Monday, October 25, 2010

Preparing your Toddler for schooling

Preparing your Toddler for schooling

Congratulations!! You are now a proud parent of a toddler, ready to take his first step to school.But not all kids would be very happy with the idea, so this task can sometimes be very hectic and stressful for parents. You need not worry much though,  since the task will be easier and exciting if you do the following at home when you see your child has started understanding instructions already.



Preparing your house environment:

The very first place where the child learns is from his environment so it's very important the parents should provide him with the environment that they want their child to grow up in and learn from.

1. Start displaying children's books in you shelves if you do not have library or if you have one at home, take your child there and talk about the place, like this is the library, it has lots of interesting books and show him/her colourful posters or pictures.

2. Buy your child a study table and tell him/her its purpose. For this to be effective you yourself should have one where your child sees you doing your paper work.

                                                  

3. Give him/her a paper and crayon and encourage scribbling.(All the written work should be done on the study table)

4. Encourage tracing in the air of alphabets and numbers with two fingers, in this way your child will learn the correct formation of the letters and numbers which will prepare him/her for writing.

5.Make your child sit with other children at home who are going to school while they study and give him/her some writing materials too.

6. Set a proper study time for your child.

7. Take your child with you when you shop for study materials for him/her and involver him/her as much as you can like asking which colour book would he/she like to have, which eraser he/she would like to keep etc etc.

8. Buy a very attractive school bag and lunch box for you little one. Tell your little one that thse are what he/she will take to school. In this way, you will build more interest in your child for schooling.

9.Last but not the least, talk to you child about his/her school and that he/she will have a very nice and kind teacher there.and that he/she would be drop and picked by you soon so it won't scare him/her.
The above points are just some tips which are proven quite helpful to mothers, but please keep in mind "study" here doesn't mean the reall study we adults do. It is just familiarizing your child with the study materials like pencil,paper,eraser, ruler, colour pencils, crayons, notebook, books etc etc.

Note: Please note children of this age should not be pressurised at all to study and learn but instead encouraged to work at his own space and freewill with your 100% guidance. Encourage "Learning Through Play" which would be in my next post.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Naveeka, Good to see another article from you, it's been quite a while! My son is about 2.5 years old now and we will be sending him to school from January. We have done almost everything that you have listed except for buying him a study table and following letters in air.

    One thing that really bothers me is the fact that he has no other kids to play with which is the most crucial part of a toddler's development. He is the only kid in the house and since my wife is also a working woman, he spents the day with his nani. Do you think four hours in a school would be sufficient for the emotional development through toddlers interacting with each other? I understand that no matter how loving and caring the parents are, they cannot themselves prepare a child for the real world where conflicts are unavoidable.

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  2. Hello again. It makes me happy to see concerned parents like you coming over for queries and it just gives me satisfaction to be of help.

    Well, don't be bothered with the fact that your son has no other kids to play with. Believe me it's not a problem at all since your son is at the right age to be in a school. School is the best place for kids to develop social life. It won't be easy at first, for both parents and child, but eventually you will be amazed with the result. My daughter was a complete loner; very introvert, though there are lots of kids at home since I live in a joint family system but it didn't help at all. She even didn't take interest in fun places such as Sindbad or Aladdin or just the common rides to ride on :). But she had lot of interest in reading and writing, that's when i decided to send her to school at the age of 1.5 yrs. MashAllah she is almost 2 and is socializing very well with everyone.

    Believe me having another kids at home or not is not an issue, once your son goes to school, you will definitely see a good change in him. But, regarding study time, you or your wife can be a very good study mate to your son. Have an extra notebook for yourself too, and when he is doing his written work that's the time when you play with your notebook too:) Show him you are coloring a circle and show the same circle he has to color in his notebook, your son and yourself will have a great time and he will definitely learn something through this "play".

    Good luck.

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  3. Yes Mr.Shahid ji I totally agree with you, toddlers need company of same age group for

    development and you can find lots of difference among children brought up in such

    conditions comparing with the children brought up with company of same age groups.

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