How to Help Your Kids’ and Their Teachers…

Now…And When They Go Back to School

Teachers are good at what they do. They can teach your kids a lot of stuff. They can get your kids to do stuff that maybe you are struggling to get them to do for you right now…like math word problems, creative writing, French, or (fill in the subject(s) you didn’t like in school).

But there is a part of your kids’ education that teachers can only touch on at school. And that you can do at home in spades…especially these days while the kids are at home.

You can give your kids context. Context is what makes your kid nod wisely when the physics example is stepping on the end of a rake. They hear that an actually wince as they feel the end of the rake hit their forehead. They immediately apply that context — their painful prior knowledge — to that physics lesson. Or when the teacher is reading a novel to the class and the author refers to the smell of cut grass. Chances are, your kid knows that smell, and their prior knowledge adds to their experience of the story. Or a lesson about animal habitats includes a forest, a meadow and a city — all environments that your kid has played and lived. A geography lesson about immigration is understood because they know the stories of their own grandparents. Or your family moved cities, and your kids can connect to the feeling of strangeness in a new place.

Life experience gives us knowledge that we often take for granted. When we meet a kid who has very few personal experiences to bring to their learning at school, we realize how difficult it is for them to apply what they are being taught to their own life. And how often they get left behind because they don’t relate or connect to the lesson. They don’t have a lot of personal knowledge to add to their learning.

These personal connections and prior knowledge are the building blocks of learning. They are what makes learning stick, and what makes a lesson make sense.

This is what you can do at home with your kids these days:

Create: build, make, bake, invent, paint, draw, write, play make-believe.

Investigate: ask questions, take something apart, try something to see what will happen.

Explore: go for a walk, try something new.

Read: Read a book aloud together, a few pages every day. When they aren’t doing the mechanics of reading, kids can get caught up in the story. Which will motivate them to practise the mechanics on their own. A shared story is a shared experience, discussion, and different perspectives. What do you think will happen next? (Explore) Oh man, can you imagine that happening to you? (Investigate) What would you have done? (Create) Is there a sequel to this? (Read)

So forget about downloading worksheets on grammar or math. Don’t worry about your kids’ reading, writing and arithmetic while they are at home. Give them what teachers and educational assistants wish every kid had lot of: experiences and perspectives.

And tell them too…cleaning up afterward is part of the experience, and respectful of the adults’ perspective!

You’ve got this…Kids are always learning…and YOU are your kids’ most important person!

You can also read The Top Five Things I did Wrong in homeschooling here: https://medium.com/@shelleylittle.maw/the-top-five-things-i-did-wrong-in-homeschooling-ca823a245613