Parents are the first teachers of the children. A child learns so many things from their parents. The first thing which a child learns from his parents is their native language or the mother tongue. He learns the meaning of basic actions or gesture, the meaning of the words and then how to speak. The parents also teach their child how to walk, how to eat properly and many more things. So when it comes to studies, parents can teach that also. Teaching your child at home is not that difficult. You just need some time and patience. Children feel the most comfortable with their parents so parents can be the best teachers for their children. Here are some ways and tips to teach your kid at home.
Ways to Teach your Kids at Home
- Follow a Routine: For teaching your child, you need to establish a routine. It is not advisable to teach your child for an hour or two once a week rather than this you should have frequent sessions of fifteen to twenty minutes each. Keep on changing the activities every two days. Suppose if on the first day you are reading a story to your child then on the next day engage your child in drawing or painting or some other activity. Following the same routine will become boring for your child and he will not let you teach him anymore. If you keep on changing the routine, he will enjoy it.
- Create a Wonderful Study Space: Make a corner of your house as the study corner for your child. Keep all the school supplies like pencils, erasers, crayons etc. in that space. Make that space colourful if your child is young and if he is a little grown up then engage him with you to create a study space of his own choice. Keep the books together in a sorted way. Instead of using notebooks with white pages, use the ones with coloured pages. With this, you can teach about colours to your child. Use only those supplies which are pleasing to your child’s eyes. Use supplies that have your child’s favourite character printed on them. This will develop your child’s interest in using these supplies and also in studies.
- Read to your Kid: You should start teaching your child before he starts with his pre-schooling. Reading some stories or poems to him should be the first thing you should do. When you will read something to your child it will develop communication skills in him. The child will start to understand the meaning of words, gestures, voice tones and will also start to imagine whatever you are reading to him. This will enhance his overall brain development. You should start reading storybooks to your child from the age of seven to eight months or when your child starts to understand what you are saying. Make sure the book is in the language you use to talk to your child. Choose a book with lots of pictures or three-dimensional artwork in it so that the child can see the story also along with listening to it. This trick can also be used to incorporate good manners and moral values in the child. Read the stories with good moral endings to him so that he will want to become a good person. Make sure that when you are reading you use proper voice tones and gesture to make it more interesting.
- Write to your Kid: To teach your child how to write, you should write to him. Do not try to dictate the alphabet and tell him to write it. This is not a good approach. Instead, to teach him how to write letters, you should first write a letter for him and then tell him to copy it. Remember that writing on a paper is not the only choice. You should keep on trying some unique approaches. For example, you can use a blackboard and a chalk for teaching to write alphabet or fill a tray with some sand and write with your child on it using fingers. The more creative is your approach, the more effective it is.
- Use Creativity: Include a creative approach to your teaching methods. A notebook, a pencil, and a textbook is not the only way to teach something. Try to include more creative and a fun approach. Try to include games in your teachings. There are many things which can include a lot of creativity. For example:
- A game of snakes and ladder can be used to teach counting, numbers, and basic addition. When the child counts when it is his turn to move, it is definitely teaching him the basic mathematics.
- Different states of the country can be taught using a jigsaw puzzle. When the child will join different pieces of the puzzle, he will get to know which state is in which part. He will become familiar with the map of the country.
- To teach spellings to your child a game of Scrabble is the best thing. If not scrabble, you can cut out big letters from magazines or newspaper and tell your child to assemble them to form a word.
- Using an alphabet shape cookie cutter make different cookies and then tell your child “Eat the letter N”. In this way, he will recognize letters.
- Keep a basket full of different finger sized soft toys or crochet puppets. Use the while narrating a story to your child. The story will become more interesting to your child and he will remember it.
Teaching Different Subjects
- Teaching Art to your Kid: Give your child a paper and colours and tell him to draw whatever he wants to draw. Give him different types of colours occasionally. If one day you are providing him with crayons for drawing, then next time give him watercolours or pencil colour or sketch pens. Do not criticize what they drew. Praise their drawing and instead of finding the negative points find what is good in the drawing. Also, tell them to explain what they have drawn. Give him colouring pages and colours. If the colouring page consists of the things we see in day to day life, then you can teach the colours of these things to your child using these pages. Use different painting and drawing techniques like finger painting, vegetable painting, thread painting etc.
- Teaching Science to your Kid: The best way to teach science is experiments. Not everything can be taught theoretically. Use basic experiments and activities to teach your child science. For example:
- To teach your child about soluble and insoluble things, you sit down with your child and make a list of things and try to guess which are soluble and which are not. Then test your answers experimentally. In these ways instead of cramming the soluble and insoluble things, the child will understand them.
- To teach your child about the magnet, give him a magnet to play with. Tell him to find out what all things are attracted by a magnet and then tell him about the substances they are made of.
- Mix some Eno and edible red colour in a glass. Add some water to it. This experiment can be used to teach volcanic eruptions to the child. If you want to be more creative then make volcanic model and fill it with Eno, red colour and water.
- Teaching Mathematics to your Kid: Mathematics is usually taught in a very boring way but it can be made very interesting if you follow some very simple techniques. To teach addition and subtraction give in his hand five pencils and tell him to subtract two from and then count the remaining from it. To teach counting, play a game of snakes and ladders with him or tell him the count the number of chocolate chips on a chocolate chip cookie or to count the number of cherries on the cake or the number of fruits in the plate. You can use playing dough or clay to teach him about different shapes. Tell him to make different shapes from clay. To teach addition and subtraction you can also use playing dice.
Conclusion
Teaching your child will become a very enjoyable and a fun task for you and your child if you follow a boring routine. Nobody likes a boring and monotonous routine. So keep on changing things in between. If you are engaging your child in an activity then change the activity the next day. Occasionally ask your child what he wants to do. Find new ideas to teach basic things from the tasks you do daily. In this ways, you will be able to spend quality time with your child. Remember that it is not only the mother’s duty to teach a child, sometimes if the father will do so it will be good. And if both the parents will teach the child together it will also make you a happy family and will make your family time a fun time and learn time for your child. Teaching is not a difficult task; the only thing which is difficult is to take out the time for teaching your child, especially if you are a working method. But still, if you manage to take out thirty to forty-five minutes daily to teach your child it will be more than enough.
