Amidst the lockdown and social distancing measures taken to keep coronavirus at bay, it could be difficult for parents working from home to manage household chores and engage kids at the same time.
British Council, UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, has developed special content and fun activities that parents and kids can use to learn English.
For children and parents who are at home these days, here are few good tips and activities to do.
LearnEnglish is an English improvisation programme of the British Council. It has lots of activities related to common topics that children study at school.
Challenge A Friend
Keeping in contact with school friends can help children feel less isolated. Ask your child to challenge a friend over a chat or video call. If they can call them and speak English, even better! Ask them to play on School Run or Wordshake available on the website. Make a story on Story Maker or design a hero or teddy together. Or else give them a tongue twister challenge.
Engage In Craft Activity
Crafts are fun to make. British Council has listed number of fun activities which can be done using basic materials available at home.
Lots of craft activities available in the portal have printable templates. Ask your child to choose a craft and make it. Then they can use it to practise English. For example, if they make a skeleton, ask them to tell you or write the names of all the body parts they know in English. If they make a crocodile puppet, pretend to have a conversation with the crocodile!
Watch And Follow How To ... Videos
The How to ... videos show children how to make or do something, with online or printable exercises that children can complete independently to check their understanding.
Flashcards And Colouring Pages
Kids will enjoy making flashcards and colouring pictures. Choose a topic your child has studied at school and print out the materials for them. Ask them to make the flashcards or read and colour the picture. If they make flashcards, they can also play the memory game with another member of the family.
Improve Vocabulary With LearnEnglish
There are lots of ways to revise and extend vocabulary at home for example playing word games, songs and stories and word bags.
On LearnEnglish kids can play a number of games. Each game has audio, so children can also practise pronunciation.
Songs and stories are also great for extending children's vocabulary. The songs and stories have preparation vocabulary games for children to play before they watch the video, to help them learn new words.
Another interesting activity is word bag. Ask your child to look in their school English book and choose five words from each unit they have studied so far, or words from activities they have done on LearnEnglish Kids. Ask them to make mini word cards by writing the words on small pieces of paper. Put the words in a bag. Every day, for example after dinner, take out five words and ask your child to: spell the words, define the words, translate the words, draw the words, tell a simple story using the words!
Fun learning with Sticky notes
Give your child some blank sticky notes and ask them to go round the house and label everything they can in English. If they don't know the word, encourage them to look in a dictionary to find out. When they finish, ask them to give you all the sticky notes that they checked in a dictionary. The next day, give the sticky notes with the new words back. Can they remember what things to put them on?
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