As a parent, it is definite to wish for your children a life filled with chances and experiences. To fulfill that purpose, making sure that a child learns the fundamental values to succeed in life is a must.

Today, we live in a fast-developing world with the most opportunities granted to the younger generations. We entrust our knowledge and life experiences into their little hands in hopes that they will grow with a strong mindset that can aid in transforming the world into a safer, healthier place.

The most recent occurrence that is proven to bring in huge changes into our country is the World Expo happening in Dubai this year. With multiple themes that contribute to bettering our community and the well-being of our planet, Expo 2020 has been able to make decades worth of impact for the generations to come all through the innovations popularized through the exhibition. Themes such as Sustainability, Opportunity, and Mobility will radiate hope and vision for a better future in our societies.

As a young explorer, freshly introduced to society, sky’s the limit. Being at such a young age, nothing is impossible in the eyes of the young ones. Hence, understanding of environmental and moral values is easy for a child to grasp. It could be even easier for a child to use their brains for big world resolutions. All that’s missing is the action of cultivating these little geniuses and exposing them to new opportunities and experiences. By doing so, you are ensuring a day full of adventures and a child full of curiosity and later a future full of promising opportunities.

However, bringing in big topics such as global environmental issues, artificial intelligence, and sustainability can be a lot to handle at once for a tender aged child. That’s why it’s substantial to incorporate simple actions and facts into the daily life of a growing child.

At Little Feet Nursery, we have implemented a system of “Reuse and Recycle” into our daily routines. As soon as some materials, paper for instance, are used, they are saved for further usage instead of being discarded. Same rule would apply to activity and stationary tools all around the nursery. Showing children such actions of responsibilities towards themselves and their environment teaches them to care for their surroundings and the impact that they have on the world around them. Teachers at the nursery explain the concept of reusing and recycling the smallest things to their young pupils to make sure the practice is planted in their minds.

Similarly, through curricular activities and themed celebrations, we’ve set up days that focuses on the ocean and the marine life where we teach our children not to litter plastic or other wastes into the ocean as the dangers are critical onto the oceanic creatures. Bringing in the value of responsibility helps a child understand at an early stage the weight and impact that they can bring to the bettering of the environmental state of the planet as they grow older and practice the values that they’ve learned.

Apart from sustainability, another theme of mobility that Expo 2020 brings to the stage is all about keeping the world in motion and moving towards a brighter as well as smarter future. Through several pavilions within the world exhibition, the theme of mobility shows itself in the form of high-tech innovations and eye-opening ideas that plan on renovating society.

Advanced technology is the groundbreaker of innovations of the modern era, and the current most used method for presenting information in a modernist fashion. Besides artificial intelligence (AI), which has become a well-known invention in today’s generation, Augmented Reality, which can be defined as an interactive experience of a real-world environment where objects, images, or sceneries that reside in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, has also been included in the genre of advanced technologies that have been playing a role in creating a utopian narrative to the world.

We have worked on connecting the elements of knowledge and advanced technology and reformed it into academic material for the education of our children at the nursery. We’ve done so by selecting general topics taught in our curriculum that are fundamental for a child’s growing knowledge and using Augmented Reality as the method of teaching those topics. We have talked about how this technology works and how it has been bringing joy to the classrooms in a separate blog post, please check it out for more information.

Through incorporating such morally valuable topics, we’d have provided a huge possibility for the child to grow with vast opportunities filled with knowledge and success. Despite the weight of these grand innovations and concerning topics, we were able to easily blend them in with our methods of teaching to provide a fun and unique learning experience to our little ones in hopes that they will bring greater changes to our world, step by step.

Children’s brains develop the fastest in the first 5 years of their lives, compared to development later in their lives. The brain of a child can create up to 1 million neural connections every second through these 5 years. With that speed, 85- 90% of the child’s brain develops by the age of 5 years.

As this is such a fragile and vulnerable growing stage, children up to 5 years of age are completely dependent on adults and parents to fulfill their needs for healthy development. The experience that we provide them at such an early age will have lasting impact on their health and abilities to perform in life. These experiences, positive or negative, can shape their brain development depending on the treatment they receive.

Parents and adults who act as caregivers of the child have the important role of responding to the little one’s needs by giving them the attention they require to grow. These small acts allow the child to explore the physical world around them as well as give them confidence of being in a safe, stable, and nurturing environment.

Five fundamental elements are necessary for the upbringing of a child. Such elements include Connecting, Talking, Playing, living in a Healthy home, and Belonging to a community. By incorporating all these five elements into the daily life of a growing child, the brain is assured to reach its full potential. Science has proven that a technique called “Serve and Return” allows the child to attain basic life skills and abilities of imagining and empathizing. Simple actions like talking to a child can help their vocabulary as well as improve their attention span. A game of “Peekaboo” can greatly enhance the little one’s memory and build trust through the fun motions.

Other ways to ensure a healthy lifestyle for your child is to provide them with brain stimulating play experiences such as putting together puzzles, scribbling, cutting, or tearing paper, and stringing beads. These activities aid in sculpting their motor movements and eye to hand coordination which helps in development of neurons in the brain.

Let’s explore the impact, a child would face if he or she had gone through an unhealthy growth. Children until age of five act on instinct by seeking out meaningful connections, therefore a child can suffer from stress and confusion if the required attention and comfort is missing.  If the parent or caregiver fails to cater to the needs of their child during the first five years, noticeable difference in terms of actions and behavior can be observed. Studies have shown that a neglected young child will hold onto deep-rooted trauma that can damage their emotional intelligence, emotional development, and social skills.

Furthermore, the child would exhibit behavioral issue, low self-esteem, harsh insecurities, and poor mental health conditions which can lead to depression at a tender age. As teenagers and adults, these same children can fall victims to addiction and harmful coping mechanisms to fill in their missing needs, especially if no action is taken against the emotional and psychological harm that had been inflicted on the child while they were growing up.

Maintaining valuable connections, engaging in physical activities, and actively communicating with your young ones are a few of many more fundamentals that are needed for a healthy development. For those reasons, it is necessary to be mindful of the first 5 years of your growing child, as this phase can ultimately define their performance in life as they gracefully grow. Hence sending a child in a preschool where there is a lot of individual attention and bonding is done by experienced caregivers and early education experts in a cozy and homelike environment is vital and essential for your child’s healthy upbringing. 

We’d all agree if one said a UAE dirham bill would get you more items a few years back than now. This is the basic understanding of inflation. In this dynamic world where none is constant, so are the prices of goods and services we purchase. Education is no different from it.

Education is accessible to all, and everybody strives to provide and receive it in the best quality. It is no longer a simple affair with a blackboard and chalk, with a teacher to facilitate. Textbooks are not the only tool to study. And the recent pandemic has proven us enough and more about the role of technology and the costs it brings along with it to cater to the educational needs of your child. A basic primary school education today is as expensive as a college tuition fee from the yester years. Hence, education is an expensive affair as we know it now.

Now, how do we prudently save for the education of our children?

In the rat race to provide the best for our children to survive in this competitive world, we hardly remember to estimate our financial stability to fund the education of our children. So, the first step to decide the school or university you’d like to enroll your child into, should be based on your financial ability to afford the tuition fee. Try to bring a balance between the financial aspect and the quality of education and enroll your child in a place that provides good education and is affordable. It wouldn’t do much good to your child if you were to enroll your child into a school with all the facilities such as extracurriculars, field trips and summer camps which are very expensive and then not being able to send them to those. Thus, plan and keep in mind such additional expenses while enrolling your child.

Another way to reduce the financial burden of education is to identify talents in your child and nurture them. This would not only benefit the child’s personality but would also allow them to obtain scholarships and thereby choose a university of their choice in the future with minimal financial burden. Additionally, look out for scholarships and financial aids from the universities, organizations and governments while applying for higher education.

Another healthy habit to save for your child’s education is open a bank account and make small contributions regularly which could earn you some interest along with your principal. This will also create a good credit score for your children. Most of the leading banks in UAE offer SIP (Systematic Investment Plans) and Educational Plans which can help you start small and over a period of 10 to 15 years save enough funds to cater to your child’s educational needs of tomorrow.

Make your financial decisions prudently and be financially literate. You could also approach a financial advisor to understand the different investment aspects available in the market suitable to your needs.

Encourage your children to have savings even if they are a preschooler. It will benefit them in the long run. For parents with college going children, encourage them to take up paid internships or jobs to fund some part of their higher education. This will give them a sense of accountability and achievement as new UAE labour laws are very progressive and provide a legal framework to protect your child’s right sufficiently.

Summer camps, from the beginning of time, have been the best way to teach children in a fun and enthusiastic way.

A place to learn new skills and make some great friends.

Summer camps have long been known to develop and strengthen lifelong skills. It teaches children to work together as a team and make compromises wherever necessary. While sports camp helps children towards building physical skills, summer programs/ Science camps for children concentrate on working towards specific skill area by completing a project.  These camps help children to bring the uninteresting theorical sessions to life by doing it themselves rather than just going through ambiguous concept taught in traditional set up.

We, as young adults have seen and lived pre-pandemic lives. But our toddlers are born in an environment where people are afraid of each other, they are advised to maintain social distance, interaction is encouraged to be minimum. Our children are growing up with the wrong mindset. The very element of human interaction is missing from their lives. The condition of students in online classes makes it evident that things need to change. For young students, this change is going to take time. At this point with remote learning and almost negligible social contact, summer camps are one of the best medium to help children transition to normal environment.

Devices have stolen the physical touch of objects and have confined their brains within the screen. If a person is not able to experience the necessary level of social contact and behavior, they may experience social isolation of some form. Study shows, socially isolated children are at an increased risk of problems in adulthood. It is high time we teach our children the importance of physical activities and give them a chance to bond with other children and enjoy their company. Our children are giving us signs, that they’re frustrated. If you’ve ever noticed your child being extra whiny for no apparent reason, they’re most likely tired of staying in those four walls.

Therefore, many people are visualizing summer camps as cure to covid ruined school year that left children caged indoors and glued to digital media spending days and months occupied on computers. Lot of experts are pointing out if there was a best year to send children to summer camps, it is this year. Even if traditionally, you are not in favor of such camps, this summer you might want to reconsider your decision given the benefits it can have on your child.

These days, summer camps are developing new and innovative activities to tackle these issues. These, otherwise known as STEAM camps are designed especially for toddlers, using STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics) to build their motor and cognitive skills simultaneously. These methods tap into understanding more than knowledge. Every concept is well elaborated, and more attention is given to hands-on training over the theoretical practice.

 One great example of the implementation of STEAM camps is at Little Feet Nursery, Al Khan in Sharjah. It provides fantastic opportunity to young ones to be with new children after almost a year. It fosters creativity in them, making them question everything they see around.  This curiosity inculcates problem-solving in these young minds. Activities like ‘Color Surprises’ and ‘Dress Up Themes’ makes children excited about coming to camps every day. Foam and Water play adds further to their thrills.

These day camps help all these kids to overcome their social anxiety and cater towards their overall progress. Students take home these values of building self-esteem which promote healthy living habits. As the old adage goes, “an idle mind is a devil’s workshop”, these workshops keep them intellectually busy, where they are constantly trying to find ways to explore. Our aim at this point is to focus on the holistic development of our children, in constructive ways, and such camps help us move a step further in that direction.

Little Feet Day Camp for kids are offering exactly what is essential for them at this point. They are providing unique opportunity to step back in non-digital life with no internet connection and more human interaction.

In conclusion, Summer Camps, and STEAM camps must be declared mandatory for children in preschool, as such camps are essential in the growth of children, for their development. This will also aid them to develop the ability to grasp deeper and more complex concepts which would make it easier for them in their lives ahead to take the plunge to achieve milestones.

Content by Vraj Rajpura

From Virtual Learning, Social Distancing to Bubble approach, society as a collective has succeeded in keeping the education system alive and functioning even during the harshest days of COVID-19 Pandemic.

After gaining immense popularity, because of the occurrence of the global pandemic, AR (Augmented Reality) have paved the way for a new era for the Education Sector globally. It provides visual representation of learning material and enables us to impart interactive learning. Experts suggest 65% of population are visual learners and brain process visuals 60,000X faster compared to text. This technology is a breakthrough in the field of Education and has the potential to bring a revolution in the traditional learning methods by transforming and engaging a child into a deeper learning environment.  

At Little Feet Nursery, our pioneering stars had twinkling eyes when they witnessed the magic of Augmented Reality.  Expression on their faces were worth millions when they were introduced to “Wild Animals” and “Community Helpers” via AR. Their joy knew no bounds as they watched the flat images come to life. There were loud cheers and excitement, “Woov that’s a Tiger near you” & “Hey don’t touch those animals, they are wild animals” reverberated in the air throughout the session. It was truly overwhelming to hear our tiny tot’s talking about Wild Animals with so much eagerness. Watching their little faces get bright as they witnessed the 3D figures move around and blend in with our reality was a memorable scene.

The interactive option within this groundbreaking creation allows the curiosity of our Little Learners to run wild. Their massive imagination that sits in their little bodies couldn’t be more satisfied when going through the hands-on experience that bring their desires to reality just with a touch of a finger or a click of a mouse.

Watch out this space for more interesting information!!

Content Credit – Maryam Nader