How To Create A Friendly Learning Environment At Home For Your Elementary School Child

How can I create a "learning-friendly environment" at home?

When parents want to create a learning environment at home, there's a number of steps to do. And one thing is just to make learning part of your everyday life. Talk about things. Ask questions. Encourage your kids to ask questions. When you're just driving down the street, point things out that seem interesting and talk about them. Things that are going on at home, when you're cooking, when you're doing an art project, talk about what's going on and push your children to ask questions and think critically about what they're doing. Make books available. There should be books - whether they're your books or library book - there should always be books that your child can grab and read. And one of the things you want to make sure to make time for is to read to your child or with your child - it's huge. One of the other really important things, and it's a hard thing to do, I think, but children emulate their parents, and I see so many parents who complain about how much TV their children watch, and how little their children read, and parents for them...you get home, and you crash on the couch and you turn on the television, and I think that's a normal response. You're tired, and you just want to come home and relax. But I think it's very hard to push your children to read when you're sitting there watching TV. So, I think making reading a viable option for you and for your kids - for all the adults and all of the children, and I think also making learning something that's just what you do. Counting when you do things. Talking about letters. Talking about science. Talking - "oh there's the moon! When does the moon work? Why is it out? Why does it disappear sometimes?" Those kind of things.