Guest post from Early Years Alliance: Creating a positive home learning environment

[NicolaDMumsnet]

Did you know that the period between birth and their fifth birthday will have more impact on your child’s long-term learning and development than any other period of their life?

The positive learning experiences that children have before they turn five will continue to shape their experiences in primary school, secondary school and even into adulthood – and while the role of early years settings is absolutely critical, the biggest influence on this is what children learn at home – from you as their first and most enduring educator, and in what is widely referred to as the home learning environment.

Creating a positive home learning environment isn’t about doing homework or taking a formal approach to learning. It’s the things that you do every day with your child that will support their lifelong learning.

This doesn’t have to involve spending money on expensive resources or toys – it can be as simple as involving your child in what you’re doing, such as helping to find the matching socks in the basket or encouraging them to get involved when you are preparing their lunch or dinner.

Supporting children’s communication and language development at home

Research tells us that children need to hear about 21,000 words a day. That is like reading Dr Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat 88 times! This may sound like a lot of words, but you will be doing this most of the time without even realising it during everyday conversations with your child. Next time you take a trip to the local park, talk to your child about what you can see and hear. View the world from your child’s eyes, and notice and talk about the ‘spiky’ pine cones or the ‘singing’ birds in the trees.

The daily chores and tasks you do, such as a trip to the supermarket, can also become fantastic learning experiences. If you have older pre-schoolers, you might give them a list with pictures of the item you plan to buy, which they can then help to collect from the shelves, while for younger children, simply pointing out and talking about what you see is a great way to introduce new words and support their early learning.

It’s also never too early to start sharing books and reading with your children, even the youngest of babies. Don’t worry if you don’t feel confident in reading yourself – just snuggling up together and talking about the pictures in the book is a great opportunity to bond with your child and introduce new words by talking about what you can see. And of course, a trip to your local library is always a great (free!) activity too.

How can I support other areas of my child’s learning at home?

There are plenty of other simple, low-cost ways of supporting your child’s wider early development at home:

Playtime with playdough: Homemade playdough is fun and easy to make (BBC Tiny Happy People has a great recipe here), and exploring the dough with your child or children presents lots of opportunities to support language development – just think about all those lovely new words like ‘squashy’ and ‘squidgy’ that you can introduce them to. You could even go on a nature walk together to find different natural objects to make prints in the dough like pinecones, twigs and leaves.

Playdough is a great way to build children’s confidence as there is no right or wrong way to explore the dough – something we refer to in the early years as ‘open-ended play’. Manipulating the dough will also help to strengthen tiny hands while even the act of making the dough together (measuring out ingredients, mixing and stirring and so on) is a great learning experience.

Frozen fun: Ice is another great free resource- for younger children and babies, exploring the sensory experience of the coldness on their hands will help to build important connections in developing brains as they begin to make sense of the world. Ice can create awe and wonder as children experiment and explore it. Try adding warm water to a pipette and dripping it onto the ice and watch it melt. Alternatively, you could freeze toy animals or dinosaurs into large blocks of ice (old ice cream tubs or yoghurt pots are good for this) and help your children to work out how to get them out – this is great for developing problem-solving skills.

Use your voice: Singing is another great way to support children’s learning and development. Not only does it support important language skills, but action songs are a fantastic way of supporting physical development – for example, marching around the house or garden while singing ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’.

Songs involving numbers such as ‘5 Little Ducks’ can also help children begin to understand mathematical language and start to use numbers in the correct context. BBC Tiny Happy People have some great resources to get you singing with your children – and remember: your children don’t mind if you haven’t got the singing voice of Adele or Harry Styles!

Finally, and most importantly, when it comes to creating a positive home learning environment, don’t forget to have fun! Just enjoying quality time with your child whatever you are doing will build confidence and self-esteem, and create great foundations for their future learning.

FIND OUT MORE
The Early Years Alliance will be running Home is where the start is, a free online family festival of fun and learning from Thursday 16 March to Saturday 18 March.

The event, which is aimed at the parents of under-fives, is packed with fun ideas on how you can support your child’s learning and development, with a range of sessions on everything from communication and language to easy cookery ideas to baby massage, and more. Find out more and book your free sessions here.

Twitter: @EYAlliance
Website: https://www.eyalliance.org.uk/