The Star Online: Lifestyle: Parenting
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Parenting |
| Posted: Jessica Prafulchandra says learning never ends when fun is involved, whether it is grocery shopping, or just playing games at home. I TRULY believe in the concept of "fun learning" because when learning is fun, it just never ends. Hence, I always find opportunities to combine learning with daily fun activities. This method works very well with my two kids aged three and five. During the weekends both of them look forward to grocery shopping. To keep them busy I get them to read the labels on packaging. Of course, for the three-year-old, I get her to search for alphabets. This way, they get to enhance their reading skills. Recently at a mall, my daughter started screaming "cat" and she ran to the information counter to show me the letter "c" in the word "counter". The other shoppers had a good laugh and some even clapped for her. At the carpark, I get them to find our car by looking at the numbers on the pillars. I also get them to look at the numbers as we go up and down the parking levels. One day, my daughter asked, "Mummy, why when we go up it is always 1, 2, 3, 4 and when we go down it is 4, 3, 2, 1?" We also learn while playing games like Snakes & Ladders and Snap. While playing Snakes & Ladders, I get them to learn addition by moving forward and then subtraction by moving backwards. We play Snap using UNO cards so that they get to practise their numbers and colours. Snap! when it is the same number or same colour and then name them. This will also sharpen their vision and focus. To enhance their creativity, we have storytelling sessions using items like puppets, pillows and even spoons. Once, we were taking turns to tell the story about a plastic spoon's life and suddenly my son started assigning characters to a bunch of plastic spoons. "This white spoon is the policeman and these nine other blue spoons are the thieves." I was so amazed at the way he could see things! Then, I quickly took the opportunity to teach him maths. "If the policeman catches five thieves, how many are left?" We had so much fun that night. I also like to ask silly questions to encourage creativity. Once, they were all excited and ready to go to the Lake Gardens and suddenly it rained. Both of them were very upset and to cheer them up, I told them the story about how rain happens. In the end I asked, "can you think of an idea to stop the rain?" My son said, "maybe we should go to the clouds and make them wear my diaper." That certainly brightened our rainy evening! Both my kids love helping to cook which is an activity full of learning opportunities. Food names, nutrients, colours, utensils, tastes, smells, touch, just so much can be learnt here. One night, when we ordered pizza, my son insisted on preparing his favourite drink. So I gave him a jug and asked him to fill half of it with water. As he was filling it up, he asked, "Mummy, half is until where?" So I happily explained the concept of half and when the pizza arrived I got him to cut it into half. He was so excited when he did it right and asked "what do I get when I cut the half into another half?" So you see, fun learning really never ever ends! Jessica Prafulchandra |
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