Photo by Ashton Bingham on Unsplash

 

Now that school is back in session and your family is adjusting to the “new normal” of the 2020/2021 school year, we want to encourage you and your children to have fun.

 

It’s no secret that we learn best when we’re having fun doing it. That is why, at Creekside Kids in Colorado Springs, we follow the Reggio Emilia learning philosophy of hands-on, group-play style learning in our own classroom programs.

 

But when we are outside of the classroom and back at home, we can continue developing the minds and hearts of children with play-filled learning. Here are three of our favorite ways to stimulate your children’s learning process while having fun — inside and outside of the classroom.

 

1. Arts & Crafts
2. Music
3. Exploring nature & science

 

Arts & crafts allow us to flex our creative muscles. It is so much fun to create with simple things like paper, crayons, scissors, glue, and other fun elements like macaroni shells or buttons. The mind learns about creating textures, straight lines, squiggly lines, shapes, colors when doing arts and crafts. Plus, when the mind is allowed to wander a bit while creating, the creator experiences moments of inspiration, clarity, and fun that allows them to happily dive deeper into the creative process. Who knows? Your home-style arts & crafts session could nurture the next Picasso or Banksy.

 

Music is an incredible learning vehicle for math, rhythm, verbal expression, hand-eye coordination, stimulation of the senses, and creativity. A house filled with music is often a happy house, and anyone studying music contributes to those positive vibrations in the home. It’s no secret that music is an essential building block for developing the skills and discipline of engineers, artists, writers, and dancers. Everyone in the world benefits from the feel-good vibrations of music, and the brain uses music to learn, heal, relax, rev up, and remember. When your children study music, they develop a life-long skill that brings them and others much joy. Who knows? Your children’s musical endeavors can help them rise to fame on stage, develop music for video games, or give them a much-needed outlet to express themselves.

 

Exploring nature & science includes gardening, watching birds and animals in their habitat, and going for a hike. Exploring nature and science stimulates the minds and bodies of children in so many countless ways. See, smell, touch, taste, and hear the nature around Colorado Springs. We are so fortunate to be living in one of the most beautiful places on earth. We have mountains and plains. We have snow and sunshine. We have trees and flowers. We have birds and bears. Exploring nature develops the minds of scientists, poets, zoologists, winemakers, astronauts, musicians, biologists, inventors, and more. Who knows? Your hikes around Colorado Springs could nurture the imaginations of the next Nicola Tesla, Elon Musk, or Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

 

There are many proven studies showing that play stimulates learning. Plus, when you love what you do, it feels like play. Playful work awakens the desire to keep pursuing, keep learning, and keep growing our techniques. After at least 10,000 hours of playful pursuit of our chosen hobby or craft, we all eventually become masters of that craft and can make a comfortable living doing what we love.