If you want to know how to teach preschool at home, then you’ve come to the right place. Getting your child started with an online preschool can be a great way for mothers and fathers to help children learn more about the world around them. Teaching your preschooler at home can introduce early reading skills, math concepts, and much more.
In this article I’m going to show you tips on how to have online preschool classes for your child from the comfort of your living room.
TIPS FOR PRESCHOOL TEACHERS
Lean in with compassion: Be kind to yourself. No early childhood teacher has been trained to teach preschoolers online. “Online preschool” wasn’t listed as a pre-service course. However, early childhood teachers are expert at understanding young children’s behavior and creating developmentally appropriate learning environments—and you have more tools in your toolbox than you might think.
Remember to lean in with compassion for families as well. They’ve been in a state of constant, stressful adjustment, just like you, for many months now. Family routines are disrupted, and it may be difficult for parents to get their preschooler online when they have a baby crying, their first grader is asking for help during an online class, or they need to go to work themselves.
Adopt a growth mindset: Try different teaching approaches, and don’t be afraid of having a lesson flop; remember that every experiment provides more information that can inform the design of your next lesson. As one of the education managers we work with counseled her staff, “Don’t worry, you won’t harm the children.” It’s OK (and even advisable) to try new things during this time, and just like in a regular classroom, what might work with one group of children might not work with another.
Partner with families: You’re probably finding that you need to work much more closely with families to prepare for preschool than you’ve ever had to before. Using materials that are commonly found in children’s homes can ease the burden on both you and families. Consider asking parents to keep a preschool kit or box with materials you often use in your lessons, such as play dough, colored paper, markers, dice, or cards that children can bring to each session, or shapes that children and families could cut out together. This can make your work easier and help keep children’s learning spaces at home organized.
Remember that preschoolers’ attention spans are short: But they are even shorter when children have to be on a videoconference. As many people are learning, Zoom fatigue is real; it takes people more time, effort, and sustained attention to follow along during a videoconference. Preschoolers are no different. In fact, if a preschooler walks away from the screen, they are simply self-regulating—taking a brain break.
Often parents are with their preschoolers while online, which can make for a tricky situation for a teacher, particularly if a parent is upset that their child has walked away from your online class. Be sure to reiterate to parents that it is totally acceptable for their child to take a break as needed.
Keep activities short: When in person, children may be able to sit in circle time or whole group for up to 10 minutes, but that same circle time activity may not hold their attention when viewed in a conferencing platform such as Google Classroom or Zoom. Instead, try breaking up your lesson into small chunks with lots of movement embedded.
Get kids moving: Alternate between active and passive activities to help keep children engaged. Try a group movement activity such as creating a dance pattern, or have children do a quick scavenger hunt in their home (find three green things) and then regroup online to share and discuss what they found. By finding three things, children are also working on cardinality while moving around.
Another idea is to have children set up an obstacle course using pillows or toys, and then narrate their movement using prepositions that describe their positions and spatial relationships.
Set a routine and stick to it: Just like in the classroom, children benefit from knowing what to expect. Greet each child as they join the virtual room: Sing a song, dance along, read a book, have another movement or art activity, sing a closing song. If you can share a picture schedule on the screen or in their online classroom, or send home a printed picture schedule, this can support children’s understanding of what to expect during their virtual class.
Teaching Crafts Online:
Kids love crafts. They love to make things with their hands. So if you want to teach them a few crafts, make sure that you do it online.
Whether it be coloring or playing with clay, have them do it online. It will keep them occupied for hours! all you need is to guide them with a few simple steps.
Online Play/Skit:
Preschool is not just about teaching children rhymes, colors, letters, sight words, etc. It’s also about developing the social environment, and online learning lacks it to a certain extent. So what can you as a teacher do?
Well, there’s no specific solution, but parents can influence/impact the child’s social skills. Parents can try plays, games, social experiences, etc.
Another great idea is to organize a dramatic play. You can script a play, assign characters to each student, and have an online play. Try to pick plays from short storybooks. You can also divide students into groups or organize competitions like fancy dress, read the rhyme, coloring, etc. Group activities are necessary for preschoolers.
Word Games:
In this activity, the child needs some newspapers or magazines. The Teacher displays a word, and the child needs to form the word. Suppose, create your name.
Here, parents are necessary because handing scissors to preschoolers is risky. You can also ask them to spell the word. Start with names, short words, and sight words, and then progress slowly.
Online word search is a great way to keep kids busy for hours and also help them learn certain words at the same time! This is a great way to incorporate vocabulary into an online learning environment. It’s also a good way to engage kids in creative activities whenever you’re online.
Music and Dance:
It’s normal to have dance lectures in preschool. Because kids learn from activities, things they see, the sound they hear, and what they feel.
Dance is an activity that builds confidence and keeps them relaxed and refreshed. So via online mode, you can take dance sessions based on alphabets, numbers, words, etc.
Online Brain Games and Puzzles:
All you need to do is get your hands on some good puzzles and start solving them online. It’s a great way to get kids thinking. But if you don’t want to get puzzles, you can always go to Khan Academy and search for “brain games.” There are tons of brain games there, and they’re all free!
Learning Basics:
In this activity, you can teach kids about animals, colors in the rainbow, fairy tales, weather, community helpers, etc. You can provide or request printouts of specific images.
Now, if you are teaching animals, provide the parents with a pdf (of images).
Parents need to make cutouts of images. Now, the child needs to differentiate between domestic and wild animals. Next can be land animals and water animals. Or community helpers like firefighters, school buses, police, Courier, doctors, nurse, etc.
Virtual Field Trips For Preschoolers:
There are a lot of virtual field trips, just like there are a lot of virtual classrooms. Nowadays, there are a lot of options for preschoolers to go on virtual field trips. You can try out the Virtual Zoo, Theater, Farm, and more.
The Best Online Education Classes For Kids
Outschool
Ages: 3 and up
Why It’s Great: If variety truly is the spice of life, then Outschool is a dish with something for everyone. You choose a class based on age, interest, start date, and the length of the class. The courses run the gamut, from beginner reading (for $23/class) to film animation ($40/class) to basic multiplication ($19/class). There’s even a class on mindfulness because of course there is. So while the classes aren’t free, the sheer number of them, coupled with the very affordable rates and the expertise of the instructors make this one very worth your while. ADVERTISEMENT
Code with Google
Ages: 9 and up
Why It’s Great: Surely you’ve heard of Google. Well, the massive entity is now offering classes that teach kids 9 and up coding, and technical skills. And the classes are, well, fun. For real. Students in fourth grade and up learn coding through activities, hands-on lessons, and lesson supplements. Sample challenge: Kids program a conversation between two characters to explore the very vital role of dialogue in storytelling because words matter. A lot. Creating and sticking to a coherent storyline is a critical part of learning.
CodeAcademy
Ages: 10 and up
Why It’s Great: STEM, STEM, and more STEM. Plus, while this is not free, you can now get a pretty massive discount. Students get access to CodeAcademy Pro for $90, which is $150 less than the usual price of $240. Just in time for back to school. Students build real, portfolio-ready projects and learn every single aspect of coding.
iRobot Education
Ages: 6 and up
Why It’s Great: The folks who gave us the Roomba have put together a repository of great STEM lessons, most of them free. Kids, from first grade on, can use the paper code blocks to program dances, or do a slew of different exercises from a printable STEM activity book.
Zearn
Ages: 5 and up
Why it’s great: It makes math fun. Yes, we said it. Fun. The site uses animation, embedded instruction, fast-paced drills, and thorough tutorials to teach kids though self-paced digital lessons. Kids get positive feedback, and encouragement when get something wrong. Parents or teachers set up accounts for kids.
Bronx Zoo Animal Doodles
Ages: 4 and up
Why It’s Great: The Bronx Zoo, which just reopened, is a magical experience if you take your kids to see the animals in person. The gorillas alone are worth the price of admission. But if you can’t be there in person, your kids can at least learn to draw an American bison or sand tiger shark or a red panda, courtesy of free instructional videos.
Storyline
Ages: 2 and up
Why It’s Great: Viola Davis, Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Costner, and Chris Pine are just a few of the wonderful talents who make story time that much more fun and engaging for kids by reading to them. And yes, it’s free. Kids can choose anything from Clark & Shark to Brave Irene to Catching the Moon. Reading to kids boosts literacy, and the book selections here are stellar.
Learn with Homer
Ages: 2 to 8
Why It’s Great: The learning modules are immersive, engaging, and just damn fun, helping kids learning everything from sight words to the fundamentals of writing by letting them create their stories. You get a free 30 day trial, after setting up your child’s profile. The company says that after only 15 minutes per day, kids become better readers as they engage in 1,000+ lessons, stories, and activities personalized by children’s specific interests, skill levels, and the type of learning. Also, your membership buys you four profiles, so it’s especially ideal for multi-kid households. The cost per year is $60.
Conclusion
You ask them to share their ideas, what they have been watching on TV, playing with at kindergarten or preschool and so on. This is important to give a perfect idea of the child’s interest and you will be able to choose the topics in a better way.