Fun Ways
To Learn At Home

Making learning
a joyous time
for children can
be easy.

PAMELA REDMOND SATRAN

THE APPLETREE

SPECIAL TO APPLETREE

10

H

ave you ever won-
dered how best to
foster your child's
natural love of
learning when he's not in the
classroom?
Here are some ideas for fun
learning activities and games
you can play with your
child:
• Make a
map. Shop to-
gether for a map
of your town, your
state, the United
States or maybe even
the world. Mark the loca-
tion of your house, the houses
of friends and family, chart
places you've visited and vaca-
tions you've taken.
• Start a journal. Help your
child make his own journal
and then encour-
age him to make

en-
tries
on a regular
basis. Or start a
family journal in which you
record activities together. Oth-
er journal ideas: A weather
journal, where a junior meteo-
rologist can keep track of tem-
perature and weather changes
and figure statistics, or a visual
journal where a younger child

can draw a picture represent-
ing each day.
• Play critic. Rather than
simply watching TV together,
how about playing critic and
talking afterward about what
you each liked, what you did-
n't like, and why? You also
can critique movies
and books.
• Play store. Let
your child handle
small amounts of
money at the store.
Give him change to
pay for his own
treats, and ask him to fig-
ure not only their cost but how
much money he can expect
back from the clerk. With
younger children, you
also can play store at
home with real or
play money and
price tags to help chil-
dren learn how to
count money.
• Establish a library
habit..Create one afternoon
or evening a week to visit the
library. Get into the habit of
renting and returning books,
and also take advantage of the
library for trying new video-
tapes and CDs, perhaps learn-
ing to cruise the Internet.
• Change the story. Take a
favorite story — either a classic
fairy tale or a much-loved book

or movie — and talk about
what might happen if key plot
elements were different. How
would your child change the
ending of the story? What
would she do if she were the
main character?
• Tell time. Ban digital
clocks in your house to encour-
age kids to learn to tell time.
Buy your child a watch and
help him learn to
rely on it to judge

when a favorite TV show will
start or how long he has to
wait till dinner.
• Cook. Following a recipe
is a great way for children to
learn about measurements and
reading directions. It also
teaches children the impor-
tance of approaching a task
one step at a time - and helps
them develop the faith that all
those little steps can add up to
something wonderful.

Pamela Redmond Satran is a contributing editor of Parenting magazine, and co-author of the baby-naming books, Beyond Jennifer & Ja-
son and The Last Word on First Names published by the Copley News Service.

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