FUN AND LEARN

My 4 year old primarily speaks Hindi, with some English words thrown here and there. This was a conscious decision taken by us because we wanted him to learn and speak his mother tongue but we were aware that his education will be in another language “English”.

So when he turned around 4 and I could see that he comprehends the difference between both the languages I thought it was the right time to teach to him the language.

But No.1 disagreed..it was not his idea of spending free time with his mum. He wanted to play , fight, paint, dance etc etc.You see, he cannot sit at one place.....has attention span of about 1 minute....and is remotely not interested in anything that his mum wants him to learn.

I call it “the Mommy disorder”.

Well i had the worst case .Everything that he associates with studies...he disassociates with me, mumma for him is for everything else BUT not studies. I wanted him to learn but not by force and pressure ...hence everytime i would teach him something he would run away and say “Oh mumma..stop talking about it pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

So in order to tackle the disorder and make learning interesting for him. I devised a devious “Mummy plan” ...... Games incorporating everything that he likes...running around, painting, hitting, dancing and what i want to make him learn....

I have divided things that he needs to learn in two parts: Daily conversation and comprehensive language learning.

Right now I am writing about comprehensive learning;

Comprehensive language learning basically will start from the basics...which he obviously knew like ABCssss and spellings and grammer. Since he already was aware of ABCsss and comprehended basic word formation I started with spellings and word formation.

Some games that have worked for me:

1    Find, Hit and create:

a) Things required: A play sword/Bat, a room, some cards/paper, paint

b) Time taken: around 1 hour

c) The game: Mark one area of the room. Find a word/or put a word in any corner of the room (start with very simple words,,i started with cat,mat etc). Word should be visible but not at first sight.

d) Tell the word to the kid..speak it out. Like “U need to find where is cat written?”.

e) The kid needs to find the word...Hit the word forcefully and say “Master has found CAT”.

f) Kid needs to read out the letter.

g) Now my son loves to paint, hence the next part is customized for him...He finger painted each word that he found on a card (I made these cards out of playing cards..covering them with newspaper)

This is a very popular game with my son. I have increased the level of difficulties now. More difficult words to find, at more difficult places.

Sometimes to break the monotony I play it without words...with pictures, with objects..sometimes cartoon characters...things that i can easily find at home.

2    The Jungle

a)Things required: Card paper, Animal stickers, crayons, water color and lots of imaginative skills and creativity

b)How to play:

> Create a jungle story. My story included words that i wanted him to learn like....tree, birds, moon, star, pear, deer, bear, tiger, panda etc....

>  Create an environment: I dimmed the lights, played some animal sounds i found on the net.

> Make cards: Cut card paper into a size on which one side u will put animal stickers/draw objects like star, moon etc and write the name in pencil and the other side the kid can paint the name.

> Start the story..embody each element...let the kid be a part of the story...We became tree together, i became deer...he became tiger and loved pouncing on me. Each word was introduced with a card. For e.g. There was a jungle, jungle had trees..(STOP show card when introducing trees......Become a tree), there was a strong breeze in the jungle and trees were moving here and there (move here and there). Then came a deer (SHOW DEER CARD, READ out the spelling..ask him to read out the spelling Become a meek deer start running here and there) the deer was scared because a tiger was after the deer(similarly introduce tiger etc etc).

> Stop at different points in the story and take a break revise the names and spellings

> Now erase what you have written with pencil and let the kid paint the word on the back of the card

I have few more games which are learnings about body parts, plants, shapes, fruits etc BUT more on that later.