Learning at home would be beneficial if the child has a quiet place to focus on their learning. They need lots of praise and support. Parents generally have an interest in their children's learning - but sometimes confidence or time gets in the way.
Having a positive relationship with the child's teacher will definitely help with communication between school and home.
We also have had parent workshops which have been a really positive experience. Parents are more confident to talk and ask questions, and be involved with our school.
It is of the utmost importance that we do much more than acknowledge our learners lives outside of school. We need to inquire, discuss, share and most importantly value them. Their learning at home once the bus drops them off or they have wandered in the gate, will almost certainly involve many and varied forms of active communication, connection, creativity and real life learning in 'their world'. Parents are our leaner's first teachers and how come we feel as if we need to take over once the child turns 5? Do we feel that or is that the way education is? Perhaps we need to rethink things and join forces? How powerful that be would be!
How cool is learning at home I say, Learning new things every day. My special place to learn could be, Sitting somewhere quietly.
The value of learning at home ideally would be a family / whanau interacting and learning through a wide range of activities from building life skills to learning more about the world around them and globally.
-- Edited by Naenae on Tuesday 22nd of October 2013 02:35:22 PM
A cool place to learn in would be where us as parents are proactive, but not forceful. To make things fun and interesting, although not always labelling it as "Learning" but perhaps keeping a conscious view on what we aim to support our children with whether it be through life skills such as preparing a meal, personal hygiene, maths, english, computer technology.....
There are no limits to what a child learns, role modelling and also things such as time management, managing anger or frustrations in a safe way, pro-social behaviours etc...it is the way in which we engage that makes the difference.
This would look like positive participation and involvement in the schools, showing the children positive role modelling, helping out at the school, being supportive of any goals the children what to do.
Things that would be supportive for both my child and myself would be good communication with the school, being "up to date" with the learnings in the class room, being given the opportunity to participate in school activities, having a time to be able to share our skills with the class, perhaps even a Parents show and tell day...i don't know the ideas are endless :)
Having our whanau as active learners is important for furthering our children's education. Role modelling ourselves as students is important for our children to see. If mum and dad are learning then learning is a normal aspect of life at all ages. As a parent I am not necessarily the holder of all knowledge. There are more things out there to learn than what I will ever know. But what if I was an active learner with my children, or even better, a student of my children. What if, as a whanau, we were to learn something totally new together, and what we learn is co-constructed. What is it that we could learn, how will we learn it, how will we know that we have learnt it, what can we create with it. Learning at home can be about sharing the learning relation. Having my children teach me what they have learnt increases and encourages their learning.
Coconstruct learning opportunities with the parents so we can keep up with the modern world as a lot of parents and members of the families today don't know what to do if the child asked for help.
Learning at home can come in all shapes and sizes. It doesn't have to be sitting down writing or reading, children learn from their role models, so just watching or helping a parent or family member in doing a daily chore can be about learning.
The link between school and home is important and should be seen as a joint effort. Workshops at school are helpful to give parents ideas on how to go about helping children with their learning.
We think it would be great if we could choose our own Homework. We could take ideas home from class but be able to choose what we did so that you didnt have to do what everyone else was doing.
Having a quiet place to work away from distractions like babies crying, kids... maybe a study room?
Even though some of us have computers at home, we're not allowed on them all of the time... it would be great to have our own laptop just for us to use. We could use it for keeping in touch with friends (Facebook!), puzzles, reading and practising what we do at school.
We would love to hear your suggestions on what you think:
