Parents Are Teachers, Too!
January 21, 2008
From the day children are born until they graduate from high school, they spend just 15% of their waking hours in school. The other 85% is spent outside school - and most of that time is spent at home. That means that you are your child's most influential teacher. Fortunately, children are naturally curious and love to learn. Here are some of the best ideas you can use at home to make the most of the important education influence you have.
Encourage Reading - Experts say that encouraging children to read may be the most important thing parents can do to ensure children's school success.
Play Learning Games - Family fun time is a great time for learning, play a thesaurus game or send your child on a scavenger hunt.
Show Your Child That You Care - Children need to know that they are loved, that you are proud of them and pleased by their accomplishments.
Make the Community your Child's Classroom - You can make even routine family activities into learning times for your child.
At the grocery store, take a calculator along, choose two or three items from your basket. Have your child add the prices in his head. Then use the calculator to check his answers.
When putting groceries away. Use a package of cookies to teach your child the shill of estimating. Get two jars that are the same size. Fill one with some thing small (like beans). Fill the other with something large (like cookies). Have your child estimate how many are in each jar. Count to check - and then enjoy the cookies!
Around town. on a day when there's nothing to do, pretnend you are reporters looking for the feature sotry for your local newspaper. use note pads, pens, camera - and your imagination. Have a "story conference" to decide what to write about. Once you've chosen your topic, make notes, record facts, and take pictures or make drawings. Then hurry home to write and publish your story. You'll teach your child more about your community - and improve writing shills at the same time.
