Home Learning Grid

What do I need to do for each section of the Home Learning Grid?

Read or be read to:

Reading is an essential skill that translates to every facet of life. Reading, here, includes reading for pleasure, reading fiction, newspapers, magazines, textbooks and assigned reading of texts set by teachers as classwork.

Being read to is an essential part of developing the desire to read and bonding with parents. It enables children to imagine and form thoughts in their heads.

Shopping:

This is an active pastime and a very valuable one in gaining a number of life kills including budgeting, selecting, discerning, totalling, money handling, reading item labels and discovering what things cost and value for money.

Physical Activity:

This is a crucial parat of the grid and should be a daily part of every student's home life and work.

This can include sport's training, riding a bicycle, bushwalking, fishing, walking the dog, walking home and can be activities done with your parents. Any kind of indoor or outdoor active pursuits.

Housework:

This is absolutely compulsory and must be a daily part of the grid. Students are often opting out of family life and not doing chores, which places a lot of stress on parents, particularly where both parents work or in the case of single parents who are very busy doing the job of two parents. Children must not make parents their servants. At the very least they need to pick up after themselves and assist with activities for their benefit such as chopping wood, helping prepare meals, tidying their rooms and other parts of the house, cleaning the house and keeping it clean and tidy both inside and outside. Outdoor work could include weeding, gardening, raking and sweeping, painting and decorating. Many handyperson skills are necessary for them to be able to manage their own dwellings in later years. Again when housework is done with parents or siblings, it becomes a bonding activity and should enhance family life.

Teach your family:

One of the best ways of consolidating what one has learnt is to teach the concept to another. This can be set for class work or happen spontaneously to enable students to brief parents about work covered, but go a step further and try to explain and teach particular topics learnt that day or that week.

Cultural Activities:

These could include any after school dance, music, drama, kapa haka, art or other classes. They would also include any family cultural activities such as visits to museums, places of historical interest and live theatre performance.