E-learning gives your children a lot of independence to explore the world around them and really figure out who they are without the influence of a public-school agenda. However, you want more for your kids than staring at a screen for hours each day, so it’s important to help make virtual learning more interactive and fun by adding some exciting elements to their school year. Northgate Academy has lots of experience helping families make sure that their children get broad experiences throughout their online education. Here are a few ideas you can start right away!
Plan Hands-On Learning Experiences
From identifying plants on a nature hike to doing some home-based science experiments, adding some hands-on learning to your child’s academics is a great way to keep them engaged and curious. You can do some interesting experiments to make plastic using the gelatin in your cabinet, learn about volume using glasses of water and any small objects you have, or experiment with circuits by building a lemon battery. The internet is full of ideas about how to help your students have some great hands-on learning experiences to keep them curious about how the world works.
Get Creative Together With Art Projects
You can learn about art through online courses, but the actual making of art has to be done in person. If you can’t sign your kiddos up for art classes in-person, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do some art projects at home. Canvases are pretty inexpensive, and they can provide a great way for your children to express themselves artistically. Finding recyclable objects to create art or jewelry is another way to engage your child’s creativity. And if art just isn’t their thing, working together on a plan for landscaping the yard can engage your student’s creativity and flex their design reflexes just as well. Anything that gets your kids thinking creatively is a wonderful way to enhance their lives and ability to think outside the box.
Use Games To Review
In a traditional classroom, review game days are the highlight of the week for students. Just because your student is learning online from home doesn’t mean that they don’t still need the fun of a review day! Get involved and help them prepare for quizzes and tests using review games. You can set up Quizlets for them, sign up for a free Kahoot account, play “H.O.R.S.E” with review questions, or make up your own game! This is a great way to reinforce to your child that they and their learning are a priority to you. You can help them be successful and feel your support by helping them find fun ways to review.
Take In-Person Or Virtual Field Trips
Taking some in-person field trips can be loads of fun and they don’t have to cost a lot either. Heading to a local park, community center, or historical society can help make learning a much more hands-on experience. If you or someone you know work somewhere that is of interest for your student, see if they can do some job-shadowing. Or you can schedule a visit to the state capitol as well so that government processes become much more real to them.
However, one thing that has become much easier to do since the pandemic is finding virtual field trip opportunities! These free virtual experiences can give your child experiences they might otherwise not have access to. Although there are many more virtual experiences, here is a list of just a few that you can find with a quick online search:
- • PBS “Secrets of Easter Island”
- • Google’s The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks
- • Google’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- • Mount Vernon Virtual Tour
- • National Aquarium Virtual Visit
- • Yellowstone National Park
- • Discovery Education’s Virtual Field Trips
Your student can experience a lot while still exploring their interests and having a flexible schedule with their online courses through Northgate Academy. Give some of these a try and see how much fun you can have getting to know your child and helping them figure out who they are, who they want to be, and what their place is in the world.
