3 DIY Activities for Your Child This Summer

Summer vacations maybe a time to relax, but are you hearing your child screaming ‘I’m bored’ every ten minutes? Are you constantly thinking of ways to entertain and engage your child during summer?
Be sure to try these simple, imaginative, and fun activities! Here a few do-it-yourself activities that your child will love doing.

Bottle Rocket

Things you’ll need:

1. Plastic bottle
2. Coloured paper
3. A pair of scissors
4. Glue
5. Family/ individual photographs

Directions:

1. Cut out small square or rectangle on the centre of the coloured paper to fit your photograph.
2. Stick the photo on it.
3. Now wrap the paper over a plastic bottle and ​stick it using glue.
4. Cut two thin strips from a different coloured paper and stick ​them on the top and bottom of the rocket.
5. Using another coloured paper, make a cone and ​stick  it on top.
6. ​Cut out two ​triangles with the same colour as the cone for the sides

Your bottle rocket is ready!

Paper Fan

Things you’ll need:

1. Coloured papers
2. Ice cream sticks/long pencils
3. Liquid Glue

Directions:

1. Pleat coloured papers in the same or two different coloured papers.
2. Staple the ends together.
3. Stick the ice cream sticks/pencils to either end of the paper.
4. You can now decorate the fan with colours, glitter, stickers or more.

You handmade fan is ready! Perfect for the summer!

Paper Lantern:

Things you’ll need:

1. Coloured Paper
2. A pair of scissors
3. Pencil
4. Scale
5. Glue

Directions:

1. Fold a coloured paper in half and draw parallel lines
2. Cut the paper along the lines till near the top
3. Stick the ends together
4. Cut out a strip of paper and paste it on the top for handle

Your magic lantern is ready! Create colourful lanterns and light up your room.

Written by Fathima Khaja

Ways to Support Social-Emotional Learning in Preschoolers

Have you ever heard of developing your child’s social and emotional skill? Do you think it is essential to develop this in your little kids? Well here is what you need to know. Social-emotional learning is basically recognizing our emotions, having some control over them, having empathy for others, handling conflict well, and making good choices about personal and social behavior. These skills are critical to every child’s success, be it in school or in life.

Believe it or not, these things need to be taught and the best time to begin is early! Right when they are preschool and kindergarten! And who is a better teacher to your child than YOU? Here are some specific steps you can take to nurture an emotionally intelligent child, and additional resources you can use to learn more about social and emotional learning.

Create an Affectionate-Friendly Environment:

Children love to feel like they are the most special and important, so make sure you provide them with love and affection. Don’t always let your child be independent. Holding your children makes them feel safe and contained. Comforting, singing, and talking to your children also provide an important emotional holding environment. It promotes a feeling of safety and security within your young child. As children receive love and affection from their elders, parents and relatives, they are also silently learning important aspects of how they can express their love and affection to others.

Encourage and Respect Differences:

Every child has a certain belief, values, and traditions. These are often largely influenced by the culture of the family and their larger community. It influences every aspect of parenting: feeding, sleeping, and toileting routines; discipline; communication and more. When you display an appreciation and respect for your own culture as well as the cultures of others, you are teaching your child acceptance of differences and lets them appreciate what is unique in another.

Understand Each Child is Unique:

Not all children are good at everything. Every child has his or her own unique talents and abilities. Whether in academics, athletics, extra-curricular activities or arts and crafts, resist the urge to compare your child to friends or siblings. This will lower their self-esteem. Instead, honor your child's accomplishments and provide support and encouragement and in the meantime also encourage them to concentrate on what they may be falling back on.

Encourage the Expression of Feelings:

Children are not sure how exactly to express their emotions. They may also express it without thought. Teachers and parents can encourage a child’s emotional expressions by responding constructively to them. Punishing or dismissing a child’s emotions does not give the child the opportunity to learn how to respond constructively to those emotions. Respond to a child’s emotions by validating her feelings. For example, ask your child, “What’s wrong?”  rather than saying, “Stop crying.”

Provide Support Occasionally:

You can support your child’s social and emotional skills through scaffolding. It’s built upon what children already know, such as the names of basic emotions, so that they can learn new skills, like how to identify when a playmate is sad or happy. You can guide a child to notice the feelings of another and also suggest possible solutions. For example, “Rose is crying, maybe she feels sad that no one is playing with her, why don’t you go and share your toys with her. I’m pretty sure she will be happy.”

Nurture Your Own Social and Emotional Wellness:

This is the most important aspect. To provide the best for your children, you must first attend to your own needs. You need to ensure that you are nurturing and respecting yourself. Parenting is rewarding, yet so demanding. So before you are about to react a particular way towards your child make sure that you are doing it right and in a calm manner. Children are observing and absorbing lessons about emotions throughout the day, even when those lessons are unintentional. So make sure you are doing it all right yourself.

Written by Fathima Khaja

How Teaching and Visual Aids Help Teachers and Students

Today is an era of digitization. As early as two years, children are exposed to smartphones and internet. They tend to grasp and understand what they see much better that what they hear. Likewise, the process of teaching - learning depends upon the different type of equipment available in the classroom.

Visual aids such as flash cards, storyframes, story boards as well as other supports, in preschool/kindergarten lessons can help your little learner pick up new concepts, get a jump start on literacy lessons and make new connections.

Even if a student is unable to understand the spoken word, the visual aid may help them to better absorb information. The biggest advantage of using teaching aids is that it can help make the difficult into something more understandable. They provide a change from just listening, and pictures typically stimulate interest more easily than words.

Because visuals enable you to appeal to more than one sense at the same time, the students' understanding and retention level is increased. They tend to concentrate much better and participate in the class. Also visual aids improve the independence and self-esteem of all people with learning difficulties.

A recent study concluded that people who use visual aids are 43% more persuasive than those who don't. The study also established that visuals can improve:

•           Communication effectiveness

•           Student’s perceptions of the presenter

•           Teacher’s confidence

There are also numerous studies conducted by educational researchers that show that the average teacher who uses visual aids will come across as better organized, more reliable, more vibrant, and more influential than a teacher who does not use visual aids.

Make it bright and colourful:

Your child's preschool/kindergarten teacher may use visual cues to help the kids understand their classroom better. At this stage, the classroom atmosphere is unfamiliar to these little kids. On the look of the class, make sure it enlightens and wakens them up to their new school space. Visual aids such as classroom rhymeboards or numberschart can help kids to recognize new vocabulary.  

Emotions:

Recognizing and expressing emotions are difficult for the preschooler. That said, an accompanying visual aid can add another layer to the learning. By using a poster that features faces showing different feelings or individual pictures of kids who are clearly happy, sad, angry or frustrated can help preschoolers to recognize and point out specific feelings during emotional times. You can also get creative and create personalized emotions of the child using customizable expressions cards.

Encourage Social Behaviour:

It's not always easy for preschoolers to remember how to treat everyone kindly all of the time. While preschoolers/kindergarten kids are gaining skills when it comes to making friends and understanding that other people have feelings too, it's also perfectly normal for a young child to have trouble sharing or taking turns. Photos, or drawings and illustrations, of kind acts such as helping a friend who is hurt or sharing a toy can serve as lessons on pro-social behaviors.

Importance of Teaching Aids:

No child today enjoys a class where there seems to be one-way communication. Activities, fun, audio-visual aids are all different factors that play an important role in Teaching- Learning process. Here are a few advantages:

1) Motivation

Teaching aids motivate the students so that they can learn better. They show more interest when they have aids they can touch, feel and look at.

2) Clarification

While children may come up with various doubts, through teaching aids, the teacher can clarify the subject matter more easily using such aids.

3) Increase the Vocabulary

Teaching aids helps to increase the vocabulary of the students more effectively. When they see a word quite often, they tend to learn it quicker.

4) Classroom Live and active

Nobody likes a sleeping classroom. Teaching aids make the classroom live and active. They encourage participation. Kids are more likely to participate better in a class making use of visual aids.

5) Direct Experience

Teaching aids provide direct experience to the students. They don’t just see the aid but can also engage in activities using those aids and leaves them with a lasting impression.

Written by Fathima Khaja

5 Successful Preschool/Kindergarten Classroom Management Techniques

As preschoolers and kindergartners are introduced to a classroom setting and encouraged to develop socially, teachers can expect to come across temper tantrums, verbally and physically aggressive or violent behavior or disinterest to stay back in school among their students. While some behavioral issues in your preschool classroom can be resolved with a simple reminder of classroom expectations, love, care and understanding, others can require a much broader approach.

Preschool/kindergarten teachers know that when you’re faced with a room full of three- and four-year-old, clear expectations and routines are vital if teaching and learning are going to happen. As a teacher, it may be your job to introduce the students to concepts such as working in groups, being respectful while others are talking, and cleaning up after themselves. In order to make the children's introduction to school a positive one, you will need some basic classroom management skills and the ability to be flexible. What is important to understand is that, what works for one teacher will not always work for another.

Here are a few classroom management techniques that may work well, encouraging students to come back the next day and engage in interesting activities.

Class Attendance:

The best way to begin your students’ day is with an engaging activity as soon as they walk through the classroom door. Implementing a sign-in activity each day will help you take stock of the children as they are dropped off each morning. It will give you the chance to personally greet each child as well.

This idea may also encourage them to come in early and put up their name on the board before anyone else does. This encourages them to be on time and also make sure they come to school each day so that their name needn’t be on the ‘Absent’ list.

Classroom Helper Charts:

Allowing young children to feel like they are ‘in-charge’ gives them a great sense of empowerment. Having classroom helper each day takes the burden off the teacher and places responsibility on the child. Children who feel empowered are more likely to enjoy school and take more academic risks.

One of the goals of any good early childhood program is to teach independence, by allowing the students to be in control for the entire day they feel incredibly empowered and independent. Having a chart with the various responsibilities and the child’s picture next to it encourages them. Some of the jobs of the leader include calendar helper, pushing in chairs, turning on and off the lights, leading the line, monitoring the class and a lot more.

Pictorial Classroom Schedule:

Children learn best when they are comfortable in their surroundings and they know what to expect next. Creating a visual schedule can help children understand time management. Students will also learn to anticipate what comes next. Making a visual schedule may even put an end to the question, "What’s next?"

It can be the same schedule for a week or a different one for each day. Having each activity represented by a picture and the word on a chart will give your students a visual reminder of what is happening or is going to happen in class.

Classroom Rules Chart:

It is important to have visuals in an early childhood classroom as a reminder of the rules.  Post the rules chart on the wall in several locations throughout the classroom at the children’s eye level so they can refer to it when necessary. The more they look at it, the more it reminds them of the rules. At the beginning of the year, on the very first day, review the rules carefully as a group. Also it is extremely important to keep all classroom rules positive, make sure you have not included the word ‘don’t’ in any of the rules.

Take Home Book Program:

Research has proven that reading aloud daily is one of the most effective ways parents can help their children become successful readers. Unfortunately, many parents do not know how to effectively engage their children in a read aloud. This program can encourage parents to be a part of their student’s education which will in turn encourage and motivate the child to learn better.

•           Provide the parents of your students with step-by-step directions to make reading aloud to their children a positive and productive experience.

•           Communicate exactly what you want parents to do when reading aloud so they will be more likely to read to their children on a consistent basis.

Written by Fathima Khaja

Motivation – The key to Better Learning

One of the most difficult traits of being a teacher is learning how to understand and motivate your students to learn. If there is one thing we know all about children, it’s that they have a very short attention span. That being said, if kids are not motivated well enough and made to believe that leaning is fun and enjoyable, even the best teacher, lessons, books, and activities in the world won't get them excited about learning.

Students who are not motivated will not learn efficiently. They won’t retain information and they won’t be willing to participate in class activities and discussions. Motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, is a key factor in the success of students. Be it preschool, primary/high school or college – teachers can play a crucial role in providing encouragement and motivation to their students. Every child is different. A child may lack enthusiasm for a variety of reasons. Either they have no interest in the particular subject or they don’t find the teaching methods engaging or they may be distracted by various other external factors.

Everyone struggles to be motivated at some point. When you see your students in that place, try some of these fun ways to engage and enliven your class. Even some of the most experienced teachers sometimes lack the skills to keep get all their kids on track, so whether you're a new teacher or an experienced one, try using these methods to motivate your students and encourage them better. Here are few ways you can get the excited about learning.

Praise Students Whenever You Can:

Good job, excellent, great work, looks amazing – kids always love to hear positive words especially from their teacher. To them, the teacher is a know-it-all person and when he/she utters a word of praise, it encourages them and makes them feel like they have accomplished something great. It is an exciting feeling to be appreciated. So recognize some good work in your class and appreciate them loud and clear. Occasionally, organize awards in your classroom and see the difference it has on kids.

Spread Enthusiasm Like a Bug:

Be well prepared for your class. Do not just talk to your student through the class. Show your enthusiasm in the subject and use appropriate activities and materials to support your teaching. Adding fun activities can help students who struggle to stay engaged and make the classroom a much friendlier place for all students. The simple act of explaining what they’re learning out loud will help them understand and remember it better.

Create Leadership Classroom Jobs:

Students love to hold a leadership position or a special task they are in-charge of, in class. They like to feel they are the chosen one. Have classroom jobs like class monitor; update the daily calendar, cleaning the boards, group activity leader and a lot more to encourage them to reach for it. Use a specific criterion of your choosing, and communicate it to them. This motivates them to work harder in order to grab the classroom job. Also give them the opportunity to pick the job of their choice for a week.

Engage students and encourage participation:

It is important to remember every students name in class. Make sure you interact with them by calling out to them. While citing examples, use names from among students as this helps in seeking the attention of the entire class. Maintain eye contact with your students regularly. It helps them feel like they are acknowledged for being around. Rather than restricting yourself to the front of the class, move around quite frequently and ask questions to inspire students to come forth with ideas and feedback. 

What are some of the ways that you motivate your students? Share it with us in the comments section below!

Written by Fathima Khaja

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