7 Tips to Making your Home Conducive for Learning

Aside from preschools, kiddie gyms, and tutorial centers, hubs for enrichment classes have been mushrooming everywhere in the past few years. It seems as if there has been an ongoing trend to keep the young ones busy or even a “pressure” to utilize every waking moment into a learning experience.

At the back of almost every parent’s mind, there is a lingering fear of getting “left behind” in terms of their child’s knowledge and skills. And so to keep up, parents seek far and wide to find the perfect place for their child’s development. “What does this program offer? Who is teaching this class? How many sessions can my child attend?” However, in the hustle and bustle of the hunt, parents often forget that they need not look far, for the best place to start learning is closer than they actually think – the home.  

The Potential of the Home
The idea of home is easily and commonly misconstrued as simply a place for board and lodging (and maybe for a bit of leisure and recreation) and that development of skills is a responsibility to be handled by the school. However, this conservative chicken-egg debate in determining who has topmost priority in a child’s learning and development is hardly necessary. In fact, the new perspective is to accept that these two complement each other and aid the child in maximizing his potential. Parents and child experts these days tell us that there is a need for everyone to steer away from this old-fashioned belief. Both have equally important roles to play, but what makes the home special and suitable for early learning is the idea of the family.

In her book The Filipino Family, Belen Medina (2001) shares that the family is a basic institution of society for it is the first social group which an individual is exposed to, as well as the group he most spends time with in his lifetime. Because of the deep and ongoing contact among its members, the family experiences shared make a lasting impression on an individual. For a child then, the home (through experiences and interactions) becomes a primary mover in his growing years.

Teacher Maricar Gustilo-de Ocampo, an Education Consultant from POTENCIA, Inc. and a faculty member of the College of Education in De La Salle University-Manila, strongly emphasizes the importance of the home and interactions that take place in it for a child.  “I believe that the first learning environment of a child is in his home. It may be a castle, shanty, apartment or condo but the place where the child has interactions with his parents and important adults is very important,” she says. Urie Bronfenbrener, an American Psychologist, views the growing child as developing within a complex system of relationships found in different layers of his environment. The home, which is one of the most immediate environments surrounding the child, then makes a good breeding ground for a his physical, social, emotional and cognitive growth. Through the child’s meaningful interactions with people and the activities he engages in, a child’s strengths are developed. “I believe that schools are important for learning both for academic and social needs. But the home environment can provide both if the family has made the full commitment to educate and care for their child in the home,” Mrs. Gustilo-de Ocampo further stresses.

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The Home as a Classroom
Learning is definitely not confined inside the four walls of the schools and educational centers. Mrs. Raquel Benares, mother to 2 year-old Andrea and weeks-old Cecilia, shares how families must be open to learning at home. “The home is always the first ‘classroom’ of kids and parents are their first teachers,” she says. “Kids spend most of their time at home so it is important to make it a place where they feel most secured and loved. It makes sense why the home is the best place for learning,” Mrs. Benares adds. The home can be a child’s learning haven and heaven if the right attitude and steps are consciously taken.

1. Set up the 'I-want-to-learn' mood.
It is no surprise that the right physical setup can induce the right attitude towards learning. “The home should provide a place where the learning can take place - with adequate lighting, furniture, writing materials, books, dictionaries, reference books, and computer access,” Mrs. Gustilo-de Ocampo suggests. The more comfortable a child is in the environment, the more he can explore new things. The right physical setup also applies for the outdoors. Putting up slides, swings, as well as sand and water play can excite the child and make him look forward to learning more.  

2. Make room for creativity.
Allow the child to feel confident and good about himself by providing him with materials that will promote his creativity. Aside from art materials such as paint, crayons, clay, glue and the like, non-conventional and unstructured materials may also help. Fancy toys and gadgets may seem very appealing, but getting creative need not be expensive. Recycled materials like old magazines, boxes, cans or bottles,  or even old shirts and other “junk” that are safe and not used often at home can become an awesome art or science project.

3. Have a routine.
A routine doesn’t have to be too strict or rigid. It can be just a plan of what a child can do or what he can do together with his parents for the day. For example, instead of watching cartoons the whole day every day, he can paint with mom in the morning or read a book with dad in the afternoon. Having a routine gives the child a sense of order and allows him to learn about becoming productive and making wise use of the time he has. The important thing is to have variety in the activities planned out for the day.

4. Change it up.
Once in a while, it doesn’t hurt to add something new to your child’s routine. For example, if drawing seems to be the highlight of your child’s week, try how he’d feel about helping you do gardening outside in another occasion. Changing up what he has been used to doing for some time already gives him something new to look forward to and makes him excited to learn about other things.  

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5. Turn the ordinary into extraordinary.
Mrs. Benares takes advantage of every day activities by turning them into meaningful learning experiences. “Baking and cooking can provide opportunities to learn as well. Measuring, counting, following instructions are the skills we can teach. Even letter recognition and reading can be taught,” she says. “Helping with household chores (like folding laundry), can also be turned into learning experiences. They learn about sorting, color recognition, and matching.”

6. Make school activities relevant.
For young children who go to school, finding a continuity between what they learn in school and in the home can help build the character of loving to learn. “Kids only spend a few hours at school, so following up and continuing what they learn at school, at home, will help retain the concepts better.” Make the school a partner in learning at home.  

7. Give time for play.
Parents should never underestimate the power of play in learning. Children learn best by exploring with their senses, and this is usually done through play. Plus, it’s a great way to make learning fun! Whether it be playing games or moving to songs or spending time outdoors, playing heightens senses and gives new information for them to understand. “My daughter, at 2, mastered her counting skills and identification of numbers by playing with puzzles I bought her. She learned it all through play,” shares Mrs. Benares.

In the end, the most important thing to remember in making the home conducive for learning is to let the love be felt. A loving and supportive environment is what makes the home the best place to learn. It’s not so much the abundance of materials or the activities done that make learning effective at home; rather, it is the quality of the time spent with the child, as well as the encouraging words and tight hugs that make all of it much more meaningful to the child. A child can learn best at home, if the home environment allows him to do so.  As Mrs. Gustilo de-Ocampo stresses, “Any place that is called home for a child is where love, acceptance, consistency and safety are felt and practiced everyday.”


References:

Berk, Laura E. (2000). Child Development. Allyn and Bacon. P.27.
Medina, Belen T.G. (2001). The Filipino Family. The University of the Philippines Press. pp. 2-3.
Thomas, R. Murray. (2000). Comparing Theories of Child Development. Wadsworth. P.407.