Parents are faced with the challenge of teaching their child the right skills to set them up for the future, including being motivated to learn. It is not enough for most children to just know that they should learn; they need more than that if they are going to show enthusiasm.
Keeping your child motivated to learn from early on will set them up for future success. They will know how to manage their own time and learning, without any need for you to micromanage them. This will prove incredibly useful later on in life, particularly during university and when they have a job.
But how do you keep your child motivated to learn without needing to micromanage them? We have put together five golden rules that will help you achieve just that.
Incorporate the outdoors
If you want to keep your child motivated, then be sure that you do not just sit inside all day long. Instead, take the time to incorporate the outdoors. This can be as simple as reading outside instead of inside when the weather is nice.
Depending on where you live, you can turn the outdoors into a learning experience of its own. Growing a garden, for example, will get your child interested in the outcome, motivating them to keep up with it. They will also likely want to learn why their actions affect the garden the way they do.
Teach Math with practical examples
One common complaint among unmotivated students is “when will I have to use this?” Nip this complaint in the bud and keep your child motivated by directly incorporating practical uses for Math into your daily life and your lessons.
At the early stages of Math, this could be as simple as having your child measuring everything in the home that is 10 centimeters long. Or it could be counting out types of toys. When you move into addition and subtraction or multiplication and division, you could incorporate it into sharing. For example, put a pile of crackers, candy, or toys in the middle of the table and have your kids calculate how much everyone should get.
With KooBits video tutorials, we use real-life images of fruits and vegetables to teach math sums with dynamic visuals and colorful interface. It helps bridge the gap between the world they see around and the world of Math.
Let your child choose – to some extent
One of the best ways to keep your child motivated is to teach topics that they are interested in. For example, if they have to complete a project on an animal, let them choose the animal instead of assigning one.
Giving choices can even be as simple as letting your child choose which tasks or lessons to complete first. Or, consider creating a choice board or something similar that lets your child choose between a handful of types of lessons on the same topic. This way, they can choose the learning method that they prefer.
Encourage creativity
Encouraging creativity will help keep all lessons interesting, both those assigned by the school and those that you incorporate to supplement your child’s learning. Tie the creativity directly into lessons but give your child a chance to have fun, making it seem like a game.
For example, after reading a book, have your child draw a picture of their favorite scene, design a costume, or write a short story in the same setting, depending on their age. Or grab some old magazines and have your child make a collage related to something they learned about – or even multiple topics. You can get as creative and be as educational as you want, such as encouraging your child to build a strong bridge from straws or making something useful out of clay.
Maintain structure
Finally, make it a point to maintain some structure. You want your child to develop strong habits that include sticking to a schedule and accomplishing whatever needs to be done. Just because your child is learning at home, that does not mean you have to eliminate the structure of the school.
An example of the structure during a typical school year would be having a set time for revision each later afternoon or evening. With online learning at home, it could be having set hours in which your child works on learning and set break times. Just make sure to incorporate breaks; after all, your child would have a lunch break at school.
If you are struggling to keep your child motivated to learn, work on incorporating the outdoors for a change of setting, encouraging creativity, maintaining structure, using practical examples, and letting your child choose some aspects of their learning.
