5 tips to creating conducive learning environment at home..

Parents nowadays spend tons of money outside their child's school hours, at tutorial centers, enrichment classes and even indoor playhouses, they look at what different programs the place has to offer, how good the teachers are, how many sessions their child need to attend in order to show improvement, etc, etc. However, in the hustle and bustle of the hunt, parents often forget that the best place for their child to start learning is always - the home.

No doubt that teachers in school can teach both academic and social needs, but the home environment is most crucial to reinforce and retain the concept as children spend most time at home with their parents. With that in mind, it's no surprise that the number one favorite topic Daddy Chan and I share most often, is how to create a more conducive learning environment at home for the boys, and here are a few tips from us after much exploration and experiment.

1. Always have a routine
If you search the keyword "routine" or "timetable" on Renzo's blog, I guarantee it will return highest amount of posts, that's often I emphasize on it.  We foster routine by introducing a timetable since Renzo was a baby. Now that he's in Primary One and spends his every afternoon at home with helper, I can tell he's benefiting so much from a great routine. He memorizes his timetable by heart and can pretty much stick to it without much supervision. With a proper routine, it's easier for children to develop self discipline, which is key to developing great learning habit. We always tell Renzo, to have good self discipline now, he will enjoy more freedom in the future to choose the kind of lifestyle he enjoys. 

2. Set up the positive mood
A few months back, I read an article about how this mummy changed the family's habit of watching TV after dinner every night, into reading/playing together instead, simply by adding a "book wall'" in the living room. I shared that article with Daddy Chan and immediately he agreed to take some actions. Well it's not some major renovation in the house, but we do need to make a decision to let go our sofa in the living room, which means it's going to be rather inconvenient for guests. But I love what Daddy Chan said, we design our home based on our daily needs, we don't prepare our home for guest visits.  So, there goes our 3-years-old sofa, and here comes our new favorite piece of furniture in the house, a giant 2.3meter x 2.3meter IKEA bookshelf! To fill it up full is harder than we expected. I thought we have quite a substantial amount of book collection at home, considering we have 3 bookshelves before getting this huge one, one in each room. So after this small make over in living room, we still have the TV and the boys still watch their educational programs in living room as usual, however, they do spend more time reading, especially Rynus who didn't really show much interests in books in the past.

We also have flashcards wall in kids room, where we hang up flash cards and amazingly, a new set of card may stay on the wall for a few weeks, and without anyone noticing it, Rynus managed to pick up those words by himself. All he did was to stare at the cards, flip them from front to back, and back to front, again and again..

So that's what I meant by positive mood in their environment. You don't need to force them to learn, you just give them an environment that motivates them to learn. 

3. Make room for creativity
I was inspired by an online video to create this "weekly family wall calendar". Renzo has a timetable to follow on routine tasks daily, so I thought it's quite a cool idea to have this wall calendar which allows us to track our individual goals throughout the week. Nothing beats modeling behavior when comes to parenting so I really like that now the boys also get to see what Daddy and Mummy are up for. This also encourages Renzo to incorporate some of his creativity in artwork into his daily plans.

4. Make school activities relevant 
Finding a continuity between what kids learn in school and at home can help build the character of loving to learn. Renzo has a section of his bookshelf dedicated for any book that is relevant to school curriculum. We also display his test schedules and even his spelling list, so he knows when and how to get himself prepared at home.  Rynus is still young to map out his own plans for the day, but we still can use this wall calendar to track his major school events. He will have great sense of accomplishment seeing how "busy" his week is, just like his daddy, mummy, and elder brother's.

5. Change it up
Once a while, Daddy Chan and I will hold conversations about what need to be changed, or added to the boys' home environment, that can accelerate their intellectual development. Be it hanging up a new Multiplication table on the wall, or adding a new reading chair in study room, or a clearing away an old writing table that they've outgrown from. Changing up physical environment which they've been used to for some time already, gives them something new to look forward to and makes them excited to learn about other things.

Our next biggest challenge, is to provide them with separate study corners with minimum distractions by the time Rynus enters Primary School. Both Daddy Chan and I used to share study table with our own sibling and there's just too much distractions, I still remember telling myself I would study hard if I get my own table when I was young. So it's our priority to separate the boys once they both need a proper area to study. Yes we have slightly more than 2 years to work on that! 

In the end, the most important thing to remember in making the home conducive for learning is to let the love be visible and felt. A loving and supportive environment is what makes the home the best place to learn.

protecting kids from parents' negative emotion..

"Renzo, mummy felt really upset this morning because you didn't even bother to finish your breakfast on time, you know that we are rushing for school bus every morning, how can you take your own sweet time to eat while watching TV?! How did you feel when I didn't chat with you, wait for school bus with you, and wave at you when you got on the bus?!! I will probably feel sad for the whole day but I guess you don't even care..."

This was part of a message I left to Renzo on our daily communication book at home this morning.

Yes that's what I did after sending Renzo downstairs to take his school bus at 645am in the morning. I went back straight to the study room and wrote that message to him, so that he could read it when he's back from school around 2pm. I was feeling weary, crotchety, and sick to my stomach. The notebook was covered in scrawls and squiggles. For a second I paused and thought that pouring my negative emotion onto Renzo in such a way, potentially can ruin his day, but I couldn't care less, because my day was valready ruined by him!!

After taking a few minutes to recompose myself, I went straight with my morning routine - 20 minutes of Korean drama watching, yes I am a huge fan but I don't watch in front of kids, so usually I can squeeze out 20 minutes during breakfast to catch my favorite show. And guess what? 20 minutes later, I wrote another message to Renzo. And this time, I managed to tidy up my handwriting without me noticing that at all.

"Dear Renzo, mummy felt sorry for not chatting with you, not waiting for school bus with you, and not waving at you when you got on the bus. I LOVE YOU!! But please think about what made me feel and act that way? I do hope you can be more considerate and focused in the future, as you know we have to rush for school bus every morning..."

I thought I would be angry for the whole day and I blamed Renzo for that, but the actual fact is, I felt as if the whole world is on my side again after I've done something I enjoy doing. I realized I was so out of my mind 20 minutes ago, not because Renzo might have caused the bus driver to wait for him because he was too slow in finishing his breakfast, and in actual fact, his school bus only arrived about a minute later after we went downstairs, but probably, I was upset because I spent time and efforts to prepare his breakfast and he didn't even finish it, which made me feel less appreciated. But seriously, if he were to read the first message I left for him, how would he react? I might just demonstrated to him that it's alright to vent his anger on others by writing people a note.

We spent so much efforts each day, turning every unpleasant situation in life into learning opportunities for our children, in hopes that they would grow up with emotional intelligence to cope with different challenges in the world. But if we parents, are not careful about letting our emotions escape out for our kids to internalize, they will struggle to learn how to regulate their emotions and interact with others appropriately.

To end the story, Renzo hugged me and muttered "I am sorry Mummy" when I reached home at night after work. And I saw the notebook with his reply to my request on being more considerate and focused during breakfast, he wrote: "Yes I will do that (or at least I will try)",

After all, neither of us had the day ruined by our little episode in the morning.

Look beyond the school results..

If you are expecting to read my opinion about "academic result is not everything" after the recent news about changes to PSLE scoring and Secondary One postings, since Renzo and his peers will be the first batch to experience the change in 2021, let me just say, that's not the message I am trying to convey here.

As I mentioned in my post about our 1st PTM experience, Renzo has been doing well during first half of Primary One. It's week 4 of Term 3 now, we've already received a whole list of test information from the school and indeed, Renzo has already completed a Chinese Pick&Tell assessment last week.

Recently he mentioned to me that Chinese is getting a little tougher, which I fully agree because I think his pre-school has prepared him really well for the first half of Primary One, but now it's time for us parents to step in and guide him through the second half.

Nope I am not going to leave the learning part all to him although Renzo is a very independent learner so far, but what I need from him, is good learning attitude, coupled with effective learning method and habit, so for him to achieve best possible result.

Nope you are not reading this wrong, I know even the government leaders, and the education experts are telling us not to overemphasize on academic result, and it's 100% true that "exam result doesn't determine success in life", we parents should not neglect it is still an indication of their knowledge at one point in time, and poor result even at lower primary level, sends certain message, let me explain why I believe so:

1. It's only Primary School now, it's fine not to score well. 
NO! There needs to be a bottom line.
A friend recently told us that his 3 Primary school kids need to score 70 and above, to "earn" a family vacation overseas. For me, the expectation is 90 and above. Well you can say my expectation is very high. But for lower primary kids, their school curriculum isn't too difficult.  We shouldn't insist on 100 marks for every subject, we can allow them to make mistakes here and there, but anything lower than 90 marks, assuming they have normal IQ and are not suffering from any kind of learning difficulties, should raise the alarm, as that indicates there might be a problem with their learning method or habit.

Careless mistakes, not being able to recognize/read/write words, not paying attention during lessons, not being able to understand full question, etc, are all examples of not having the right learning method or habit. And these, should be corrected at younger age. 

2. As long as you try your best, your score isn't important.
NO! Kids have no concept about "try your best".
Renzo made 2 mistakes for his Maths paper last term. I asked him about how he feels, and I still remember his answer, "Mummy, I might not be the best, but I tried my best!". Trust me, I have no idea why he said so. Probably because he has teachers who encourage kids to try their best during exams. I personally do not believe in "try your best" philosophy for kids at this age. Well yes it's definitely the right way to encourage older kids in Secondary level, or at least upper primary level. But if I encourage Renzo this way, I think very likely he would only remember the "it doesn't matter what your score is" part, and forget about "try your best" part, or even if he could remember, likely he won't know how to quantify that, he probably doesn't even know in order to "try his best", he has to spend time in doing revisions. So how to expect good result?

Do parents really think by the time their kids are in upper primary school, they can score better by "trying their best" automatically, without laying a proper, strong foundation since lower primary days? I think the key is to set clearer, specific and reasonable goals for kids, and guide them in achieving those goals on a more regular basis.

3. Those who score well will become future scholars. 
NO! Scholars can definitely score well, but those who score well now might not be good at learning in the future. 
Even if your kid score 100/100 for all 3 subjects, there might be another 10-20 kids who get the same score in his/her class. Especially for lower primary, the gap isn't too big as the knowledge they are learning now is rather simple and easy to understand. What we should be focusing on, is whether our kids have adopted effective learning method that helps them to absorb the knowledge better, and whether our kids have formed great learning habit that allows them to develop the love and passion for learning.

And this is the very reason why those who did well in primary school might not necessarily get into a good University eventually. It's also why we often see a lot of "late bloomers" who only started to shine at later stage during their academic years. It all boils down to when a kid discovers the learning method that suits him/her the best, and continue the learning habit from there.

I was never once a top student during my school years in terms of academic results. But I've definitely picked up some great learning habits along the way which I still thank my parents for. Till date, I go for job interviews with a set of anticipated questions which I practised countless times. I always have a notebook and pen with me,  to fill up forms, jot down notes or even work on questions (sometimes there might be more complicated technical questions during the interview, where pen and paper come in handy). These, are habits I formed during early school years. It doesn't mean I will definitely score well in exams by doing so, but I definitely benefit a lot from it after entering into working world. Now that I'm on the other side of the table during interviews, I see many candidates who come for interview unprepared, but those who brings along pen and paper, often fits the bill eventually, which again proves your attitude determines your altitude..

Learning is a long term journey for kids, hence I can never agree that just because they are still young, it's only the beginning, we parents do not need to take their results too seriously. Look beyond their results, the process of guiding our kids to set specific and realistic learning goals,  building strong foundation, cultivating right attitude is what we should be working on right from day one.