It is a movement constraint order again here in Malaysia. The Covid case is increasing by days. And we are all in fear. It’s hard to plan too much about the future when we don’t know what the future would look like.
Life. Constrained. Felt normal now. Taking it slow… felt normal now. But what if we aspire to want to do more?
I am still in the “holiday” mood over here after we moved from Japan in April. The one thing that I’ve learnt throughout my life is that success starts from taking the smallest action towards the goal that you want to achieve. Thus, I’m trying to take it slow in the last couple of weeks.
But, I realized one obvious thing. Although for some people, I might seem like I am working faster than them or might be much slower than them.
Yes, Indeed. Progress looks different from different perspectives. Each has its own journey and timeline to reach its own destination.
What if slowing down is not a choice?
I must say that I’m grateful that I have this opportunity to take things a bit more slowly this time. Maybe because of the recent transition back to Malaysia, and the kids are not fully going to school yet. Our routine is much flexible hence we got to do what we want to do; when we want to do it. But, after having three kids, I know that having a good routine and structure is beneficial to the kids and for ourselves too.
So during the months when the kids weren’t going to school yet, I still make sure they have a sort of routine to go through every day. I try to wake them up early, usually, before 8 am all the kids are up. I won’t allow TV or iPad before they eat breakfast and went to bath. And I always remind them to do something; reading or playing with their toys, before they got to use their gadgets.
I know we are living in the era of technology and we just have to make peace with it. Honestly, I am struggling too to take the kids off their game or Youtube. Working at home while the kids are home too makes it harder to implement this rule because sometimes we just want to focus on our work piling in front of us.
I think that has helped me in terms of taking control of what they “consume” on the screen by choosing what kind of apps being installed and when they can use them. What I am doing right now (still struggling though) is to take note of the good apps for kids to learn. I will list down some of what we are using and like below. And I make sure they go to this Apps first, if they requested to use the tablet, then only they can get some time for other apps (i.e. game).
Some of the apps that we use and like are:
- KODABLE – We subscribe to this as it is a really fun programming app. The kids are learning to build their own code without noticing it because it’s so much fun.
- Code Karts – My 8 years old can’t stop building fun Karts using this pre-coding app. It is free for several levels. But, since my boy is having a lot of fun, and I like that he is learning some programming here, we paid to unlock the full version.
- ABC Mouse – It’s a good platform to learn English, with to advertising, pop-up etc, the child is safe playing and learning by themselves using this app. The kids can even play this on the desktop.
- SimplyPiano – This app might substitute a Piano class. You can connect any piano or keyboard and learn from this app. Since we do not have an actual keyboard yet (Yess, we are using a pink little keyboard that I gave my 6-year-old girl on her 4th birthday), we use that small pink keyboard to learn, or just use the iPad touchscreen. The app gives good feedback even with our little pink keyboard.
- Lingokids – Fun English lessons for the young ones.
- Khan Academy Kids – My 6-year-old girl loves using this app in her free time.
- HOMER – Good for younger kids to learn English.
Leave me a comment below if you have any other suggestions on good apps for Kids to learn. My aim is not to encourage them to spend more time on the screen, but instead, when they need to use the screen (i.e., when we just have to focus on our work at home etc.), instead of letting them play games or watching Youtube first, they will try to use all these great educational apps first.
What do you think??
