The increased number of people at home during this crisis has inevitably increased our amount of housework as well. It's difficult to keep things clean and organized while also trying to keep kids entertained, engaged, and learning. Is there a way to combine our daily and academic tasks? With some imagination, maybe so. Consider embedding learning opportunities (and fun) while engaging kids in your daily tasks. While there are limitless ways to do this, here are just few easy examples:
Cooking
Trying to cook while kids are running around the house? Try engaging them to cook with you. Here are just a few benefits of working together:
- Reading - Understanding directions is always a terrific academic endeavor - no matter what the age. Kids who can follow directions perform better in school. Practice this skill by having your child either read directions to you as you model each step or vice versa.
- Writing - Come up with your own recipe. How would you communicate our new recipe to a person who wants to make this dish for the first time?
- Math - For younger kids, have them measure out ingredients carefully. Older kids can practice multiplication, division, and math skills by doubling or dividing a recipe's ingredients.
- Science - Why does bread rise? What is the purpose of an egg in a recipe? What happens if we don't add enough liquid? Predict what will happen if you add too much of an ingredient or not enough of another. Good scientists predict an outcome, draw inferences, and hypothesize events - all elements found naturally in cooking.
- World Cultures - Making Italian, Mexican, or Asian influenced foods tonight? Play cultural music in the background as you cook together. Research the origins of recipes.
Tidying-Up the House
Tidying-up a house is an act of goal setting and execution. Two skills kids need to develop to perform well as school - and more importantly - in life.
Goal Setting and Execution:
- Observation: Have kids walk around the house to make a list of tidy-up tasks.
- Goal setting: What tasks need to be accomplished by the end of the day?
- Break down task: How can we leverage the resources we have in the house to get the work done (ex. What can mom and dad do? The kids do?)
- Prioritization: identify level of importance for each task. Which tasks need to be done first?
- Evaluate: After completing the work, what went well? How could you improve for next time?
There are other sneaky skills in tyding-up a home that will benefit your kids academically:
Academic Skills
- Loading a dishwasher - Putting as many dishes, cups, trays, and other dirty items in dishwasher is a mathematician's dream. How do you get all those shapes and sizes to cooperate at the right angle? Challenge kids to put as many items in the dishwasher as they can - smartly.
- Mopping a floor - Not only do kids need to know the ratio of cleaning solution to water given the surface area they are working with but they also have to plan ahead before mopping. Given the surface area, where do they start and stop mopping. How do they ensure they do not do more mopping than necessary?
- Laundry - How many items can you fold in five minutes? What is your rate of folding per minute then? What is the benefit of folding warm items over cold ones? Why?
- Putting toys away: How do your organize your toys? Kids can start to learn how to classify items while physically organizing their toys. Learning is all about organization too. Brains work hard to store information by connecting it to different categories of things you already know. In other words, the physical act of organizing toys is great brain training for learning and storing information categorically.
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