children by teaching them another language besides English at home. In particular, Spanish is a great language to have your children pick up, since that is the second most common language spoken in the United States.
Of course, language is often part of the curriculum at schools, but there is so much more parents can do to help their kids become fluent. Helping your kids learn Spanish at home is not as difficult as it seems, and it will open doors for many opportunities later in life.
Connect online
It’s obvious that now practically everything is done online. Our world is modern, where with the click of a mouse, children can access all sorts of information.
This will only encourage their curiosity and thirst for learning. Teach your kids exactly how to safely search the web for all the answers to their questions. However, you want to keep an eye on exactly what they’re doing so that they stay safe online and don’t get too distracted by dangerous material.
Today, so much of who our children are and what they know is not taught in the classroom. These kids rely on their parents to further develop their mind. After all, there is so much more to be taught at home.
Whether it is spending some extra time teaching a new language or bringing them to the local park to take in the sights and sounds of their town, parents play a huge role in how their children learn.
Anita Ginsburg
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Wonderful article. Children do really need to learn a lot of thing at home.
I discovered that teaching kids their ways into the kitchen is also a fantastic approach (and recipe) in preparing them for life. I am not kitchening…, I mean kidding.
One day when my wife was in the grocery, and I was home and needed to make a pancake, I asked my teenage daughter and my son to help me. I can’t remember the procedure (you know how many eggs, how much baking powder, how many cups of milk, etc.), so I asked them to google it. Guess what, the next scenes were showing them doing almost 90% of everything while I was just assisting them (telling them where the bowl is located, or where the butter is, etc.).
We had great and delicious pancakes and afterwards they told me that at home, their mom and I should teach them more about cooking or preparing food because it shows them that life needs planning and preparation in order to get better results. Pancakes at home were never the same after that.
Ron recently posted…Dealing With Negative People
Wonderful article. Children do really need to learn a lot of things at home.
I discovered that teaching kids their ways into the kitchen is also a fantastic approach (and recipe) in preparing them for life. I am not kitchening…, I mean kidding.
One day when my wife was in the grocery, and I was home and I needed to make a pancake, I asked my teenage daughter and my son to help me. I can’t remember the procedure (you know how many eggs, how much baking powder, how many cups of milk, etc.), so I asked them to google it. Guess what, the next scenes were showing them doing almost 90% of everything while I was just assisting them (telling them where the bowl is located, or where the butter is, etc.).
We had great and delicious pancakes and afterwards they told me that at home, their mom and I should teach them more about cooking or preparing food because it shows them that life needs planning and preparation in order to get better results. Pancakes at home were never the same after that.
Ron recently posted…Dealing With Negative People