This month, with our self-isolation due to the coronavirus outbreak, we understand that children are staying at home. These are trying times for us all, when simply leaving home can be a stressful experience. We are left to find solace within our homes, with our family.
Parents, we are writing here to let you know that when they are at school, the children are very independent. Your child is truly able to occupy their minds for long periods of time. At school, we call this “work.” At home this week, you may be relieved that they are simply entertaining themselves. A child might be happy finding rocks in the backyard, sorting through a deck of cards, playing cars/trucks/trains. Any of these activities can occupy their mind and stir their imagination for some period of time.
Repetition of an activity is, in fact, how a child learns, how her brain develops neural pathways that will last a lifetime. Maria Montessori observed over 100 years ago that “to have learned something is for the child only a point of departure. When she has learned the meaning of an exercise, then she begins to enjoy repeating it, and she does repeat it in infinite number of times, with the most evident satisfaction. She enjoys executing that act because by means of it she is developing her psychic activities.”
At home, this happens when older kids help with simple house chores such as loading or unloading the dishwasher, sorting and folding laundry, gathering trash, turning lights off and on, or setting the table.
Younger ones are often happy with activities that engage their eye-hand coordination, such as working with beads (photo, below), puzzles and sorting objects. Crafts like collages need not be prepped too much, as they can cut or tear from magazine on their own.
