Teaching your kids while they are eating dinner…What??

I bet you’re thinking, are you crazy? How in the world can I teach my kid while they are refusing to eat their green beans?? Well, my approach is this, if you make dinner time a little more fun and less pressure you might be able to intise your child to take at least one bite of their vegetables AND squeeze some education in the mix! Make your child feel a part of the whole process of helping you with prepping dinner for the whole family and slip in some education along the way. One fun way to get a little math in is letting your little one count the spoons and forks to help set the table. Or better yet, sorting the silverware into sets, forks in one pile and spoons in another before they set the table. Maybe use the plastic dishes every once in a while so you can be assured that if something is dropped there wont be anything broken and even if they do drop something, no big deal! Pick it up rinse it off and try again. Which that within its self helps support the kids to know that even when you make mistakes, its ok! No worries! Clean it up and try again! Another fun way of sneaking in some math is while they are eating, have them count how many bites it takes for the food to disappear! Sometimes the kids get so involved in counting they don’t even realize that they are eating. Make it something they can relate to for example, Take 5  bites because you are 5 years old! Ok, now lets take 10 bites since brother is 10 years old! You get the picture. Making it relatable can be a fun way of counting AND eating your dinner!  How about counting everyone’s silverware to see how many are at the table all together! Is there more spoons or forks? Or is there the same number? All of these types of activities are fun ways to incorporate into your normal everyday activities. They are learning counting, one to one correspondence, sorting and being exposed to Math Vocabulary and they don’t even know it! What if your child doesn’t like to help put away their clothes? Make it a game that’s fun and educational and they won’t even realize they are learning as they work around the house. When they are putting up their clothes have them see how many clothes are red? How many blue?  Do you have more blue or red? Which do you have the least of? They are learning more, less, and equal while they help around the house. These are all words that will be applied in Math at school.  Doing it around the house helps Bridge the gap between school and home, which we all know that’s very beneficial to our children!  Being able to apply what you learn in school helps makes connections to the real world. Putting into practice problem solving and critical thinking skills which all results in increased retention. There are lots of ways to continue the connection between home and school academics. You could have them sort their shoes by what type of shoes they have and along the way they are organizing their closet! When my kiddos were little and I mentioned cleaning up their room it was always a struggle until I figured out how to incorporate some fun and education in the mix, they wouldn’t even realize they were learning along the way. I was always looking for ways to sneak it in because being an educator I knew how important it was to help support what they were learning at school to real life situations. If we went to the grocery store, and yes I did take ALL 4 of them with me most of the time1 I will share what that looked like in another blog! Anyway! I would let them help make a grocery list and I would write down their foods they wanted. This is an easy example of exposing them to literacy in the real world. Taking dictation of their words. Seeing that print and their words go together is the beginning of reading. Maybe you’re saying NO WAY! IM NOT TAKING MY KIDS TO THE GROCERY STORE! ARE YOU CRAZY?! No worries! I totally understand that too! There were times I needed that space to myself and the grocery store was my space to have ALL to myself even if it was with other people, as funny as that sounds! Ha Ha I get it, believe me, I TOTALLY get it! But find the times when you are at home with your kids to squeeze in some education that is not pencil paper or sit down at the table kind of education. I’m talking about intertwining it through your everyday activities! I encourage you to try to find a moment at least once a day that you could give your little ones at home some mental math or literacy exposure without the formal approach! Adding education in small bites into your everyday life is what your kiddos will remember the most!  Making memories, education, and fun all at the same time! Give it a try for a week! Come back and tell me how it went! Meet me on the community page and let’s chat about it!