The halls of learning are not strictly confined within the four corners of the classroom. In fact, children can learn a lot outdoors and even at home with their families. Bear in mind that as a parent, you are your child’s first teacher. And your first-hand knowledge of your child’s abilities and personal developments gives you an edge in establishing an optimal learning environment for your young apprentice. Here are some fun learning activities kids can enjoy while improving his/her academic skills one task at a time.

Homeschooling: Learning Activities Kids Can Enjoy

We don’t know this pandemic life will be over. So wherever you are, here are some learning activities kids can enjoy at home.

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Learning Games

Kids learning games are a fun and exciting way of building a foundation of knowledge for your child in various key subjects. These include math, language, and even science. With the help of digital gadgets, your options can be limitless and your creativity can be stimulated while trying to make each and every activity as engaging as possible for your child. Just make sure that the learning game you’re planning to play with your child is appropriate to his/her age or academic level. 

Introducing Phonics

Whether you like it or not, you will have to help your child learn to read prior to starting school. It is one of the four major macro skills every student must learn and master in order to survive and succeed throughout his/her academic years. 

Introducing phonics is the first big step for your young schooler to learn reading. It covers the relationship between each letter and the sound it makes. With phonics, your child is geared with the skill of accurately decoding the letters of a word into their appropriate sounds. This helps a child read words that are somewhat unfamiliar to them.

Systematic teaching or instructing a child of the equivalent sound of the letters according to their alphabetical order is by far the best way of teaching phonics. You can also tap digital resources such as learning videos for preschoolers for a fun and engaging phonics session with your child.

Encourage Writing

Writing is another fundamental skill your child needs to master. Like reading, it’s an academic ability that is critical for learning throughout all scholastic levels. Teaching your child to write requires patience and perseverance. It also requires a systematic approach in order to yield better and faster results.

You can start off by letting your child write diagonal, horizontal, vertical, and curved lines by connecting dots. Your child can then move to tracing activities. Facilitating writing activities in a fun but consistent way helps your child acquire and retain information better and longer. 

Playing with Colors

Colors are not only regarded as a particular subject but also as an effective aid for learning. Studies suggest that colors have the ability to enhance a child’s learning potential. Bright and contrasting colors in particular are perceived best by children at a young age. You can use the concept of colors in teaching art, math, and language subjects.

Bear in mind, however, that children of different academic levels have varying interests in certain types of colors. Preschoolers for example are more attracted to bright colors while elementary students prefer pastels and tints.

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Teach the Beauty of Math

Studies have found that most students both at preschool and elementary levels hate math. Children dislike math for the fact that it is a complicated subject and difficult to understand. Most kids fail to appreciate the significance of discipline in everyday life and its fundamental role in tertiary education as well as in professional life. As a parent, your role is to introduce math to your child in a fun and exciting way and make him/her love the subject eventually. 

You can use a variety of bright-colored toys such as the abacus, number trains, math cubes, stacking blocks and cups, and even legos. These toys can help develop their engagement with the arithmetic tasks and build their interest and even passion towards the subject. 

Crank Up their Love for Music

Studies and research alike have long-established the essential role of music in child development. In fact, the benefits of music encompass adults and productivity in work. Music is an all-in-one package for your young learner’s development. It helps refine intellectual, motor, social-emotional, language, and literacy skills. There is a wide variety of activities that you can enjoy with your child through music. You can sing along with nursery rhymes or even play music together using different instruments like piano, guitar, or drums. 

You never know, they may really take to music and soon, you’ll be looking up tickets for things like the Kevin Gates tour, or another artist you all love as a family, so that you can go and enjoy a night of live music together.

Turn them into Junior Scientists

Science is always fun and exciting. The subject answers most of their curious questions on the nature of things as well as the why and how of anything under the sun. Getting them engaged with simple but astonishing science experiments at home gives them a clearer grasp of various concepts. Some examples of amazing science experiments you can do at home with your child are making homemade slime through borax and glue, the rock candy demonstration (crystallization process), lava lamp by using vegetable oil, water, and Alka seltzer, and many others. 

Gardening 101

What better way to bring out the naturalist intelligence in your child than to enjoy some gardening escapades in your own backyard? Let your child help you in cultivating soil, planting seeds, watering plants, and harvesting those hard-earned crops. Such activities can help your child better appreciate the whole process of germination and the essential roles of environmental elements like soil, water, air, and sunlight. Just make sure that you and your child are geared up with the right tools and outfits for safety. 

Programming for Kids

You might be thinking if kids with their young minds could use this kind of activity for their overall development. As much as you hate to admit it, your child was born into the digital era and it’s best to introduce to him/her the basics of internet technology sooner than later. With the help of apps, your child can easily design their own websites and make the most out of it – upload pictures of their fun outdoor trips, post blogs or journals, and many others. Just make sure that you closely monitor your child’s online activity for safety. 

Let Your Child Experience the World

This is not about helping your child get to know other countries through reading textbooks or watching movies and documentaries. You can help your child experience the world through different activities such as trying unique native dishes, enroll in a language course, transform a section of your home, and listen to popular music from other regions such as Latin America, Europe, and Korea (K-Pop).

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