Best practical tips for parents managing home learning during lockdown

As September comes around, we also enter the beginning of the third month of lockdown.
Yet, confirmation number continues increase seemingly without an end to it. As lockdown
brings about a new lifestyle for everyone, it also brings a new challenge as students are
required to bring their education home again. With the teaching and learning methods
completely different from being at school, home-learning is not only a test for students, but it
is also a new challenge for you as a parent. So, how can you get your children to study well at
home? How can you encourage your children to maintain a positive attitude towards
learning?

10 Home-Learning Tips During Lockdown

As September comes around, we also enter the beginning of the third month of lockdown. Yet, confirmation number continues increase seemingly without an end to it. As lockdown brings about a new lifestyle for everyone, it also brings a new challenge as students are required to bring their education home again. With the teaching and learning methods completely different from being at school, home-learning is not only a test for students, but it is also a new challenge for you as a parent. So, how can you get your children to study well at home? How can you encourage your children to maintain a positive attitude towards learning?

1. Set-up a Designated Learning Area for Your Children

When a person wants to focus on a task at hand, the environment and atmosphere they are in is extremely important. For example, why do students tend to study at libraries? Because not only are libraries quiet, but the other people there are either studying or reading quietly; as a result, a studious atmosphere lingers in the library, and thus students are more likely to focus on their schoolwork. Therefore, the first home-learning tip is to have a designated learning space, that is tidy and quiet, for your children. As such, when your children enters the space, they will be brought into a learning environment.

2. Structure Your Child’s Day

By establishing a good daily routine for your children, not only does this increase their efficiency but it also creates a learning atmosphere similar to that of a school. Given that a day at school usually lasts for six hours, from 9AM to 3PM, you can try to structure your children’s day of learning according to this time period. By doing so, when your children returns to school after lockdown, they would still be used to the school routine. Below is a sample timetable from St. Peters Catholic primary, try organising your children’s day of learning by taking inspiration and ideas from it!

( https://www.stpeterscatholicprimary.com/page/?title=Timetable&pid=84)

3. Active Engagement through Negotiating and Balancing

A key idea to getting a child to study well is to never pressure them into studying, when put under constant pressure, a child could very well start acting rebellious and refuse to study. It is also to be noted that when a child is studying all day every day, they will gradually feel bored and lose interest. So how can you get your children to remain actively engaged with learning? First off, what parents should know is that even a day at school is not all about rigorous learning, teachers often give out rewards, or plan relaxation activities during classes to let their students destress before going back to learning again. So, an idea for parents to encourage active engagement of children is to implant a reward system; for example, you can set a small learning goal for your children (such as completing a set number of questions), if the goal is achieved, then they get a chance to play for a while. As such, your children would be more willing to study as there is a reward for it, and indirectly you also created a balance between work and play for your children which is great for their mental wellbeing.

4. Offer Options

Another tip to increasing the motivation and initiative of your children towards learning is by letting them choose what they want to learn, by doing so, your children would be more willing to learn as they hold an interest to what they have chosen. This is also a great chance for you as a parent to know more about your child’s interests and talents, and thus put more attention to training them in that area.

5. Group-Learning Sessions

A major difference between learning at school and learning at home is the social aspect. When children are at school, they can chat with their friends and have group discussions on solutions to problems. But with the lockdown happening, children are lacking in social interactions, as well as the joy of discussing about school problems with friends. An idea for parents to encourage more socialising for children under these circumstances is to hold online group-learning sessions, where your children and their friends can learn, study, and complete their homework together. Not only does this help children maintain a fair amount of socialising, but it also lessens the burden on parents by having the parents rotate the responsibility of watching over the kids.

6. Let Your Child be the Teacher

A British psychologist, Philippa Perry, once suggested to have children teach their parents the concept they have learnt, in order to establish a new learning environment. When children sees their parent, who are also acting as teachers, sitting in an area quietly and listening to them “teach” , there is an increased possibility that they will reciprocate, and view this area as a new learning spot. It can also be noted that when your child teaches you, they are also absorbing the knowledge again, and thus remembers the concept better.

7. Organise Virtual Outings

Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, many venues (such as museums, art galleries, zoos, and aquariums) that relies on people has started to hold virtual tours. With schools planning excursions from time to time, you can also hold these virtual tours for your children and their friends. You may even plan these virtual tours according to what your children is currently studying! For example, if your children is currently learning about wildlife, you can organise a virtual tour of a zoo, and afterwards you can ask your child to write a report or draw up their favourite place related to the outing or discuss with their friends.

8. Support Independent Learning

Many teachers at school encourages their students to learn independently, by assigning projects to students to research on and present their findings in a specified format. Parents are also encouraged to set out similar mini projects for your children by only specifying the requirements and the deadline, while leaving the rest to them. The aim of these mini projects is to develop your children’s self-learning abilities as well as their interests, thus the project topic and requirements does not have to be too complicated. Different presenting ideas may include:

• Speech, can be combined with PowerPoint presentation
• Posters, Models
• Reports, Narratives, Newspaper article

At Sirius Learning, we also offer mini projects for different age groups, if you have any inquiries, please contact us through Facebook messages at Sirius Learning or send us an email at sirius.centre@gmail.com.

9. Take Constant Breaks from the Screen

Even though active learning is a great thing, it needs to be balanced out with constant breaks. When your children is staring at the screen the whole day, their eyesight may very well be deteriorating, and occurrences of headaches also rises. It is also to be noted that according to scientific research, the blue light from screens can disrupt sleeping habits, such as being harder to fall asleep or difficult to remain asleep. If you are worried that your children would resort to playing with their phones despite being a “screen break”, you can get them to help out with chores instead, or have a stroll in the backyard, or play games that does not require electronic devices with them; the main aim is to keep them occupied, while still letting them have a break from the screen. Supplement screen time with puzzles, old fashioned books instead.

10. Make the Most out of Online Learning Agencies

During the outbreak of COVID-19, many online learning agencies are offering learning modules for all year groups. These modules are all design based on the teaching syllabus of each State, so parents are encouraged to use them to your advantage. Here at Sirius Learning, we offer an online-learning module for HSC students, which consists of English and Math, please feel free to contact us if you are interested. We also be offering more and more new learning modules in the near future, so please keep an eye out if you are interested! https://course.siriuslearning.com.au/

So here are all the 10 Home-Learning Tips that Sirius Learning has gathered. Despite the problems and struggles that children schooling at home may bring to parents who are not used to this, on the bright side, you get more time to spend with your children! As the saying goes, “All things are difficult before becoming easy”, once your children and you has gotten the hang of home-learning, it will just get easier and easier.