Transitioning from home to daycare can be a significant change for young children. To ease this transition and maximize learning opportunities, it’s essential for parents to create a consistent learning environment that bridges experiences from home to daycare. We explore strategies parents can use to extend learning from our daycare setting to the home, focusing on activities like reading together, playing educational games, and reinforcing the curriculum themes that we introduce at ACE Daycare.
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Children thrive when given consistent and predictable routines; it provides comfort and helps them understand expectations. By aligning learning activities at home with those at daycare, you not only reinforce what your child learns but also build their confidence and interest in new concepts. This ensures a smooth learning journey!
Reading is an integral component of early childhood development, providing children with essential listening, vocabulary, comprehension and empathy skills. At ACE Daycare, we incorporate reading books into daily activities in order to foster a love for reading while simultaneously providing children with exposure to new concepts in an enjoyable manner.
Set aside time each day to read with your child. To maximize effectiveness, select books that relate to the themes your child is exploring at daycare; for instance, if it’s “Under the Sea,” consider reading books about marine life as you go along. As you read together, ask questions, encourage prediction of story outcomes and link the tale back to real-life experiences. This not only reinforces learning but turns reading into an unforgettable bonding activity!
Games are a fantastic way to make learning engaging and interactive, encouraging problem-solving and critical thinking while imparting knowledge of various academic concepts. If your child is learning about numbers, consider games that involve counting, like board games with dice or card games that require adding and subtracting. For younger children, simple matching games with colours and shapes can reinforce what they learn at daycare. Make sure these games are age-appropriate to keep your child engaged and not frustrated.
Daily activities provide ample opportunities for learning. Cooking, shopping and tidying up are all fantastic opportunities to expand on what your child learns in daycare; each activity can contribute to developing his or her themes and skills at daycare. You can use daily routines as teachable moments; for instance, if they’re studying colours at daycare, you could ask them to sort laundry according to colour; if measuring measurements is being explored at daycare, get your child involved with measuring ingredients when cooking dinner! Such activities help children see the relevance of what they learn at daycare in a real-life context, enhancing their understanding and appreciation of new knowledge gained.
Creative activities offer more than artistic satisfaction; they also help develop fine motor skills, recognize patterns, and express thoughts and feelings. If your daycare centers around nature themes, try collecting leaves to paint on them for leaf painting projects. Provide various materials—crayons, markers, and paints—so your child can experiment creatively while reinforcing themes through sensory experiences.
Technology can be an incredibly useful educational tool when used properly, particularly for younger children. Choose apps appropriate to their age and learning at daycare that make learning interactive and enjoyable; share these apps together with them to make learning fun! However, make sure that screen time does not replace physical play or face-to-face interactions between you both.
Staying engaged with your child’s daycare experience is of the utmost importance, as regular communication between teachers and parents provides insights into your child’s day-to-day learning. At ACE Daycare, we encourage parents to engage with us by asking about curriculum options or discussing ways they could extend learning at home. This creates an ideal learning environment where each piece supports or builds on what was learned at daycare, making learning a holistic, continuous process between daycare and home so your child enjoys and benefits from both experiences simultaneously!
Establishing a consistent learning environment takes dedication and creativity, but the rewards–seeing your child develop, learn, and discover something new–are tremendously satisfying. At ACE Daycare, we are committed to working alongside parents on this educational path to ensure our youngest learners receive all of the support necessary for optimal growth in both settings.