5 Ways to Improve your Preschooler’s Study Habits

By Stephanie F. Esguerra

Homework and exams need not be a child’s nightmare. Here are five ways you can help your preschooler improve his study habits.

Xin Yi from Wonderful Years Daycare has established her homework habit without prompting.

As parents, there’s a lot you can do to help encourage your child to have fun in and outside the classroom.  By treating learning as a fun experience, you can help improve his study habits.

1. Before you worry about the challenge of your child answering homework and reviewing for exams, it’s important to make sure that he actually pays attention in class and takes important notes. Anything he has to study will largely depend on how much he understands from his classes. 

The key here is to help your child stay attuned to what the teacher is explaining, and for him to keep listening attentively. Why not play a game at home by testing and improving your child’s attention span? Read simple stories and ask him certain details that tackle who, what, why, when and where questions so you can gauge just how much he was able to retain and remember. As you read to him, you can also have him write down what he thinks are important points in the story. This will help you see what grabs his attention and what he considers as “note-worthy.”

Turn learning into a fun experience so your child will look forward to school.


2. Create a study routine / schedule.
It’s important to instill in your child the practice and discipline of turning study time into a regular part of his day. 

When he gets home, you may want to have him rest first to recharge. Serve him healthy snacks like finger foods or fruits and go through his subjects one at a time. 

Pick a good location for his study area. It should be a quiet place with no distractions, and it has to have whatever materials he may need for studying. Get a study chair that’s comfortable enough for him. Brighten up the room by incorporating your child’s personality into it, so he’ll look forward to studying time.

Go through his notes and ask him what he enjoyed learning in class that day. Ask him what his homework is and have him explain it to you first before helping him accomplish it. 

As with any study routine or schedule, pace accordingly. Be patient as you guide your child into settling into the study routine or schedule. Make sure you don’t spoonfeed him the answers. Give him time to figure things out on your own. You can provide suggestions to help him arrive at the correct answer. Create fun games to review him on lessons and provide 5-minute breaks every now and then.

3. Use positive reinforcement.
In line with making study time an enjoyable experience, it’s always better to employ positive reinforcement to encourage good study habits. Whenever your child accomplishes something, make sure to compliment him on his efforts and focus on his strengths rather than on his shortcomings. Tell him that he’s doing a good job, that you know he can keep doing it, and that you’re proud of him.


4. The Internet is your friend. 
A study revealed earlier this year that kids learn how to play computer games faster than they can tie their shoelaces. While this may not exactly be a comforting fact, use this skill of your child to get him to learn via helpful websites such asStarfall.com (helps teach pre-reading and reading skills through interactive and kid-friendly games), Fisher-Price.com (has games for preschoolers on counting, reading, colors, etc.), Kids.AOL.com (has games and puzzles to boost your child’s spatial intelligence) and Teacher.Scholastic.com (has games on sorting and classifying of objects). See more preschooler websites here.

Make sure to set aside just a fraction of your child’s study time, say, 30 minutes to an hour, and be firm when sticking to your schedule. You may want to give this time as a reward for your child after he has finished his homework.


5. Help your child with his organizational skills.
Although it has no immediate effect on his study skills, teaching your child how to organize objects at home will give him a better idea on how to organize things associated with studying, such as time. This will also help establish that there is a proper place and time for everything, reinforcing the idea that studying should be a priority and something that takes diligent organizing to perform.

Parenting Quote (Interesting and Inspiring!)

Children Learn What They Live
- Dorothy Law Neite

Damia and Mum

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.

If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.

If a child learns to feel shame, he learns to feel guilty.

If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement he learns confidence.

If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.

If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.

If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world.

Parenting Quote (*Interesting and Inspiring!)

When You Thought I Wasn't Looking- Unknown

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you hang up my first painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one.

Happy Parents' Day Celebration at Wonderful Years

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me, and I knew that little things are special things.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed there is a God I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I felt you kiss me goodnight, and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw that you cared, and I wanted to be everything that I could be.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I LOOKED... and wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't looking.

Preschool Healthy Living Theme

Health and Nutrition 5-Day Lesson Plan

Written by:  R. Elizabeth C. Kitchen • Edited by: Jacqueline Chinappi 

Mimi Say - *Here are some ideas mum can do at home to promote healthy living with healthy diet. If you can spare the time its beneficial to try them out. Children will be very interested and can remember the essential of healthy living longer.

Learning about and understanding nutrition is essential to good health. Teaching children about nutrition when they are young will help them to be maintain healthy habits into adulthood. This preschool theme will also cover other important elements of good health, such as sleep and exercise. 

Objective

The objective of this preschool theme is to teach children how important nutrition and good habits are in helping to keep them healthy. They will learn about the importance of healthy eating, exercise, sleep, and hygiene.

Outline

• Lesson 1: How to Be Healthy
• Lesson 2: Creating a Healthy Food Collage
• Lesson 3: On the Wall Food Pyramid
• Lesson 4: Knowing the Difference Between Vegetables and Fruits
• Lesson 5: Group Activity in Which the Students Play Restaurant

Lesson 1: How to Be Healthy

• Discuss how to maintain a healthy body with exercise, hand washing, eating healthy, brushing teeth, sleeping, and taking baths. 
• Discuss the healthy foods, such as fruits, milk, vegetables, eggs, and meats, poultry and seafood.
• Discuss why sleep is important for good health.
• Discuss why eating sweet snacks and foods are not healthy (also include some information about cavities).
• Have each child state their favorite food and whether or not they think it is healthy.
• Discuss what a fruit is.
• Discuss what a vegetable is.
• Discuss the importance of sleep and exercise.
• Discuss the importance of brushing teeth and bathing. Place posters on the wall promoting healthy living.

Lesson 2: Creating a Food Collage

An example of a food collage - pictures cut from advertisement flyers

 For this lesson, students will need a variety of food magazines and grocery store advertisements so that they can cut out the pictures of the food. They will also need a piece of construction paper, glue, and scissors.

• Discuss healthy foods with the students.
• Have them cut out the foods they enjoy and glue them onto the construction paper. When all of the students are done have them stand up one by one and discuss the foods they chose and why they chose them.
• Once all students are done, hang these around the classroom.

Lesson 3: On the Wall Food Pyramid

 During this lesson students will learn about the food pyramid and its sections. Students will learn which foods they should be eating the most of and which foods they should eat sparingly.

• Create a large, blank triangle and apply it to the wall. Create the sections according to the new food pyramid. Name each section appropriately.
• Discuss what the food pyramid is and what each section represents.
• Have the children review the collage they created in lesson two to see how closely they follow the food pyramid.
• Discuss serving sizes and how many servings they should have per day.

Lesson 4: Knowing the Difference Between Vegetables and Fruits

The purpose of this preschool lesson is to teach the children the difference between fruits and vegetables.

• Discuss the fact that vegetables grow in the ground while fruits grow on vines or on trees.
• Bring in a variety of fruits and vegetables so the students can see what they look and feel like. Also, see if the students can identify what it is and whether it is a fruit or a vegetable.

Lesson 5: Group Activity in Which the Students Play Restaurant Lesson 

The purpose of playing restaurant is to test how well students are able to make healthy food choices.

• Create menus with pictures of a variety of foods, healthy and unhealthy.
• Set up a small kitchen with plates and the foods in the menu. The food can be plastic, but make sure it is not too small to avoid the possibility of choking if a child puts a piece of it in their mouth.
• Let the children take turns playing cook, waiter, and customer.

These preschool lessons focused on the theme of healthy body and nutrition. After these lessons children will be able to differentiate between various foods and understand healthy habits.

How your child benefits from play

by Kim Wallace

• Play builds the imagination
• Play promotes social skills
• Play advances physical development
• Play helps kids work through emotions

Play is the business of childhood, allowing your child free rein to experiment with the world around him and the emotional world inside him, says Linda Acredolo, professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis and coauthor of Baby Signs: How to Talk With Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk and Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love. While it may look like mere child's play to you, there's a lot of work — problem solving, skill building, overcoming physical and mental challenges — going on behind the scenes. Here are some of the things your child is experiencing and learning, along with ideas on how you can help boost the benefits of his play.

Play builds the imagination

Pretending, or imaginative play, is one of the cornerstones of a young child's world. Kids begin demonstrating this behavior around the age of 2. Almost anything can spur your child's imagination, including everyday objects. This is because he uses them as symbols, says Acredolo; he's learning that one thing can stand for other things. Using his new ability to pretend, he can transform a block of wood into a boat, a few pots and pans into a drum set.

Kids' Activities

Everyday objects aren't the only things that are transformed in your child's make-believe world. So are the roles he assumes in his play. He'll move from superhero to daddy to police officer with ease. By experimenting with diverse jobs and identities, he's able to explore a variety of scenarios and outcomes. Sometimes the stories he acts out reflect issues he's struggling to understand, says Patty Wipfler, founder and director of the Parents Leadership Institute in Palo Alto, California, a nonprofit organization that helps parents and childcare professionals develop listening, childrearing, and leadership skills. If he's coming to terms with a new sibling, for example, he may incorporate a lot of nurturing behavior into his play, mimicking your interaction with his new brother or sister. Imaginative play gives your child a sense of control as he interprets the dramas of everyday life and practices the rules of social behavior.

How you can encourage imaginative play: Keep a box of everyday items that your child can use during pretend play. Kid versions of adult objects, such as play telephones and plastic dishes, help facilitate role playing, and open-ended objects (toys that can have more than one use), such as colored blocks, stretch the imagination with unlimited possibilities.

Play promotes social skills

As toddlers, children play side by side without obvious communication (this is called parallel play). During the preschool years, they start to interact with each other by creating complex story lines together. As they do this, they learn to negotiate, cooperate, and share (though some kids don't master the art of sharing until they're 4 to 6 years old). When children disagree about who gets to be the daddy or who will wear the purple dress, they're actually developing important social skills, says Sara Wilford, director of the Early Childhood Program at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

How you can boost social play: Once your child settles into preschool, he'll find playmates there. But he'll need your help to extend those relationships outside of school. The easiest way to build newfound friendships is to schedule playdates or set up a play group for your child and his friends. Get the ball rolling by introducing games or activities and then unobtrusively monitor the children's behavior and progress. After the playdate, you'll know which social skills your child is mastering (sharing, cooperating, or being assertive, for example) and which he may need some help with.

Play advances physical development

Different types of physical play help develop different skills: Skipping takes balance, for example; climbing monkey bars builds strength; and sports activities involve coordination. Large motor skills, such as running, throwing, and pedaling, improve first, but fine motor skills aren't far behind. A 3-year-old carefully stacking blocks into towers is not only learning about gravity and balance but also developing hand-eye coordination. And the dexterity your child develops during play carries over into everyday life: After some practice, a 3-year-old will be able to help dress and feed himself, which gives him a sense of independence.

There's a nonphysical benefit of physical play too: It helps kids work through stress and crankiness. In fact, without adequate time for active play, your child may become grumpy or tense (not to mention possibly obese).

How you can promote physical play: The best way to get your child moving is to set a good example. This starts at home by engaging in physical activities rather than sedentary ones such as watching TV. Indoors, you can play hide-and-seek, toss beanbags, or play some danceable music. Outdoors, build a castle in the sandbox, kick a soccer ball back and forth, ride your bike/tricycle together.

Play helps kids work through emotions

Long before children can express their feelings in words, they express them through physical play, storytelling, art, and other activities. When children have experiences that are hurtful or hard to understand, they review those experiences again and again through play. For example, says Wipfler, if your child is pushed or has something snatched away from him at school, he may not understand what just happened. If, the next day, you're playing with him and he aggressively pushes you, he may be trying to work out what he experienced the day before.

How you can help: During play, your child will expose little bits of behavior he needs guidance with or doesn't understand. You can respond in kind, mimicking the right type of response. And try to get your child to laugh, which will help ease tension, Wipfler says.

Your role when playing with your child

Wipfler says it's helpful to allow your child to lead during play. "Let your child determine what to do and how to do it within the limits of safety and time constraints," she says. "This lets him try out his judgment and allows him to show you what he's delighted in." Join in your child's play, but only when invited to do so. As he lets you into his world of make-believe, give him complete control. In real life, you may be in charge, but this is his world.

The attention you show your child when you play together is key to building his self-esteem, says Wilford. For example, when you pretend along with him, you are showing him that you accept his make-believe world, that something he's interested in is fun and important to you, too.

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What Are the Signs of Mild Autism?

By Stacy Taylor

Autism Spectrum Traits

The range of signs, both mild and severe, that signal an autism spectrum disorder typically fall into some or all of the three categories below.

• Problems with social interaction
• Impaired nonverbal and verbal communication and language
• Displays repetitious and obsessive behavior

If your child or loved one displays any of the following characteristic warning signs associated with autism spectrum disorder, speak with your physician about getting a referral to a developmental specialist.

Social Interaction

Impaired social skills are often the first indication that something might be wrong. While it's true that many children are independent or shy and require less social interaction than other kids, there are still certain characteristics that may be signs of mild autism. Look at the checklist below to see if your child exhibits any of these autism symptoms.

• Difficulties maintaining prolonged eye contact
• Unresponsive when called by name
• Prefers solitary play and activities
• Strongly resists hugging, cuddling, or being held
• Uninterested in sharing or making friends, and seems to lack understanding of other people's feelings

Communication and Language

 Look over the list below to see if your child displays signs of common autism-related language and communication problems.

• Has not babbled or gestured by 12 months, or spoken at all by 16 months
• Has difficulty comprehending language and engaging in conversations
• Exhibits repetitive speech characteristics or patterns
• Makes unusual or inappropriate gestures and facial expressions
• Impaired ability and desire to express emotions, desires, and needs

Repetition and Obsessive Behavior

In children with signs of mild autism instead of profound autism, it's sometimes difficult for parents to decide if their child is showing obsessive behavior patterns. Fortunately, repetitive behaviors are easier to recognize and often go hand in hand with obsessive traits. Things parents and caregivers should watch out for are listed below.

• Frequently engages in self-stimulating or repetitive movements like rocking, head-banging, hand flapping, and twirling objects
• Tendency to focus on and repeat specific phrases from books, television programs, and movies
• Displays unusual, obsessive interest in one toy or activity to the point of excluding or rejecting all other play choices

Other Warning Signs

Like most disorders, many signs of autism defy precise categorization. Pay attention to your child and take note if she develops any unusual behavior or interest patterns, or if she seems to lose any of the developmental milestones she has already surpassed. A few other mild autism signs to look for include impaired motor skills, extreme mood swings and aggression, and sudden lack of interest in what was once a cherished topic or activity.

Practice Serenity

If you believe your child may have mild autism, try to resist the urge to make drastic changes in your family's daily routines. The first step is to speak with your family physician and arrange a screening and diagnostic interview for your child. While you wait for the completion of this important process, maintain a calm and reassuring demeanor, which will help your entire family feel safe and secure.

Saying Goodbye to Nithin

Nithin is able to blend in well with friends.

Ever eager beavers.

With Nithin's Form teacher, Ms kala
Our friend, Nithin's last day at Wonderful Years. His mum is returning to her homeland in India. Wishing you a safe journey and may you adjust well into your new environment.