Holi is the festival of colors celebrated by Hindus worldwide to honor and welcome spring. People usually spend this day with their family, and visit friends and relatives as they look to color one other. But with growing environmental concerns, water conservation and pollution, we see many people celebrating the festival in a humbler fashion. However, there are still ways you can get kids excited about Holi and make it a fun time for all.
👉 Design Color Bouquets
Let your kids express their creative abilities in making eco-friendly flower craft as part of the festival of Holi. You can use a wide range of colors, all of which are widely available in chemical-free variants. Children can create flowers from a small paper plate, plastic cups, and paper tubes to resemble a real flower. This can be a great activity with children because of its engaging nature, allowing them to learn new skills and develop their minds in the process.
👉 Holi Puppet Show
These days, children can be found staring at the television for hours. This is especially true during the holidays, when your child may have more time on their hands. While children may enjoy watching TV shows and movies, teaching your child about Holi by celebrating it in your own home can help instill pride in their cultural and religious heritage. Whether springing out of a pre-planned puppet show or spontaneously within a play session, these alternatives can help your child learn in an interactive environment.
👉 Make Organic Colors
Most people purchase synthetic, non-toxic powders, but there are many ways to make your own organic colors at home using natural ingredients and common kitchen spices. Natural ingredients like ground turmeric, henna powder, beetroot, sandalwood paste, and flowers like the red hibiscus can be used to make wonderful colors.
👉 Color Hunt
Another easy way to teach kids about Holi is to arrange a color hunt. Bring home three different colored balloons — red, yellow, and blue — and ask your kids to find matching objects in the house for each color. If you have more than one kid, you can organize a race. The one who finds more matching items first wins the race! This will add a fun element and help them recognize colors faster.
👉 Organize an art competition
Painting competitions can help children discover their hidden talents and boosts their confidence. Art competitions can inspire joy and excitement among kids, with the best paintings possibly made into greeting cards that you can send to family and friends. This would help remind them that we all have an artist within us who needs an opportunity to be discovered.
👉 Dance-offs
The festival of Holi is incomplete without some peppy Bollywood songs being played in the background. Get your kids to dance along with you on some upbeat numbers, and have a blast!
The Bottom Line
While throwing colors and having fun is certainly a significant part of the Holi experience, other aspects are to consider for added excitement. An unexplored yet captivating choice of activities would be to add some learning. By making activities educational and rewarding, learning will suddenly become quite enjoyable, with your kids being eager to participate in your next Holi celebration—passionately engaged while they are at it!
At Square Panda, it is our constant endeavor to deliver joyful learning experiences that engage children and empower teachers to better impart their wisdom. To know more about our comprehensive learning solutions and programs, visit our website: ecce.squarepanda.in
The pandemic has altered almost every area of our daily lives. Teachers and students, in particular, have had to adapt to online education, which has proved difficult for many learners. Educators agree that online courses are no substitute for in-person learning experiences. In 2018, the New York Times reported that online classes do not allow for the same level of individual attention as in-person classes, and children studying online perform worse than those directly studying with teachers.
Despite this, some students have managed to thrive by embracing this remote style of learning. Learning styles can be deeply individual, and students who respond well to online learning usually have a strong sense of independence and self-motivation. Those students often choose this learning style because they can work at their own time and pace.
Let’s look at why some kids are succeeding in online learning.
There is a lot of flexibility in online learning. The choice to learn at your own pace instead of being forced to go through the material in a certain way can help you stay focused and attentive. Therefore, students who do well in self-paced, flexible learning situations thrived while learning online. It allowed students to remain focused and attentive to course materials. Students could take any past classes they may have missed or repeat them as many times as needed. Anytime students wanted to repeat a lesson, they could replay it at their own pace, allowing them to fully comprehend the material and gain an understanding that would not be found in a classroom setting.
👉 More Time, Less Distraction
It is not an overstatement to say that today’s students had a grueling schedule in a pre-pandemic world. They attended school and were also expected to manage different extracurricular activities, such as sports and arts, alongside their classes. In addition to this, most students had to receive additional support from private tuitions and preferred going to these sessions in the evening or on weekends. As a result of the pandemic lockdown, many students had to curtail social activities, focusing on their online courses and studies, which proved to be beneficial for many.
👉 Mental Well-Being
Mental health is an integral part of overall wellbeing, and it varies from person to person. Regardless of the child’s age, some students may suffer from anxiety about going to school or the thought of being in a physical classroom where they feel uncomfortable. For these students, online schooling provided the opportunity to learn without all the pressures and expectations of being in an actual classroom. Even if they weren’t able to keep up with their classes at first, they were still able to complete their assignments at a later time without worrying about falling behind.
👉 Family Support
While it is widely known that school-based interactions and relationships with peers helps develop a child’s academic and emotional well-being, many children thrived while learning remotely. Parents play a significant role in how well their children flourish at school. Since online learning was new for children, many parents were actively involved with their children’s education. Most children were able to cope well with the demands of online learning because parents assisted them with the technology being used. This helped in boosting their child’s self-esteem and confidence.
The Bottom Line
There are several reasons why some kids thrive during remote learning, but it’s important to remember that every child is different. It’s never a good idea to compare your child with others or expect them to perform just as well as their peers in every subject area. While the thought of virtual schooling may have been far from parents’ minds when it first emerged, they can now view it as a viable alternative to attending classes physically in school, for now and the foreseeable future.
Our comprehensive interventions span across the lifetime of a child’s education journey, and impact multiple factors that influence a child’s educational achievement – such as learning, teacher support, parent support, educational infrastructure, access to technology, health & exposure to other skills.
To know how our array of products and programs improve learning outcomes from pre-primary through secondary grades, visit ecce.squarepanda.in/
As parents, we all want high grades for our kids, and no one wants to see their child struggling in school. But sometimes, things just don’t work out that way. There are few things more frustrating than seeing our kids spending so much time with their homework and trying so hard, but not getting the grades they deserve for all that effort. Now, it might be tempting to scold them for not studying better or longer—but aren’t there enough stressors on kids already?
The first step to building an effective study routine is identifying the problem areas that most frequently sabotage your child’s ability to learn and retain information. Once you understand where your child is struggling and what techniques they need to stay focused, the process of creating a study routine can help them build skills for academics that will last and serve them well.
Here are some reasons why your child might have trouble studying effectively:
Lack of Planning: Students who do not plan their time effectively will often have trouble with deadlines and miss opportunities to get good grades. Lack of planning leads to disorganization, making it hard to stick to a study schedule and commit enough time for a task.
Hesitant to Clear Doubts: Students are reluctant to seek answers to their doubts, as they fumble over a lack of clarity about how such queries should be raised. They fail to clarify whether the teacher can be approached personally or during a proper time slot. While the bigger class size and more number of students can make the task of teachers really difficult, the lack of confidence in oneself and the fears that one’s query might be repeated by someone else could be other reasons why students refrain from asking questions.
Poor Results despite Efforts: Children are typically assigned numerous tasks at school and are instructed to study specific topics. However, these instructions might not be sufficient for the students to reap the maximum benefits from their study time. Even for the really bright kids, getting good grades is a constant concern that haunts them. Therefore, it is essential for you to understand your child’s study habits and how they learn best.
Below are strategies that could be hidden in plain sight, which can help young people develop the skills they need to learn that bit better!
📍 Leverage New Technology
In the 21st century, learning is no longer confined to books and classrooms. With internet connectivity reaching almost every household, it has become possible for children to learn from the comfort of their homes through the available learning platforms. Help your child use their educational apps and study platforms with gamification at its core. Game-based learning has shown positive results, especially in areas where students find otherwise tedious subjects interesting. By choosing the right learning platform for your child, you can increase their interest in specific topics and help develop their cognitive abilities.
📍 Remove Distractions
For most students, distractions are everywhere and can interrupt the learning process when it comes to studying. The biggest distractions in a student’s environment are often their mobile phones, iPads, or television. To keep these things at bay, it’s helpful for parents to find a place for studying where there is no television or other distractions. One way to do this is by setting up your child in a designated study area to focus on their homework without the worry of being disturbed.
📍 Encourage Short Breaks
Studying for too long can cause symptoms of “brain fade”. Brain fade occurs when your child feels like they are losing concentration, or their brain just doesn’t want to focus anymore. In order to avoid brain fade, parents should encourage their children to take occasional breaks while studying. Recent studies have shown that taking a break during learning is vital for the brain to be able to absorb and retain information.
📍 Encourage Play and Sleep
The world today is a rat race for all. There is no room for error, and every kid feels pressure to be the best they can be. But as parents, we need to understand that our kids are going through a crucial stage in their lives where they need the best possible care. It’s crucial for them to have an active social life and an active lifestyle outdoors. Encourage your kid to play sports and allow them to have a good night’s sleep. When kids are outside playing and having fun, they tend to keep themselves free from worries, which keeps them relaxed. Research has proven that kids sleep better after playing, thus helping them perform better at school the next day.
📍 Appreciate Them
Positive parenting is one of the best ways to raise happy children. While it’s good to put your child in a time-out now and then, helping your child see that their behaviour leads to positive consequences will help them build effective study habits. Kids love to be praised for their efforts and achievements, regardless of whether it’s a big or small win. Celebrating even the smallest of victories can be just the encouragement they need to keep going.
Square Panda India employs a unique learning approach that makes the learning journey engaging, joyful, and often more productive than traditional studying methods. We do this by utilizing techniques like gamified learning, group work, mixed activities, and utilising a personalised adaptive learning platform to adapt content and curriculum to the unique needs of each child. Our programs help children discover and develop the best study habits. To know more, visit ecce.squarepanda.in
Learned helplessness is considered a debilitating mental state, where a person believes that they cannot influence the outcome of a situation. This condition, as well as crediting “failure” to be a learning opportunity, has had dramatic effects on the education system, most notably by contributing to chronic underperformance and high dropout rates.
Research indicates that students who have experienced repeated failure from a young age can develop an emotional state of helplessness. These kids actually start to believe there isn’t anything they can do to change their situation, and even if there were, they think they don’t have the skills to do it.
For many students, failure is accepted as a normal part of their school experience in India. They see themselves as helpless to control their own grades and outcomes, but educators can encourage students to reframe their experiences in positive terms. This leads to more engagement with learning, and it offers students the opportunity for more engaging learning experiences.
Refusal of help because they feel they won’t need it
Frustration with whatever situation comes up.
Using whiny or negative language when trying to solve a problem
Lack of motivation or initiative for complex tasks
Lack of self-worth and self-efficacy (a feeling that indicates whatever will happen, you decrease your chance of success).
Educators need to adopt practical strategies and techniques that target these feelings to effectively address learned helplessness. Here are a few things they can do.
Rethink the Grading System
In many schools around the country, teachers hand out low scores for poor performance on homework or exams, and even a zero. The idea of a zero may be too negative and off-putting, especially when there are so many other ways to highlight the best work. If possible, allow for retakes on some or all assignments, and emphasize that only one opportunity is offered. If a student can show that she tried her best, then giving her another chance to do the assignment may be the best option.
Normalize Failing
Failure is a part of what makes us human. However, failure can often be hard for kids to handle. Kids are very emotionally sensitive, and failure can lead to frustration, discouragement, and even shame. Teachers can help kids reframe failure to see it as a necessary part of life that leads to success. This allows students to create a growth mindset, reinforcing the idea that challenging problems are an essential part of problem-solving activities in school. It also teaches students that effort, not talent, is the critical ingredient for success.
Praise and Encourage
Research shows that praising effort over an individual’s ability has long-lasting benefits on children’s motivation, self-esteem and intrinsic interest towards a particular task. An effort is a more malleable characteristic, so praise for it can have a more significant impact. Efforts are also less prone to attribution error; we are just as happy to praise someone’s effort as we are with their intelligence or skill. Praising effort can change the way students think about themselves and their inherent abilities. When we praise only innate ability, students feel they have limited control over their success. But when we applaud the effort, students see that their actions play a role in determining their success. It reframes success as the result of effort, not because of an already existing, intrinsic ability. And that reframing can be very helpful to help them with learned helplessness.
At Square Panda, we are passionately focused on enabling children to succeed. Our personalized learning programs enable each student to learn at their own pace. We believe that everyone needs a little extra push to overcome learned helplessness and start believing in themselves again, and realize not just their learning and development goals, but also their full potential.
An understanding of language is the foundation of literacy, with vocabulary development impacting all aspects of communication. Building a stronger vocabulary in preschool will improve reading comprehension and prepare a child to learn and grow. A child’s vocabulary can have a profound effect on their future success in school, so the child must be surrounded with reading material that is varied, interesting, and stimulating. By expanding their vocabularies before entering school, young children are better prepared to understand the classroom literature they are about to read.
Research suggests that for young children, language does not just talk. It is a primary vehicle for formulating new concept. A child’s language abilities are directly correlated with their cognitive growth, with words representing increasingly sophisticated ideas. And the more words children use, the more new words are available to them, and the better they can make sense of the world around them. They can talk with their parents about new topics, follow along with stories on television, and follow directions from teachers.
Why does vocabulary instruction need to be in preschool?
The preschool years are crucial for laying a good foundation for language development. Children grow and learn about words through experiences with their environment. In addition to gaining knowledge of meaning from everyday interactions, preschoolers can enjoy building their vocabulary by learning new words from books and rhyming with silly songs. The failure to develop a rich vocabulary in the preschool years has a cascading effect on later reading skills that often hampers academic progress in school.
Comprehension is a critical component of reading, but comprehension can be nearly impossible for a child without a solid vocabulary base. A study shows that vocabulary instruction should begin in preschool. This will benefit students by building a professionally prepared vocabulary and tone with teachers and peers in an organized setting. The ideal preschool setting provides various opportunities to explore and play with new objects and materials not commonly available in a home. It also allows children to learn from one another as they build relationships and facilitate communication skills.
Ways to build a child’s vocabulary in preschool
Good teachers have a specific style in which they unleash their knowledge on students in a way that they can grasp. Teachers who have a good understanding of how to use words, especially when discussing themes or subjects, ensure that their students receive a more cultural understanding of the world and its meanings. While there is no one way to teach vocabulary to preschool-age learners directly, there are several methods teachers can use to encourage their students to learn new words and practice them outside the classroom.
📍 Verbal Storytelling
Verbal storytelling provides children with a way to think about the language that is far removed from the formal written word. It enhances children’s sense of audience and their ability to edit what they say, focus on the point they wish to convey, and respond to feedback from others. Children can improve their actual speech abilities using this approach.
Good storytelling begins with an engaging opening. Young listeners are more apt to be drawn into a story if you grab their interest early. Children are also more attuned to your voice, the pitch, the pattern of stress, and even your breathing pattern as you tell them a story. By recounting real-life incidents or telling familiar fairy tales, you can weave information about the world around little ones by using familiar vocabulary.
📍 Share Rhymes and Songs
Songs, rhymes, and poems are familiar features of the classroom in every preschool. Songs help children remember things. They can also help children express feelings and ideas. Rhymes and humorous poems encourage children to talk in sentence patterns that are more complex than they might use when speaking informally or in single words or short phrases. You can use songs, rhymes, and poems to stimulate language growth in young children and help them become increasingly confident using language for their own purposes.
Children can reap tremendous benefits when they hear, say, and learn nursery rhymes. These catchy rhymes can build literary language skills and enhance sound-symbol relationships that lay the foundation for later reading success. As early as one-year-old, children benefit by hearing classroom songs and nursery rhymes. These joyous tunes teach basic language skills and general animal sounds, which lay the foundation for reading. Include at least one nursery rhyme daily in your classroom instruction.
📍 Use Synonyms
Another way to help your children better their vocabulary is to model the appropriate use of new words in daily conversation. The most powerful tool in this regard is a simple substitution of synonyms in place of common words. For example, when referring to a large living space, avoid using the word “big” and try calling it spacious or enormous instead. A child’s mind absorbs and retains more detailed and descriptive information, and they are more likely to remember words, such as spacious and enormous.
Each child is unique and has their own potential, which should be identified and channelized at the right time. Preschoolers are at a unique place where they can readily learn previously encountered concepts, thus creating opportunities to open learning horizons. At Square Panda India, we create research-based programs that aim at making children ready for school.
Nowadays, most parents are keen to give their children the best they can, especially regarding education. The challenge lies in the fact that most of us are taught by someone with a performance mindset, which believes students learn best when motivated by punishment and reward. Now, this may work for some, but more than likely will result in extrinsic motivation that will create stress, anxiety, and fear. However, just understanding what a growth mindset is and how it can help your child could bring about noticeable transformations at home and school.
So, what does a growth mindset mean?
A growth mindset is a psychological concept born from developmental psychology. It was primarily developed by Carol Dweck, and is mainly inspired by work on cognitive development and self-perception in the 1960s and 1970s. A growth mindset hypothesizes that you can develop your intelligence and abilities through hard work and dedication.
A person with a growth mindset believes that with effort and determination, you can continuously transform your capacities. It views abilities as malleable rather than static. Research suggests that people can change their capabilities through learning and effort, which will positively impact classroom behaviour and academic achievement.
Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
Students believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits in the fixed mindset. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success — without effort. But the effort is where the growth mindset of students really shines.
In a growth mindset, students understand that intellect and talent are just the starting point. This allows them to follow a healthy mix of passion and perseverance to achieve more than they thought possible. A student with a growth mindset will know that mistakes are typical and there is always room for improvement. The key to success lies in learning from such errors and using them as a platform to grow.
How do you foster a growth mindset in your child?
It’s no secret that today’s educational environment is more focused on students meeting grade-level proficiency on standardized tests than embracing a passion for lifelong learning. In fact, the current emphasis on testing has negative implications for children’s development and subsequent achievements. Here’s how you can change this and develop a growth mindset for your child.
📌 Reward the Process
Rewarding the effort and strategies they put forth during their assignments rather than praising the outcome or final grade will teach them to focus on getting better at tackling different kinds of problems, not just trying harder. Encourage your child to celebrate their ability to persist and improve. A study suggests that rewarding even small steps toward a significant achievement helps develop the mindset needed to reach any goal. It’s essential to be clear about your expectations, so your child knows how to achieve success. This way, if they struggle with a concept or aren’t quite there yet, you can identify the issue, and find the solution together.
📌 Mind Your Language
The way we talk about children’s accomplishments and challenges can impact how they view themselves. Schools tend to employ language that makes children feel like failures when it comes to the grade system. For example, teachers use terms like “see me” or “remedial reading.” These phrases can sound scary to kids, even though the assignments are not particularly difficult. The language schools use tells students that they are failing instead of needing some extra focus or skills work. This creates an impossible standard for kids to live up to. It reinforces negative thoughts that can lead to further issues down the road.
Language and the words we choose to use in talking about intelligence and ability can significantly impact how children view themselves and their future life opportunities. If you talk to kids in this way, they’ll feel more self-confident about themselves. You can ask them, “What strategies are you using when you study?” Also, discuss current events your child is passionate about. They’ll be glad that someone is interested in their hobbies and interests. Showing that you care will encourage kids to stay connected to the ones they love.
📌 Show Them What a Growth Mindset Is
The best way to teach a child a growth mindset is by example. Children learn visually, and they also learn from the behaviour of their parents. Parents who practice fixed mindset behaviour can inadvertently teach their children fixed mindset thinking.
If you want to raise a child who believes they can master challenging tasks and reach their goals, you need to model the right kind of thinking and behaviour. Hard work and perseverance are crucial. If you’re able to develop a “growth mindset” along with your child, he or she will be more likely to maintain it throughout her life, regardless of the challenges faced.
Generate opportunities to model behaviours related to a growth mindset in both learning and non-learning situations. As you model a growth mindset, be specific about working through mistakes to approach challenges with a growth mindset. This helps children learn how they can use their own thinking in similar ways.
At Square Panda India, we provide education and interactive learning programs that instill a growth mindset. Our learning programs are humanized and dynamic. Unlike a traditional school, we design lessons based on each student’s unique pace and requirements and monitor their progress through these metrics instead of giving them grades. To know more, visit https://ecce.squarepanda.in/
Diwali brings with it a lot of fun, frolic, and loads of festivities. It is a time when you get to enjoy your favourite dishes, buy new clothes and gifts, and celebrate with friends and family. Children enjoy this festival more than anyone else, lured by the bright colours and lights, bursting of crackers, and Diwali-inspired artifacts. But with online learning and proliferation of technology, kids are so hooked to their gadgets, they have a hard time making out the colours and the feel of the festival. So how do you make your child’s Diwali special? And how can you make sure they enjoy the festivities to the fullest?
To make your little one’s experience of Diwali more meaningful, we bring you five simple activities that will ensure everyone has a heart-warming celebration.
Rangoli Sketching and Painting
With the colourful festival of Diwali around the corner, there’s a natural tendency to think of it as a celebratory time. However, this Diwali, you may want to go a step further and focus on at least one aspect where you can help your kids tap into their creative instincts. And what better way could there be than going over the age-old tradition of rangoli pictorial art, which has been seeing increased interest in recent times.
Rangoli is a quintessential and essential part of almost every Diwali festival celebration in India. It’s, in fact, just as important as the diyas and crackers you to mark the occasion. The trend of rangoli art is becoming popular even among young kids, thanks to the internet and other avenues amplifying their popularity.
Glitter Diwali Cards
Source: Artsy Craftsy Mom
Holidays are always exhilarating for children, and a special day like Diwali seems all the more remarkable for kids. Therefore, it is essential to be creative when you decide to celebrate this festival through the eyes of your kids. A project that will help them have fun and develop some creative ideas would be to get them some Diwali greeting cards. Let them add a bit of sparkle and colour to the cards they design on their own. In this way, they can exercise their creativity and learn a lot about Indian customs and celebrations.
Storytelling
Source: Webneel
One of the best activities to engage kids in Diwali celebrations is to tell them stories associated with the festival. The different versions of why Diwali is celebrated will ignite their interest in the significance of the festival. There is a different story about why we celebrate Diwali in each part of the country, so your child will be aware that people from different ethnicities commemorate this holiday. Provide them context behind the reasons we celebrate Diwali and answer any questions they might have. This helps engage them and may get them to ask more, which encourages them to participate further in festivities.
Diwali-inspired Artifacts and Origami
Source: The Joy Sharing
Adding origami to a child’s craft repertoire provides them with a fun method of art-making. And what better way to introduce them than Diwali-inspired origami? Origami creates a significant impact on children’s brain development, fostering their creativity & imagination. By teaching them origami, they can make colorful earrings, flower garlands, greeting cards, and more. All you need is origami paper along with glue or double-sided tape to create lovely designs they’ll love to wear, give as gifts, or display at home.
Green Diwali
Source: Artsy Craftsy Mom
Climate change is a cause for concern, and we must understand the environmental impact of our actions. Educate your children about the importance of eco-friendly Diwali celebrations. Allow them to use their creativity to create alternatives to traditional firecrackers. This will teach them about caring for the environment in a fun and engaging way. You could try cutting thin pieces of paper into animal-shaped rhombus, playing with the shape to create an aesthetic appeal for your papier mâché firecrackers.
At Square Panda India, we believe in the importance of playful discovery and learning during early childhood. Incorporating joyful learning about Diwali helps children develop skills that contribute to their creative and intellectual development. Let your child be fascinated about this festival of lights!
The last two years have been all about adapting to change, with schools closed across the globe and students staying at home as health and safety concerns took centerstage and learning was being conducted remotely. Teachers use digital tools to communicate with students and impart education. But with messy remote learning, parents are looking for ways to help their kids stay on track. At the elementary level, there is a strong correlation between parental involvement and student achievement. Research has shown that when parents are involved in their child’s education, children tend to feel better about school and perform better in class. Both at home and school, there are many things parents can do to help their children’s learning. Here are some ideas to get you started!
Demonstrate a Positive Attitude
One of the advantages parents have over teachers is that they spend a lot of time with their kids, and they get very good at reading the nuances in their words and actions. Parents can help support their children’s learning outside of school by offering them positive, relaxed, and fun learning environments at home. Although children naturally want to learn new things, they are often most successful when they are allowed to discover new concepts at their own pace, in their own time.
Parents can demonstrate how to think about things (such as solving problems) rather than tell them what to think (or how to do something). Rather than instructing children with directives like ‘Don’t forget your homework,’ you might remind them that they will need their workbook for class tomorrow morning. A study has shown that parents and families can play a crucial role in boosting student achievement and sustaining the momentum needed to reinforce positive attitudes toward school.
Monitor the Screen Time
Remote learning has become a widely accepted trend across the globe. While the internet has proven to be a valuable educational tool, several studies highlight just how dangerous it can be for young children. Students who spend an excessive amount of time surfing the web are less likely to perform well in the classroom.
Today’s children are immersed in the media. With remote learning, children are already spending a lot of time on their computers. And it’s not simply the TV shows, videogames, or internet they watch or play with—it’s all of them. One hour of television uses the same word-retrieval skills as two hours of homework. Media without parental guidance can become a detriment to learning by taking away time usually spent studying and completing schoolwork.
Monitoring a child’s screen time is a way to help them develop their time management skills and avoid getting distracted. The first thing you should do as a parent is to inventory how much time your kids spend on screens. In particular, take note of what they’re doing on those screens. While there is no set rule on how much screen time is allowed, you can try to limit it, especially when your child does facetime and gives up physical activity and face-to-face communication with people.
Promote Active Learning
Active learning is significant for young children, who are still building their understanding of the world. It helps them learn not just new things but also how to learn. When children are constantly told what to do or simply left alone with an assignment or a book, they are not challenged to think for themselves. As a result, they miss opportunities to develop the skills required for higher-order thought, including critical thinking and problem-solving.
Active learning involves guiding your child’s exploration and helping her develop her interests to acquire social skills. You can help build your child’s active learning by providing opportunities for him to play freely with other children. Also, teach functional problem-solving skills by asking your child questions about his activities and explaining your problems at work. With the use of technology in today’s classrooms, it’s no surprise that nowadays, there are many real-life applications for this theory.
Active learning can be anything that encourages the brain to think, test ideas and take action. It can include doing art or playing musical instruments, reading nonfiction or opinion pieces in the newspaper, making models, building things with blocks and Legos, taking photos, watching videos, and playing with your smartphone.
Encourage Reading
Reading is an important skill, not just for schoolwork but for life. Having used digital tools for studying for the last 1.5 years, we have already moved from the printed word to the screen. Reading isn’t just about getting good grades or passing some tests. Having a reading habit is an essential element for children to enrich their knowledge, whether from newspapers or storybooks. In addition to practicing reading skills, it can enhance their imagination, widen their perspective and improve their language skills.
You can’t rush a child’s reading development — but you can help your child along the way by establishing a love for reading from an early age. By being aware of your child’s readiness for learning how to read, you will be able to nurture a strong foundation of literacy that will serve your students well for decades.
The Bottom Line
Children learn better when their parents are involved. As a parent, you can reinforce your child’s learning through routine activities at home. We believe that a child’s development is a direct product of home life and that an early childhood educator’s responsibility begins before the school day.
At Square Panda India, we acknowledge the importance of parental involvement in early childhood education. We take special measures to create awareness amongst teachers about how important it is to share ideas and resources with families. This awareness helps our educators develop effective strategies to integrate family participation in learning activities.
Teacher holding digital tablet while teaching students in classroom
When society makes failure synonymous with all things bad or something to avoid at all costs, children are learning at an early age that their worth is tied to the success of their actions. Failure can be scary. Failure is a part of life, whether it’s a 5-year-old finger-painting a masterpiece or a 55-year-old failing to use a new computer program. It doesn’t matter if the failure was avoidable or not, failure will happen to the best of us.
But how do we help kids deal with these failures? How do we teach them that failing is okay and that they should try again?
It’s hard for most educators to cede control of their children. But allowing them to make mistakes and stay safe is vital in the learning process. Here are some ways you can help your child learn to fail safely:
Emphasize their growth mindset
A growth mindset changes the way the brain reacts to failure, and it helps children learn from their mistakes. They don’t interpret failure as a reflection of their self-worth, and quickly bounce back to recover from their mistakes. Failure is inevitable. That is why it’s so important to encourage your children to embrace a growth mindset. When kids feel empowered to improve, that’s when they’re most likely to succeed — and with a growth mindset, they’ll be more open to trying new things and embracing challenges.
Let them fail
Since the time our children were infants, we’ve offered them a safe, secure life. When they fall, we rush to their side and make sure they’re okay. We go to great lengths to avoid adversity and challenge because we want to protect them from experiencing hardship or failure. But shielding children from adversity isn’t the same as protecting them. It’s essential to allow your child to experience failure. Without difficult situations to navigate, kids won’t develop critical problem-solving skills—and nobody expects a baby to ride a bike without training wheels. Teach them how to cope with failure, so they don’t fear it — and make sure they earn prizes when they overcome a challenge.
Share your experience
Children like to emulate what they see. You can model positive ways to handle setbacks and challenges by being open about your struggles. You can point out that when we fail at something, we often learn from it and even get better for having tried. Likewise, when you learn to fail forward, your kids will learn from painful experiences and grow from mistakes.
Kids can be a little unrealistic in thinking their ideas and plans will always lead to a remarkable life. So you need to teach them that it’s okay if things don’t always work out the way they think.
Empathize with them
By meeting your children with empathy when they fail in front of their peers, you’re modeling that emotion for them. They can see what it looks like when someone is hurt or disappointed and find the words to express those feelings. This doesn’t mean they should be immune from all criticism. But it does mean that if they make a mistake, it’s okay, and the sooner you teach them that, the better!
Final Thoughts
Learning to fail can be painful at first, but it is an essential part of the learning experience, for children will only succeed in life if they can acquire the knowledge and skills needed to handle whatever life throws their way. Our young learners need to know that failure is an integral part of the learning experience. Else they may become afraid of trying anything new for fear of doing it wrong.
Educators and parents can be a key part of bringing in this cultural change. Educators can design and build schools, pedagogy, and curriculum in a manner that encourages students to learn from failure. This can truly prepare students for transformative success.
Parents too are an essential cog of the learning experience. By providing a nurturing environment, they can be a much-needed guide to children. So that they learn that getting it right at the first time of asking isn’t essential, and that it is more important to do the right thing. The best education doesn’t necessarily come from the classroom. But from how adult role models teach kids to be resilient in the face of whatever life throws their way.
Know of an inspiring educator or educational story that encourages life-long learning in students? Send us a message at marketing@squarepanda.in or comment below, and we’ll feature your story!
A child’s experience in this world is one of multisensory stimulation. It is likely that evolution itself supports optimal functioning in such an environment. While all children reach their developmental goals at different paces, research suggests multisensory learning is one of the most effective strategies to enhance the learning experience.
*About ‘Multisensory’ And ‘Multisensory Learning’: The term ‘multisensory’ means using more than one sense at a time, while ‘multisensory learning’ incorporates learning techniques that use multiple senses at the same time. For example: Adding audio or visual aids into teaching and assignments. Not every lesson does (or needs to) include each sense, but such an approach does require more than one sense to be stimulated at a time for better learning outcomes.
Multisensory activities are based on the concept of ‘whole brain learning’, which is the belief that the best way to teach concepts is to involve all areas of the brain. In his book, the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (1987), American biologist Gerald Edelman wrote that more elaborate brain connections are formed with multisensory learning as compared to single sensory learning, greatly enhancing comprehension and retention. To learn more about connections in the brain and how they help with memory retention, consider reading how to help children retain learning.
Multisensory learning also proves effective to different types of learners: visual learners, auditory learners, tactile learners, and physical or kinesthetic learners. This ensures multisensory instruction reaches every learner in the classroom.
To help children enhance their multisensory awareness, we curated simple multisensory learning activities that tie into early childhood education and can be easily incorporated into the classroom or home:
Note: Each activity can be used (and tweaked) depending on children’s learning levels and interests.
Activity Name: Handprint Birds
Image from WikiHow
You Will Need:
Paint
Glue
White paper
Coloured pencils and/or crayons
Kid-safe scissors
Method: Paint children’s palms with one colour, and their fingers multiple colors like red, yellow, and green. Guide them to place their hands, palms down, on a sheet of white paper to create a handprint. On the thumb area, help them draw a beak using colored pencils or crayons. Draw an eye, a pair of feet, and you have a handprint bird! You can cut this out and make a sign or card, too.
Learning Outcomes: Fine motor skills, colour identification, creative exploration
Activity Name: Colored Corn Art
You Will Need:
Glue stick
1 cup of regular corn kernels
Vinegar
Water
Food coloring
Containers for mixing food coloring (bowls, plastic cups, etc)
A sheet of paper
Method: Fill half the container(s) with water and add an equal amount of vinegar to it. Ask children to choose food coloring(s) of their choice, and mix them into the container(s). Then add in a small amount (about half a cup) of corn kernels and leave them to soak overnight. The next day, ask the children to dry the corn kernels with paper towels. Ask each child to get a glue stick, a sheet of paper, and some of the colored corn. Encourage them to use some creativity to make fun designs with the different colors! (Note: it’s easier to add glue to the sheet and then stick the corn to it.) Learning outcomes: Fine motor skills, socio-emotional development (patience), creativity
*Not recommended for younger children as there is a choking hazard.
Activity Name: Apple Basket Word Sort
You Will Need:
Red or green paper
Colored pencils or markers
A basket
Kid-safe scissors
Method: On apple-shaped cutouts (created by children from red and/or green paper), write CVC (i.e., consonant-vowel-consonant) words like MAP and HAT. Write as many words as the children can identify at their age. Mix up these ‘paper apples’ and place a basket in front of children. Call out the words at random and ask them to pick the right apple cutout and place it in the basket.
Modification: Repurpose this to enhance foundational numeracy skills; switch out the words for numbers.
Learning Outcomes: Vocabulary, colour identification, sorting, creativity, fine motor skills
*For online classes, you can ask parents to help you.
Activity Name: Popsicle Scarecrow
You Will Need:
Glue
Popsicle sticks
Pens/pencils/crayons
Buttons, beads, threads, ribbons (for extra ‘decoration’)
Method: Ask children for help in protecting the garden. They need to make a popsicle person to scare away pests like crows and mynahs. Glue the narrow sides of 4-5 popsicle sticks side-by-side, to make the body. Break one popsicle in half to make the arms, and glue them lengthwise. Use two popsicle sticks as the legs. Draw on some features, and even stick cotton or thread for the hair. Add to the multisensory approach by putting this scarecrow into a real garden, if you can access one. If not, you can even put it into a potted plant. Learning Outcomes: Fine motor skills, creativity, environmental awareness
Activity Name: Road Trip
You Will Need:
Toy vehicle (car, truck, etc) OR you can use any random object as a ‘vehicle’
A plain sheet of paper
Pen/pencil/crayons
Tiny popsicle people
Matchboxes
Small cotton balls/balls of paper
Method: Take your little learners on an imaginary road trip. Draw a winding road on the paper. Decorate the sheet with matchboxes (for buildings and houses), add in some cotton/crushed paper as rocks and boulders. Drawn fields that are guarded by scarecrows or farms with scarecrow people in them. Place the vehicle at the start of the road; ask children to move it along the path. As they travel from place to place, ask them to create stories, identify the elements, and gradually make their own little roadmap.
Modification: Improve early literacy skills by writing names on buildings (school, hospital, etc.), and asking children to read, and later spell it themselves.
Learning Outcomes: Imagination, creativity, fine motor skills, storytelling, early literacy skills
Method: Trace out a tree trunk and branches together with children. Give them glue sticks and ask them to glue buttons to the branches to make a colourful button tree.
*You can use cotton balls, rolled up bits of paper, actual dried leaves, or anything else to make this tree.
Modification: In later levels, you can ask children to group particular colours together, add fruits, little hand painted birds, and anything else they can think of.
Learning Outcomes: Fine motor skills, colour identification, sorting and grouping, environmental awareness, creativity, exploration and imagination, observation.
To drive their intrinsic motivation to keep coming back and learning, children need to engage with the learning process. This is where multisensory activities and instructions fit in; they present information through more than one sensory system at a time, encouraging optimal learning.
At Square Panda, we understand the value of multisensory learning. Our programs — for children and for educators — include content that uses all the learning pathways in the brain (auditory/visual, kinesthetic/tactile) to enhance multisensory exploration for robust educational outcomes in early childhood education. Learn more about our holistic NEP 2020-aligned programs: ecce.squarepanda.in
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