One of the primary purposes of preschool is for children to start learning in a social setting. During the weeks ahead, while schools are closed and social distancing is the norm, we will need to forgo that goal for a while and focus on teaching how to be good citizens in their own home. The biggest challenge for parents will be how to fill the time and keep children engaged in meaningful activities. Metropolitan Nursery School is here to help. If you have questions, please email your teachers, we are all still online (maybe more than we want to be). They will also be reaching out to you and your child during this time. We miss the work we do and we miss your children. Please make sure they know that. In the meantime, below are some useful tips and activities to get us started. We don’t know how long this time at home will be, so I will update this list after Spring Break if we find we are still unable to return to school.
Please know that these are unprecedented times and whatever you are doing to keep your family and home safe and sane during these weeks is ok. If that means a day of movies so you can get work done, so be it.
A Schedule is your friend. Having a schedule is part of what makes school work. The schedule becomes a de facto teacher in the room, ushering us from one part of the day to the next.
The times is green are when you will need to help/assist your child but can likely be focused on other things as well, the times in orange are when they can be expected to mostly entertain themselves, and the times in blue are when you should attempt to give them 100% focused attention.
3. Give your child 100% of your attention for parts of the day (such as story time). You will be surprised how doing that will make it easier for you to ask them to play independently for longer periods of time without interrupting you (so you can get some work done too).
4. Allow routine to be a friend during this time. On weekends, we may always try to change things up or be spontaneous, as we try to make those times special with family, but right now, all we have is family time and if you want to stay sane and not have to drive yourself crazy constantly deciding “what will we do now”, set up an activity routine specific to the day of the week. I found this one online and thought it was helpful. So, on the schedule above, during “Activity Time” at 10 am, you could use the ideas below to help determine your daily activity.