By Isabelle Baucum, Communications Director at Ambleside School 

LIFE GIVING AND TECHNOLOGY FREE

Here are five ways your child can continue growing and learning while at home. These reinforce the lessons created by Ambleside for our At Home Learning curriculum, but they are enriching and life giving on their own!

Handwriting

The cognitive benefits of practicing handwriting and cursive are well known and yet this skill is not as prominent in education as it once was [read more].

Print out handwriting worksheets for your child and encourage them to practice developing this life skill (while simultaneously developing fine motor skills and a sense of artistry). In the early years, Ambleside Students master D’Nealian manuscript writing and then are introduced to Spencerian writing.

Handwork

Give your child a project, constructing something with their hands. There are many different mediums that can choose! You can help them pick up a new hobby like felting, knitting, or gain sewing competency by learning simple stitches!

Ambleside students complete handwork projects in each grade, each year focusing on a new skill. A few past projects include woven tapestries, knit bunnies, ceramic mosaics, and wood carvings. During At Home Learning, our First Grade is continuing their paper mâché and felt puppet handwork project.

Outdoor Play

Encourage your child to play out of doors regularly everyday. But more than just play, encourage them to notice. Prompt them to engage their natural surroundings:

“Find a tree, or flowering plant. Collect a small sample.

What do you notice about the leaf? About the flower?

What color is it? Describe its shape.”

See a list of suggested questions here.

You child can begin to relate to the natural world by exercising her attention. Encourage them to do this daily!

You may even encourage them to keep a nature journal. At Ambleside, students keep nature journals and entries including drawings and descriptions from their nature walks. The students become acquainted with their natural surroundings over their years through such observations.

Read Aloud

At Ambleside, we can attest to the delight and curiosity that is cultivated in young minds when adults read Aloud to them. During At Home Learning, our families in the lower grades are reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis aloud as a whole family daily.

Explore these reading lists of classic literature (organized by grade) and either read aloud to or along with your child. Encourage an older child to pick a favorite book and read aloud to their siblings for 20 minutes. Or make read aloud time a whole family activity!

Illustration

Illustrating a passage from a book, or recreating a work of art, is a structured way to encourage your children to carry on art projects.

Pick an illustration from a book they are currently reading and provide them with a few guidelines. Older children can be given an image, like this from the Silver Chair, and encouraged to recreate it. For younger children, color pages are useful for helping them grow in their command of shading and precision.

Visit our At Home Learning pages for more articles and helpful links.

Schooling Multiple Children At Home

How to “Narrate:” Absorbing Concepts

Resources By Grade Group