Very Involved Parents (VIP)

Education is the foundation in life. We wouldn’t have the chance to survive in today’s world if it wasn’t for education. There’s this perception where education is always link to academic achievement only which is wrong as there are plenty of education out there for you and your little ones to equip with.

Other than academic achievements where your kids learn the subjects from the range of language to literature or morals and history including science and geography, education comes from music and arts achievements too which is very beneficial towards academic achievements. If you start your kids at the right age for music or arts or both, you should be seeing them performing very well in every aspects of their life especially in schools. This is because music and arts let their creativity flow where they have the freedom of expressing themselves freely. This helps them not to keep any hard feelings to themselves without expressing it which lessens the stress and is able to stay emotionally healthy. If they have the chance to perform their talent, this will eventually boost their confidence to continue their journey down this education to achieve more success.

Once their confidence is boost, you would notice they wouldn’t be shy among strangers and able to adapt fast in different environments. This is the time to introduce to them the education of socializing in the society. Making friends and trusting others needs to be learn from mistakes and experiences of others to avoid your kids from repeating the same mistakes again or influenced by the wrong group of society. Thus, it’s important for you to take some time off and talk to your children about peer pressures while sharing with them your experiences or each others’ opinions. This would also help your children to feel comfortable speaking to you about their personal matters leaving you need not to worry that they will do any huge mistakes in life. Of course, you cannot protect them all the while and sometimes it’s also good for them to make mistakes because if your children hold a very strong foundation of values that are thought to them since young, they will eventually fall back to their roots.

Values in life are also another education for your children to achieve. It’s similar to morals lessons taught in schools but not everything can be learnt from a book. Some values are best taught practically to understand the situation better and the rationale behind it. Some values on the other hand are being discovered by your child and interpreted by themselves or with your guidance for them to share and practice. There are plenty of values to pick and practice but it depends on your children to stay abide to them or stray away from them instead.

As parents, you have done your part if you have exposed them to at least these educations. As for the rest of the education, it will be the journey of your children to search for themselves but always be their support and guidance when they are in need!

There are kids who are greatly talented in math while some would simply had no interest and neither do they catch up very easily in math. That’s why math needs to be fun for kids to make it easier for them to adapt to new lessons.

It doesn’t necessary has to be during studying time or playing time to teach them math as you can teach them almost in everything they do daily. Use real-life objects for them to count rather than same old things that they have been counting since young. A bowl of cereals that is their breakfast can become their counting objects and a cozy night watching the stars can be another counting session with them. Kids just love snacks and once awhile, popcorns or chocolates would be their cloud nine. While letting them enjoy their favorite snacks, get them to count while eating. This may also includes teaching them lengths other than in inches or centimeters but in let say marshmallows or biscuits!

Counting is always fun especially helping out in preparing a meal or picking up groceries together. Get them to count the funny-shaped pasta or even corn kernels and vegetables stalks. While shopping for groceries, tell them to get you an amount of things you need like how many cartons of milk or cans of tunas and even kilos of potatoes or tomatoes! Well, teach them the magic of multiplications and divisions that would help them in solving huge additions and subtractions figures. Surely enough they might make mistakes once or twice in the beginning and your role is to help them to learn from their mistakes and avoid repeating it again.

While paying for items that you buy, always give chance to your children to help you to do the honor. Before handing them the money, ask them how much is their change or is there any change even. When they get their change, get them to double check if the amount is correct. Other than helping them to learn about their responsibilities in handling money, you are also helping them to learn money values using real money where they would be able to pick up very fast.

Of course basic math on papers, your children should have been exposed to them such as numbers and solving mathematical problems in words. You may integrate some sports statistics to teach them about formulas and statistics before creating some fun word problems of your own for your kids to solve! Telling the time maybe tricky for some kids and fractions tend to become a challenge to most of them. Keep using things around them like food or even toiletries that they use to teach them about fractions and whereas time, teach them by asking them to time themselves when doing things or ask them randomly what is the time.

Who said math cannot be fun at all and is all complicated? Now it wouldn’t be if it involves so much of your children’s favorite activities!

At the age of 3, your young kindergartner seemed to be so vulnerable and helpless when you sent him to the kindergarten to endure on his education journey. You barely could control your own self emotion for leaving him in the kindergarten all day without you by his side for the first week. But life goes on and one month, two months …. had passed by and he is getting himself more and more acquainted on his new kindergarten life.

I guess you are surprised as of how young children are capable to accommodate themselves well in a totally new environment, within new groups of friends and teachers, and how well they grow and learn intellectually in their early years of informal education.

As parents, you are also his most important teacher, mentor and guarding angel. He will tend to look up on you for any possible advice that he can get at three years old. There are many ways parents can help their children to grow and progress intellectually while having fun throughout his fun kindergarten life.

First and foremost, make it a habit to read together every day. Take turns to read to each other and pay attention to his reading carefully and correct him if he has wrong pronunciations.  Reading is the essential foundation which one needs to be good in, in order for him to build other skill sets on.

Next, make reading an interesting interactive process by asking him questions about the story he had read and review how well he had answered them.  Give him some guidelines and clue on questions that he can’t seem to answer so that he get the encouragement to try.

Make an effort to listen to your kid’s saying and relating for listening is a great asset to own. In fact good listening is so important because it is seriously lacking in this society. Teach your young ones the benefits of listening and the importance of listening when someone is speaking or talking.

Explore one new word every day.  Share with him the uniqueness of every different word by elaborating on how the new “word” should be used and where to use. Quote a few good examples for him to understand and remember better.

When he starts to get his mind around “alphabetical numbers”, guide him to find “these numbers” in his home and belongings such as, a series of numbers on the telephone dialer, the calendar hanging on the kitchen door, the number of his home’s address and many more.

When it comes to colors learning, add this learning with fun by setting different day for different color of clothing which are allowable in a week. Some examples are as such, “ On Monday, yellow clothing such as yellow T-shirt, yellow short pants can be worn; whereas for Tuesday, red is the only color; for Wednesday, we will be in Green .. and so forth. Children tend to learn and remember better when they are having fun.

Above are just some of the possible ways where parents can get engaged and involved in their young children learning for their growth in their intellectual skill and get acquainted excellently in some of the basic learning skills such as reading, listening, differentiating words, colors, numbers and many more.

Adjusting to a new school environment (such as from a nursery to a kindergarten or from a kindergarten to their elementary school) can be pretty challenging for your young children; while on the other hand, separating them from their current peers and teachers would cause unforeseen anxiety and depressions.

Some parents were surprised to find that some of their children had difficult time getting over the impact of school transition, especially for the first one month.

Some of the symptoms which may be visible to the parents are:

• Having difficulty in sleeping or frequent nightmares after the school transition
• The increase sign of worries and anxieties in their behavior and attitude
• A drop in their grade

Below are some key tips on how to reduce the impact of school transition for young children:

1. Be sensitive

Parents should carry out open talks with your kids and find out what his real concerns are. Encourage him to tell you what really bothers him so that you can help him. Don’t hide the issues or trying to ignore them. Face them honestly with your child to help him get through this transition period.

2. Be engaged

Parents should involve in the school or kindergarten’s volunteer programs, or participate in any parent-child’s activities held. This enables the parents to get a fine perspective on how their children are doing in the new school and how you can further assist them in areas of concern.

3. Adjust to the new schedule earlier

Have a plan to start to accommodate to the new schedule at least one week before the actual new school day. Establish a new routine time table for your child to start adjusting himself to. Such as to wake up early in the morning if he happens to be on a morning school, train him to get to bed earlier to catch a good sound sleep. Also getting him to prepare the necessary stuffs for the school tomorrow before going off to bed the day before is a good habit to avoid any last minute hassle and early morning stress especially when a new semester starts.

4. Effective community and parents programs

This encourages an active involvements and valuable engagement of parents in the envisioning, planning and implementation phase of the pre-kindergarten and pre-elementary transition programs. This helps to smoothen the transition process of these young children from their pre-school to an elementary school, while forming a strong connection among parents and the school providers.

Transitions are inevitable in a child’s development progress; those who have experienced positive and smooth transition during their school days will tend to excel in their early years of schools and continue to perform well through their teens. Positive and smooth transition is always possible for your children, as long as it is furnished with effective communications and keen engagements from the caring parents along the process.