As bells signal the start of another school year, parents of elementary school students would do well to bone up on the important subject of their child`s room. They should do some homework to be sure it serves as a ”living and learning” environment.
Any child`s personal space should reflect that child`s interests. Do this by zeroing in on areas that teach lessons about music, science, the arts or other topics enjoyable to the boy or girl living there. These ”learning centers” help young ones channel curiosity and encourage their active participation in a world that too often finds them in passive roles, particularly in front of the television.
To stimulate your children`s imaginations, ”co-design” work and play stations with their help. Let them voice their thoughts about what these specialized areas might be and where they ought to be located. Along the way, offer practical guidance. Once children see they can have an effect on their surroundings, they will cultivate positive feelings about mastering the world around them.
Learning stations need not be expensive or expansive, but they do need to be within a child`s reach. Rethink a room`s physical limits, and you find all sorts of possibilities for stretching them. Consider the following:
– The closet-Remove the door, add sufficient light and look what happens. A closet now accommodates work and play besides storage. For example, a canvas cloth slit with openings for small hands and hung in the door frame on a shower tension rod becomes a playful puppet theater that promotes language development and theatrical skills. Between performances at this fantasy play center, the cloth slides back to reveal clothing and other contents stored behind it.
– Wall-Develop personal pride in appearance by hanging a full-length mirror on the lower half of a wall to create a grooming center. Transform this site into a dance center by simply securing along both sides of the mirror some closet rod brackets to which you attach a single ”ballet barre”
fashioned from a wooden dowel. What better way to nurture a budding ballerina`s talents and physical agility at home?
A door to creativity
– Doors-Make an art center for self-expression on any bare door in a child`s room except the busy entry. Simply mount within a child`s reach, an 18-by-24-inch chalkboard or clipboard with a sketch pad. For preschoolers and children in early grades who are developing fine-motor skills, it`s easier to draw on a vertical surface such as a door than a horizontal one such as a table.
To corral markers, crayons, chalk and other art materials, hang an ordinary shoe bag near the drawing area.
– Windows-Promote firsthand understanding of the seasons by devising a weather center near a window within a child`s view. Outside, suspend wind socks, hang wind chimes and mount an exterior thermometer or rain gauge. If a window is too high or too awkward to use, let tabletops and walls accommodate items such as a barometer or a hygrometer. The former measures atmospheric pressure; the latter, humidity.
Keep in mind that exposure to sunlight, rain and wind is crucial for certain instruments to function properly.
Open shelves-Establish a math center that`s entertaining and educational. Outfit it with familiar household items such as measuring cups and spoons, a postal or food scale, funnels and a tape measure. Add pint-, quart- and gallon-size clean, unused paint cans that cost no more than a few dollars total at paint stores professionals use. Label these according to volume with inexpensive peel-off vinyl numbers or letters available in most stationery stores. Don`t forget to include metric equivalents.
Such tools provide the building blocks for a maturing mathematician.
Egg cartons and small tins for muffins, cupcakes and other baked goods also teach very young children basic skills for food and liquid measurement, especially when ”weighted” with beans, peas, pasta or other dried edibles. Encourage preschoolers to ”pour” these foods from one container to another just for fun and to develop fine-motor skills needed for grasping crayons and pencils.
One further note: As a child becomes adept at arithmetic, consider teaching him or her how to use the family home computer. There are special software programs geared for the young.
– Tabletops-Open a child`s mind to the marvels of nature by creating a science center on a tabletop or desk. Rock, shell and leaf collections are ideal for this area. So are special pets such as hermit crabs and goldfish. To further acquaint a child with nature, hang botanical prints or relief maps, or place nature books and a junior microscope nearby.
Don`t run to the store
– Learning tools-Accessories that make learning areas come alive need not be store-bought. The great outdoors provides an assortment of free learning tools. Rocks, leaves and shells (preferably cleaned or dried) instill an awareness of the environment and trigger memories of pleasurable hunts spent with family and friends collecting one-of-a-kind treasures.
Let your search for learning tools extend to the kitchen cupboard and utility closet. Both are probably ripe with resources that delight a child and teach recycling. For example:
– Empty thread spools allow an imaginative child using glue and finger paints to create building blocks, dollhouse miniatures or marionettes.
– Multicolored rubber bands enable a young collector to color-code and organize baseball cards, wallet-size pictures and other prized possessions.
– Aluminum foil permits an amateur sculptor to mold metalic replicas of shapes and forms.
– Old buttons in mixed shapes, sizes and colors inspire a child to contrive all sorts of decorations, such as ”jewelry” strung on yarn.
– Empty, clean soda cans or plastic bottles refilled with everything from sand to coffee beans and then resealed, encourage an aspiring musician to differentiate sounds and compose varied tunes.
Creating learning centers takes careful thought and planning. As parents, don`t let your personal tastes or preferences influence what goes into your children`s rooms. Provide the opportunity for them to develop their interests, even if they are not the same as yours.
It`s the child`s room
After all, a child spends more time in his or her room than anyone else and should cast the deciding vote about the way that space might look. As an adult overseeing the action, add or subtract centers as interest dictates.
Before investing time and energy to build a learning center, consider the following:
– Never force an activity on a child that he or she isn`t interested in pursuing.
– Narrow the number of learning centers to interests a child favors most, keeping an open mind about how many to incorporate in a room. One or two centers supplying hours of discovery in activities that a child loves are better than half a dozen that a parent randomly selects for a young person who may or may not like them.
As you ”co-design” with your child, keep this in mind. Allowing freedom to choose doesn`t mean granting license to do everything at once. You want your children to feel free to express all their ideas about their rooms, but you also want them to be realistic in their expectations. As a practical parent paying for this transformation, it`s your task to figure out the essential elements, compromising or modifying the rest to achieve satisfactory results.
Remember: Learning centers don`t require major purchases. Imagination, coupled with household and nature finds, goes a long way toward supplying your son or daughter with a space that`s special.
