“During these troubling times, when everyone is juggling ‘work from home’ and ‘work at home’, our focus has been on keeping the emotional and social connect with our children and parent community intact besides helping parents to keep their tiny tots engaged at home. With parents and us reluctant on using online apps as the primary means to keep children engaged at home, we realised that home learning was the only solution. So after several rounds of discussion and inputs from parents on how to forge ahead, today we are successfully conducting Zoom online activities for Early Years children and parents. It did not happen overnight. It was an entirely new experience for us and we did not fathom the extent of its impact.”

– Kusum Kanwar, director-principal of Kangaroo Kids, Kandivali East — Mumbai’s top ranked preschool.

Ranked #3 among Mumbai’s top franchised preschools in the latest EducationWorld India Preschool Rankings 2019-20, Kangaroo Kids, Kandivali East was one of the first preschools in the city to offer online classes for students in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. 

Catering to the learning needs of children from Playschool through Senior Kindergarten, the preschool aims to “produce young individuals who will be caring and committed Indians while they create a place for themselves in the global community.” Amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown, Kangaroo Kids, Kandivali East has successfully managed to keep the little ones engaged at home with various developmental and life skills focused activities. Here’s how:

Sending information to teachers and parents

The school sent out information and advise to parents on how to be more patient with themselves and stay calm; watching children’s responses and how parents’ actions are subtly teaching the kids the most important life skill – adversity skill.

The school further urged parents to pre-plan their activities a day prior, even if it is a simple chore and set the routine at home with a checklist.

Home activities

Simulating the school environment, parents were encouraged to teach their children concepts by dividing the informal home environment into four learning zones based on development of the human brain (physical, socio-emotional, cooperative, cognitive and language development). This approach laid a strong foundation for effective learning from home. 

Developmental skills

The school scheduled home activities into seven categories:

• Language skills preceded by listening skills;
• Physical;
• Social;
• Emotional;
• Cognitive – focus, precision;
• Sense of balance
• Sense of body awareness

Some activities that were given to the children to keep them occupied included:

Reading them a story – dress up like a character – Disney, Avengers etc.!!

Engage in active reading – While reading a book to the kids, have them act out the actions in the book and ask them questions about the different titles they’re reading. Which one did they like the most? Why? Which characters did they relate to the most?

Exercise with yoga – teaching them a few yoga steps everyday. Start the morning with a nursery-rhyme themed yoga. Cosmic yoga’s a great YouTube channel that will help keep kids active and the parents could work out with them at the same time.

The school adds that it is important to plan out an agenda or checklist for the children. Example: My morning checklist.

Online videos

The school shares online videos for the kids on art blow painting techniques, story telling, non-fire cooking, music and many more. They also reach out to the children through Zoom video calls in order to stay connected and interact with them.

Besides, teachers are committed to keeping the children’s spirits high. For example, they pose a question to get children thinking before beginning an art form. Question – “How can I get the paint to move and dance across the paper, using just this straw?” This technique encourages exploration, investigation and scientific thought and helps build social, emotional connection.