Learning About How Things Work

If your child is constantly curious to know exactly how things work, then here are some ideas and inspiration to help you give informative explanations to your child and further their understanding and learning.

Anyone who has under-5s will no doubt appreciate that it’s a normal part of family life for children to want to know how things work. Whether it’s questions about how technology works, how your mobile phone works, how bubbles are made in washing up liquid or how stars are created, children can come up with all sorts of queries! Although the questions can sometimes be hard for parents to deal with, answering them and helping children learn about how things work can be highly beneficial for their early childhood education.

Learning How Things Work Through Action and Adventure

One of the best ways for teaching children how things work is through activities that are full of action and adventure. Making learning fun and enjoyable is a great way of encouraging children to want to learn more. There may be some questions that you can answer at home, giving simple explanations as to how things work.

But for the more complicated issues, then look out for details of museums, technology centres or children’s activity centres that could help in the quest to finding out how things work. For example, many museums are very geared up to children and offer some great interactive exhibits that demonstrate the inner workings of objects far better than some parents may manage.

Activities that don’t just involve passive learning are best – for example, where a child gets to have a hands-on go themselves. This kind of pro-active learning is a fantastic way of helping children have a go and learning for themselves how things work.

Seeing how things work is important for helping children get to grips with them; and if there’s a bit of action and adventure thrown in too, then that’s even better for their imagination! If you can get children fired up and excited about things, then they’re more likely to remember what they’ve learnt, which will certainly help their educational knowledge.

Learning How Things Work Through Educational Programmes

Some children increase their learning through watching educational programmes. Whilst it’s not ideal to pop your child down in front of the TV or DVDs too much, there are some programmes that are very well designed and produced to help learning.

Look for details of children’s programmes that focus on how things work, explaining things in a fun manner and in a way that children will understand. Sometimes it’s through watching, listening and understanding that a spark of excitement about learning is ignited inside a child. Some children in particular are able to pick up huge amounts of knowledge from these types of programmes.

There are many other methods that you can use to help aid child’s learning about how things work, so be creative, informative and ensure everyone has fun in the process!