The Home-School Connection: Learning at Home

Parents cheering on their baby who is stacking blocks at a table in their home

Home-to-school connections are so important for your child’s learning. Watch your child’s face light up and respond as you sing a familiar song from school. Your child’s teachers will tell you about how your child gravitates to a book known from home when they see it on the classroom shelf. Observe their surprise as you name something they did at school and invite them to expand on the details of their day. These home-to-school connections strengthen the bond a child has with their classroom environment. A solid connection contributes to a sense of comfort and safety that prepares a child to learn. It also allows you as a parent to create opportunities for concept reinforcement and skill development at home.

In Wonder of Learning, the entire School follows a Unit of Inquiry across multiple weeks, with guiding weekly questions to promote curiosity. For example, Unit 4 is “Comparing Simple Machines: How might we use these in our everyday life?” The guiding question for week one is: How do people get from place to place? From infants to pre-k, children will have unique ideas for how they connect to each unit.

Here are some examples of what might be happening in a class at each age level during Unit 4, Week 1.
 

Infants (0 – 12 months). Infants will focus on their rapidly developing body awareness and ability to control movements. Teachers will support their growing awareness by singing songs and observing movements in the mirror. One song from this week is, “This Is How I Move My Body” (to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”).

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Gross motor skills
  • Fine motor skills
  • Building relationships with adults
  • Listening and comprehension
  • Phonological awareness
  • Music
  • Movement
  • Knowledge of self and others


Toddlers (12 – 24 months).
Toddlers will consider walking as a form of transportation. Teachers will provide opportunities to practice this developing skill and strengthen their coordination. This week, they will place poly spots on the floor and talk to children about the ways they choose to travel from spot to spot. Maybe they could hop like bunnies to one spot or flap their wings like birds to another.

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Initiative and planning
  • Gross motor skills
  • Building relationships with adults
  • Experimenting, predicting and drawing conclusions
  • Knowledge of self and others


Twos (2 – 3 years)
. Twos will begin to integrate their knowledge of the world into their play. Their play at this stage is parallel play (alongside other children instead of with them). Teachers will offer materials related to transportation so they can play what they know about how people get from place to place. This week, they will put photos of each child on car figurines for play. Children can use blocks to build structures if they choose and drive their cars to homes or places.

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Initiative and planning
  • Problem solving with materials
  • Reading
  • Geometry: Shapes and spatial awareness
  • Building relationships with other children
  • Fine motor skills
  • Experimenting, predicting and drawing conclusions
  • Knowledge of self and others
  • Pretend play


Bridge (2.5 – 3.5 years)
. In the Bridge classroom, children expand their knowledge through deeper and more sustained play by moving toward cooperative play. This week, teachers will intentionally support children’s expanding vocabulary and deeper social interactions while they engage with dramatic play props of babies and various baby carriers.

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Initiative and planning
  • Problem solving with materials
  • Geometry: Shapes and spatial awareness
  • Speaking
  • Building relationships with other children
  • Gross motor skills
  • Knowledge of self and others
  • Pretend play


Preschool (3 – 4 years).
Preschoolers are tuning into environmental print to gain more information about their environment. This week, children are looking at the print associated with vehicles such as license plates and street signs. They will play a letter-matching game where they park vehicles in spaces with the matching letter.

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Initiative and planning
  • Problem solving with materials
  • Alphabetic knowledge
  • Geometry: Shapes and spatial awareness
  • Building relationships with other children
  • Observing and classifying
  • Pretend play


Pre-kindergarten (4 – 5 years).
Pre-kindergartners are going deeper into the world of problem-solving and investigating how vehicles can travel when there is a body of water they need to get across. This week, they will use various materials to build bridges.

What children are learning (learning domains):

  • Initiative and planning
  • Problem solving with materials
  • Building relationships with other children
  • Fine motor skills
  • Experimenting, predicting and drawing conclusions
  • Pretend play
  • Tools and technology

How to Connect It All at Home

Here are some fun, simple ways to bring what your child learns at School into your home.

  • Sing with your child! Look for titles of songs in communication from your School that you can continue at home. If you aren’t sure about one of the tunes, ask your child’s teacher.
  • Head to your local library and look for books associated with the overarching topic from the unit of inquiry.
  • Provide small figurines or stuffed animals so that children can play out what they are learning through pretend play at home.
  • Send pictures to School via the Goddard Family Hub when your child connects with something they are learning.
  • Listen to the vocabulary that emerges at home and reflect on any pictures shared from School. Follow your child’s lead and ask questions about the ideas they are bringing up.
  • Offer art materials so that children can freely practice or express ideas and concepts they are learning at School.
  • Let your child see you write ideas down on paper or capture your child’s ideas as they voice them.
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