Kids who love to learn are effortless to teach. They soak up just about anything simply because they are excited to be learning something new. The thrill of a new discovery is what does it for them. Believe it or not, you can turn your child into one who loves to learn. Furthermore, the skills of investigations, analyzing, and researching are skills that are more useful than simply knowing all the facts. Here are some tried and true techniques to get your kids to love learning:
1. Read lots of great books. Read classics, read new books, read everything and anything that is appropriate for your child. Almost equally as important is to let your child catch you reading for pleasure as well.
2. Make it interesting. Just because your teacher’s manual says to do it that way doesn’t mean it has to be boring.
3. Encourage study beyond school. Better yet, let them think that they’re getting a vacation from school while looking into something they’ve always wanted to know.
4. Visit your local library. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why every kid in America that is allowed to, doesn’t have a library card. If you don’t go to the local library, it’s time to go make a visit.
5. Answer all questions thoroughly. This is a hard one for parents because we have agendas and things that have to get done. But if you take 15 minutes to answer a question about glowing octopi, you may be presently surprised to have a budding marine biologist on your hands!
6. Make everything a field trip. Trips to the mall, the grocery store or even normal errands can be field trips. You can do lessons on money, or you can even talk about what people would’ve done if they lived a few hundred years ago.
7. Invest in good educational materials. These don’t have to be expensive but if you have bookshelves lined with good books, you’ll have a child whose more likely to read them. We also own a whole host of science equipment from magnifying glasses, to microscopes and even petri dishes.
8. Don’t be prejudiced. We all have subjects we hate. We all have subjects that we don’t think we can teach. But we are also all fortunate enough to have so many great suppliers and curriculums available that you are likely to find something to fit your little one’s fancy. Squishy bugs–bring ‘em on!
What are your tricks for igniting the learning fire in your child?
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