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The Homeschooling Dilemma for Early Years!

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It has been a trend nowadays to find a learning activity to fill in every child’s vacant/dull/ downtime. To a point, we consider their young minds as sponges but also, on the contrary sometimes we risk missing out on the one important thing that they need in the early years: play.

Play is a child’s work: it is a safe environment that helps them explore their surroundings and at the same time help them find their relationship to these. 

Play is their self-expression as tiny human beings wonderfully handcrafted by God. Play is the moment when they both learn limits and test out freedom at the same time.

While it is good to introduce “academic learning” early on, we still hold on to the bottom line if the learning is relevant to the child’s age. 

Perhaps, the need to cut back and just give them downtime is just as important as finding valuable things to do. The lull and dead space allow them to explore the creativity that will keep them occupied out of their resort. 

For a list of activities that won’t take too much time yet will give valuable learning, you may check out the suggestions below:

  1. Read-aloud. Simply grab a book and read-aloud to your child, ideally a section if the story is too long to finish in one seating. This doesn’t have to be a much-twaddled book or one that is pure picture-loaded. Anything that inspires imagination and has the right balance of text and illustrations will do. After reading the book or section, ask your child to portray his/her favorite character, most hated, or the one that really caught his/her interest. 
  2. Role-play. Kids are not hard to ask to portray someone. In fact, it is harder to ask them to stop as the mimicking comes out more naturally and randomly! Join in the fun and just grab some blankets, cardboards, and portray the section which your child liked best for that day. Talk about an opportunity to understand what he/she remembers and values in her young life.
  3. Find a craft that will take a long time to finish. Usual crafts are done in one-sitting but why not take a route less traveled? Find a craft that takes days or weeks before completing it? Knit or crochet, make pots, or quills, perhaps? These are good in training persistence, consistency, as well as excellence. After all, kids in their early years need a good foundation of routine and repetition to establish a skill or habit. 

For some inspiration, check out our article on crafts that you can do for a season here.

If you’re not so into buying toys and your geolocation is not as flexible as to allow you to go to open spaces at the moment, check out the toys for rent of Present Parenting Solutions here.

We also understand we have different family setups and our pros are here to step in if you really need a reliable online preschool program in the Philippines. Our program is only P1499/month, for daily 30-minute sessions. 

This and more, in the days to come!

We are one with you, dear parent/guardian