For many countries, which previously thought to have the pandemic situation under control, the fight against this enemy is nowhere near finished. As second or even third wave of COVID-19 cases hit, we also approach the end of the Summer. Many schools are preparing to start the new school year online, or at least have a contingency plan of switching to remote learning in case things get worse again.
The Hurdles of Remote Learning
So many kids around the world have been looking forward to the beginning of school where they can meet their much-missed friends and teachers again in person. My heart broke when I saw the faces of my daughters after they learned that they would need to start school online again.
I think remote learning for the little ones at pre-school and kindergarten levels is the toughest. At their age they mainly learn from hands-on activities and develop social skills through interactions with others. They also don’t have the concentration span to sit still and listen to their teachers on the screen for a prolonged period of time. I really respect these education professionals who are creating and reinventing teaching methods to adapt to the current educationaldemand. Additionally, young children need more patience and attention so they can only teach a few students at a time, having multiple sessions a day, making it also extra draining physically and mentally.
Happy to Help!
As for our little kids, they also need to adapt to a new way of learning and can only see their teachers briefly each day. They are not yet old enough to handle the online interaction independently and require much help from their care givers by their side, so we are becoming the teaching assistant at home too! Have no fear! There are actually many websites, that normally provide home-school parents with structured curriculum, that have useful information to those who need to do this temporarily. For more ideas on fun yet educational activities and tips on teaching your kids from home, this site provides some pretty comprehensive resource guides for all ages up to elementary level.
The Post COVID-19 Education
This pandemic has forced the age-old methods in education to be re-invented overnight into a new form. Although these remote learning strategies are supposedly just a temporary solution to handle the crisis, it has kick-started a new era of education that will come with its benefits and problems. As this article from the World Economic Forum has concluded, it is important to have resilience when facing these new challenges, and without doubt we will help our kids navigate these unchartered waters together!
Bombol is here for you!
To boost the morale of the Sparky families who follow what Bombol is up to, we would like to offer you a special discount to get you ready for the start of school at home! Use the discount codeBACK2SCHOOL1 and get 10% discount on any purchase from our online store! (Valid until Sept 30, 2020)
Stay Sparky!
A Foldable Booster is Definitely a Game-Changer!
It is always better to use your own booster seat than a public one
Hygiene concern is a big issue these days and all parents are very much on the alert to keep everything their baby uses as clean as possible, especially when eating out. Many restaurants or hospitality spaces do offer highchairs for their little guests, but they might not have the time to keep their equipment as clean as we would like them to. Having your own booster seat is the best solution in this case when you can clean it properly after use and your child can have a clean booster to sit on every time.
Say “NO” to chunky furniture also in Grandma’s house!
Our parents have made so many sacrifices for us since the day we were born and continue to do so when they become Grandparents. They babysit our kids, take them on holidays, and spoil them with sweets before passing them back to us still sugar-high! So many grandparents have a complete set of baby gear at their homes so they are fully equipped to take on the grandkids at any time. After an action-packed weekend at Grannies’ the kids have gone home, and they are stuck with the bulky high-chair in their kitchen for the rest of the week / month! This is when a foldable booster seat can come in handy for them: it can be folded and stored away in the drawer until the next visit without taking up space. No bulky furniture they need to move in or out of storage either.
It’s chair for home away from home, wherever you go
Kids tend to get attached to things very easily and would like to drag along everything that belongs to them, furniture included! This might help them to feel more secure when they are away from home or familiar surroundings. For a toddler, sitting at a table for a meal outside the home environment might feel a bit intimidating at times, so having brought along his own chair could help him ease into the situation a bit faster. A foldable booster seat makes taking along his own dining chair beats lugging a highchair to your friend’s house!
Story Time is Bonding Time
It’s never too late to learn to be a Storyteller
One of the fondest memories I have of my mother is the countless afternoons snuggling up to her in the sofa while she read all kinds of stories and fables to me. Through these stories I learned so much about life-skills and different cultures, lessons that I keep on benefiting from even now. When I became a mother, I was so determined to give just as wonderful an experience to my daughters so they will not be deprived of this privilege and the tradition will live on. But reality soon hit, and I have a confession to make: I HATE STORYTIME when I need to be the one to tell the stories! After a full day of multi-tasking and reaching the last leg of the day’s marathon, not much energy is left in me for bedtime stories. The stress starts to kick in when I saw my baby all nicely tucked in her bouncer, with teddy in hand and staring at me with those adorable expecting eyes! Not all of us are natural-born storytellers like my mom! For the brave parents who are determined to master the art of storytelling, there are apps you can download that can teach you how to become a better storyteller! *sigh* I wish I knew about this when my kids were small.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
It is OK to introduce a bit of variety and let our voice and face take a much needed break every now and then. Maybe we can consider alternating between “traditional” story sessions and other similarly interesting options. One obvious choice is to let someone else do the job and go for the storytelling websites such as this one that has a large library of children stories suitable for all ages and read by different people (celebrities in this case, which probably means more to you than to your kids) with different reading styles. For toddlers who might need less visuals to enjoy and understand the content, podcasts for children could be a good option. Of course, it is important to choose suitable podcasts according to your child’s age, interest, and personal development.
The evolution of bonding
No matter which method you choose, the main goal is to spend quality time with your baby and create loving memories together. Using technologies such as storytelling websites or podcasts does not mean you are offloading the task to others. This is because the interaction between baby and you through questions and discussions about the stories are actually the most important quality time you share. Now that my kids are older, our story time evolved into a book club of sorts when we would discuss the latest adventure books we have recently read, or they would introduce me to other interesting titles they got to know from school! Our bonding time continues and soon they will be the ones telling ME stories instead!
Happy Reading and Stay Sparky!
How to get your child to try different food?
Introducing solid food… let the struggle begin!
To kick off this blog, I thought we should start with something we can all relate to: FOOD!! As a family, we LOVE food and enjoy trying new cuisines and tastes wherever we go, so I took it for granted that our baby will be the same from the get-go! Besides, I believe getting kids to have an open-mind to food is a good start to teach them to have an open-mind towards other things later in life.
I still remember when our first daughter was about to turn 6 months, how excited I was to introduce the wonderful world of solid food to her! I did all the research I could think of: where is the best place to feed her for the first time: the baby bouncer so she feels more relaxed, or the baby booster where she can sit up properly? Which is the best feeding spoon on the market, with silicon or not? I read up on all the baby puree recipes and got all kitchen utensils ready for the big day. The menu was vegetable broth made with love and rice cereal! Finally, we were ready for her adventure to begin!! Imagine my disappointment when I saw the expression on her face change from a smile to a frown and then a cry after spitting out her first bite of the yucky stuff I made! NO luck to convince her to take a second bite, no matter how much I tried. After half an hour of futile attempts, I literally had tears in my eyes and being the perceptive little girl that she has always been, she got upset and cried too! So, there we were, mother and daughter crying together in front of a bowl of uneaten rice cereal in broth!
One small step for a baby, a big step for a food enthusiastic adult!
Fast forward to 14 years and 2 daughters later, we now enjoy trying new foods as a family wherever we go and our kids grew up to be super open-minded when it comes to food. Of course they still have their preferences, but they are willing to try it all first before they make up their minds whether they like it or not. They have always been super easy to travel with and we never had to worry if the restaurants would have plain pasta and tomato sauce or not. They eat what adults eat and that’s the end of it (of course an occasional bribery of dessert always worked)!
But how exactly did we succeed in raising adventurous eaters? I used a lot of similar tactics that Celia Barbour described in her blog post (read till the end because I find her last sibling tactic most effective!) If you need more structured game plan, I think Katie Morford, MS, RD also summed it up really nicely in this article on how she did it. Trust me, this effort you are making now can benefit your kids and the family in the long run!
