As a parent to a preschool or kindergarten-aged child, you are looking to provide for them the best educational experience that you possibly can.
While much of this is done through finding the best available daycare centre or school in the area, you must also believe that your role as a parent is to be the first and best teacher that your children will have.
You play a vital role in the preschool and kindergarten era in your child’s life and here are some of the best ways you can make an impact on their educational experience.
Do things together
This one may seem easy, but it bears repeating. At these developmental ages in daycare, preschool, kindergarten and on you should be reading with your child each and every night.
This will help build up their vocabulary and allow for the child to begin to understand what each of the letters does and how they fit into becoming words.
You should also be cooking with them and having them gain more experience with numbers and counting. In this time, you will be showing your child how learning can extend beyond the classroom.
How does your child learn?
While you child is at daycare, preschool or kindergarten, they occupy themselves with one of the many activities available to them whether it be reading, blocks, or playing make believe.
If your child favours using the blocks, be sure to get a set for home so that they can continue to use the most active part of their brains to continue learning at home. If they value reading time, continue to read with them each and every night.
Buy a copy of their favourite books from school and participate in the book fair if your school has one. If your child loves to imagine, join in on their fun and be robots, cartoon characters or whatever they like with them.
Practice makes perfect
Many daycare, preschool, and kindergartens are very hands-on and appreciate the parents being kept in the loop on the learning curriculum.
It is possible when you first visited these schools to make sure they were right for your child, and that they gave you an idea for what will be taught.
This gives you the opportunity to work with your child on what they will be learning and what they may be learning in the future. The ability to continue on what has been taught in school will help your child retain the information.
Connect what they learned to everyday life
Being able to connect what your child learns to their everyday life will allow for them to establish early on in their lives that school is important and will teach them more about the world around us.
Children are naturally very curious so being by their side when they are doing something will give them more reasons to practice, and more reasons to continue to pay attention in school.
Connect lessons to the global life
We all play a part in our global community and you can show your child just how their educational journey fits in during the grand scheme of things.
While the news might be ungraspable for your small children, you can still let them into other events and start a conversation with them about what they heard or even instil the lessons from stories they know into the large scale events they may have encountered in school.
In a Nutshell
Early childhood education is one of the most important parts of a person’s life. For young children, having their parents by their side is extremely important.
Parents can do more in offering the child encouragement, appreciation and love by spending more time with him/her.
This plays a vital role in a child’s personality development and possibly having the best perspective on life when they grow up.