There’s no need to press pause on playful learning as soon as the school bell rings at the end of the day. Whenever you’re with your kids, you’re presented with moments that can help support and guide them in their learning. With a little help from some at-home learning tools and resources, you can help your kids grow their knowledge beyond the classroom. Keep on reading for handy hints on encouraging development in literacy, numeracy and wellbeing at home, plus some suggestions for helpful learning tools.

Learning Resources for Literacy Development

Help to develop their early literacy skills with at-home learning resources, including flashcards, flip charts and placemats.

Learning to read is one of the most important skills your kids will master, and adding some learning tools around the home can incidentally make a difference to their literacy skills. 

Reading factors into almost every aspect of adult life, from ordering at a restaurant to email exchanges with co-workers and clients. While your child’s teacher will do the heavy lifting, there are some things you can do to support literacy learning at home, too. First, you could try offering a literacy-rich home environment with easy access to books, magazines and graphic novels. If you love reading, you could be a literacy role model by engaging in regular reading yourself, and while their reading and writing skills are developing, try labelling household objects like “lamp”, “chair” and “bed”. 

Hot Tip: Nursery rhymes and simple songs are a fun and effective way to introduce early language concepts.

A sneaky placemat under their dinner plate with letters or sight words can reinforce those literacy building blocks and encourage discussions. All Kadink placemats have slip-resistant backing and can be wiped down to use again and again. Flashcards are always fun – you could try making up your own games or quiz each other on letters and words. Phonics involves the relationships between sounds and written symbols, and they help kids decode written words. This clever Studymate phonics flip chart is a fab resource to have on hand – help them practise their decoding skills, then fold it up and pack it away when you’re done.

What To Try

SEE ALSO: Let the Geek Guide You: Cool Games for Learning

Learning Tools for Numeracy Skills

Practice at-home learning numeracy skills with times tables charts and number flipbooks.

Maths anxiety is real, so framing learning about numbers and shapes in a fun and positive way can help change the mindset. You could count anything and everything with your child, from jumps on a trampoline to peas on a plate, to assist with at-home learning. Or perhaps use a hundreds chart, like this clever Kadink placemat, to play games and practise skip counting.

Armed with a dice and two coloured markers, you can play a simple Roll to 100 game that all kids love. If you want to take it up a level, try sticking up colourful wall charts for incidental learning at home – this Kadink pack features concepts like opposites, shapes and the numbers one to 10. 

This Kadink Numbers Flip Chart can also help little learners master digits from one through to 15.

For older kids, we recommend these Studymate wall charts that focus on addition and times tables (remember them?). An understanding of multiplication underpins so many other things like division, fractions and algebra. You can help your kids to recall their times tables through games, fun challenges and repetition. Resources like this Studymate times tables chart are a great help – kids can use one side to prompt themselves then flip over for the answers. All our wall charts and flip charts are made using paper products that have been authorised by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and are laminated so they last for years to come.

Hot Tip: Look for numbers everywhere and try using them to initiate conversations. Bus and house numbers and even football scores provide opportunities to learn.

What To Try

SEE ALSO: How to Create a Fun Home Learning Space for Kids

Learning Resources for Wellbeing

Learning at home about health, wellbeing and emotional resilience will help children at school and beyond.

Learning about health and wellbeing can be just as important as traditional academic subjects. Emotional awareness helps us connect with others, develop observation abilities and foster positive relationships. These skills aren’t given to us at birth – it can take time and practice to identify what we are feeling and put it into words. 

For some children, especially those who are neurodiverse, this can be quite challenging, so adding in some at-home learning can be helpful. Kickstart the conversation by hanging these bright and fun Kadink wellbeing wall charts in a high traffic area, such as on the fridge or next to the bathtub. Each chart introduces essential wellbeing concepts from staying fit and healthy to understanding our emotions. 

Mealtimes can present an opportunity for learning at home, we like these healthy eating flashcards, as they’re full of interesting facts about food, and this Kadink emotions placemat might act as a handy communication-starter.

Love playing games with your kids? Try role-play games where little ones can act out being angry, sad or scared. After practising their stomps, smiles and frowns, you could try to open up a discussion about feelings and ask them to remember when they felt that way and what made them feel better. Flashcards, like this pack by Kadink, are a handy resource to have on hand. Like all Kadink flashcards, these ones are large and are made from extra-thick card, so they’re really durable. They can be useful to whip out and play with as conversation starters whenever your kids are experiencing big emotions. 

Hot Tip: When you’re reading stories or watching TV together, try asking your kids to guess how the characters are feeling.

What To Try

Learning Tools for Discovering the World Around Us

Wall maps and flashcards are all part of the at-home learning arsenal when teaching kids about the world.

We know there’s a whole wide world out there, full of people and places different to those in our immediate vicinity. But when they’re young, a child’s world often revolves around a small group of family and friends and their neighbourhood. 

Learning at home can help kids to further understand the complexity of life, as well as help them relate to the wider world. When they’re still young, flashcards with colourful illustrations can teach them about numbers and colours, animals and even protecting the planet. Family mealtimes also provide an opportunity for at-home learning, such as using educational placemats to set the table. 

As kids get older, it’s likely they’ll become fascinated with the wider world: other parts of Australia and especially other countries. Try adding maps and wall charts to their bedroom so they can easily discover where you might next be going on holiday or, for example, find the location of Spain if it’s mentioned on a TV show. 

What To Try

SEE ALSO: STEM 101: Unexpected STEM Learning Activities Kids Can Try at Home