LAST week, I shared why play has eased my kids’ daily subject learning. This week, let me share more concrete examples.
Do you remember your child’s first year in school? Did they look forward to it? Did they cry a lot? I remember how nervous Marcus was on his first year of school. I searched for ways to ease this anxiety. I discovered that if we gave him a few minutes of art and play in the morning, he became more emotionally ready to go to school. So we would wake him up 15 minutes earlier, finish all the school preparation including breakfast, then play and color for 15 minutes. I believe it set the initial stage on relaxed learning for Marcus. By being relaxed, I knew he would be able to absorb information better in class.
Most of us send our kids to traditional school environments. I believe many of us faced decision points on whether to choose a progressive, traditional or home-schooling route for our child’s education at one point in time. I made a mental note then that even if I chose a traditional learning environment for my kids, I would employ a more progressive approach at home. I knew content work would be more demanding, and it was my hope to ensure they would love learning despite the load.
My kids are currently in Grade 8 and Grade 4. They both started in a highly traditional school setting with tons of homework. Despite times in their grade-school years when they needed to come home from tutor almost past 9 pm, I did not recall them complaining. I believe that play has been their biggest learning enabler.
When I see topics in school that they get a bit anxious on, I would find play activities related to the subject. At times, I would do these activities on actual homework time. Most of the time, I would inject them in our game nights. Below are my personal insights and tips on play-based learning by subject:
MATH
MANY times, we fall into the trap of labels. We would hear one child being called a math genius, and another being told he is poor in math. We also often attribute this to genes, and that if we as parents were either good or challenged in certain subjects, we carry these preconceived expectations on our children.
However, if we truly want to prepare our kids to be future-ready, we need to accept the complexity of their future world. Tomorrow, in my opinion, requires solutions that cut across disciplines. All subjects are important.
Math is a subject that is often polarized in interest. We see kids either extremely loving it or being averse to it. I believe early introduction with the right play activities, especially art, paves the way. We often think of math as numbers, but based on the Dream-Makers Series—Mathematics Edition by Long, McCracken and Willett, all Masters of Education, I discovered that math can actually be introduced in a more playful way.
Below are skills in math, matched with play activities, that I incorporate in subject learning with my kids:
- Sorting: sorting blocks by color
- Organizing: stacking books or blocks by size
- Classifying: classifying animal figurines by type—land or sea animals, by family
- Comparing: showing house objects like a pot and put it side by side with a play pot to introduce concept of size.
- Pairing: showing two pairs of the same object. Then I would get one, then I would ask them to give me the similar one.
- Repetition: creating a pattern like putting all red cars together, all orange cars together and so on, to form a rainbow
- Symmetry: using paint to put on one side of the paper then folding to create similar image on the other side.
- Problem solving: using games and puzzles
- Operations: Math Bingo
According to Justin DeLeo’s Paper, Arts and Mathematics: An Integrated Approach to Teaching, from Expressions Learning Arts Academy, “When thinking about arts and mathematics, people frequently view them as two separate domains. For a long time in education, mathematics was treated as a cognitive, thinking, rational, left-brain activity, while art was considered to be an affective, feeling, right- brain activity.” I took note of his three points on the interdependence of math and the arts. First: “Both mathematics and the arts can be used to observe, describe and imitate the natural world.” Second: “Learning mathematics and the arts together fosters this whole brain development.” And third: “The ‘hands-on’ nature of teaching art and math in combination helps build bridges between concrete and abstract mathematical ideas.”
There are many resources available online on fun activities that combine math and art as seen below:
- Use a hard surface like wood and compass to draw out a clock and put number stickers to make your own clock. (www.artforkidsandrobots.com/color-wheel-for-kids)
- By using a regular compass, paintbrush with a skinny handle, masking tape and watercolor paint, you can make your own art on any white paper. (www.housingaforest.com/compass-painting)
- Recycle old CDs to erasable math flash cards using dry erase crayons or whiteboard markers. You can even decorate them with stickers and paint.
More next week….