In previous newsletters I have discussed Confidence, Curiosity, Creativity, Communication and the ways you can help develop these important aspects for effective learning in your children.
This month is about Collaboration. Collaboration is more than cooperating with others; it is working together to accomplish a common goal. Simply telling children to work together won’t lead to them collaborating effectively. We need to develop activities and projects where children have reasons to help one another to achieve an outcome. Here are a few to try at home.
Christine Hawkins
Owner KMEC Hunter
Buddy tracings. On a large sheet of paper, have each child trace around the outline of the other. Decorate them together. Point out that the kids couldn’t have made them without each other.
Make-believe Scenes. When kids enter a pretend world and take on roles, such as mothers and fathers when playing house or teachers and students when playing schools, they learn to work together both to create that world and what is within it.
Relay and Three-legged Races. These simple physical activities require each child to trust and rely on one another for the team’s success. Blob tag is another great collaborative game. Here are the rules: Chose someone as “IT”. IT starts the game as regular tag, but when he catches someone, they must join hands with IT to create a large Blob. Once the Blob has 6 people, it can split into groups of three only, and may split into groups of three any time thereafter. The person left without being tagged, is IT and the game starts again.
Have fun collaborating!
