Home Schooling was not given serious thought before this pandemic. But now that schooling is necessarily conducted from home, students, especially kids, tend to lose interest in the entire thing. But ‘the show must go on,' hence homeschooling needs to be made more interesting. And using teddy bears is the universal hack for a successful home school.

It is a very simple yet useful thing that can engage the minds of the kids and help in effective learning. But if you don't utilize it appropriately, then the desired results cannot be achieved.

Thus, down below are some very easy yet efficient ways to use teddy bears while homeschooling.

Learning various colors

Teddies do not always have to be very large and big. You can buy teddy bear online, which come in varied sizes. You can always get a dozen of different colors of such bears and use them as a means to teach children different colors. You could also make them draw those bears on paper with various colors.

You can use such colored teddies to differentiate one color from another as classwork. Also, you can use them to match colors and do many more such fun activities. Such practical activities will be more interesting and arresting for children. 

Using teddies as a reward

Picking up a teddy bear for educational purposes does not always mean it is needed to be used for learning. You can use it as a reward that can be given away after every activity your kid performs in homeschooling.

For instance, the bear could be allowed to cuddle after giving every correct answer, after reading each page, or maybe after completing each classwork. The child can also be allowed to play with the bear for 5 minutes after the end of studying each subject. Alluring students with prizes have been quite an age-old trick, for the concept of rewards urges students to finish up their task fast as well as correctly.

Substitute the plot characters

If during your homeschooling, you take up a certain story, which seems to be kind of boring to teach, you can replace the characters of the story with teddy bears. It will not only make the story interesting but also turn out to be easy to comprehend.

Suppose you have more than one kid studying; you can ask them to read dialogues and enact out the entire play giving the same names to the teddy bears. It will keep up with the rapt attention needed to study the story and also turn out to be more entertaining for both them and you.

Helping in mathematics

Maths is generally considered a very difficult and detesting subject for kids. But then, without Maths, no schooling can be fulfilled. Hence, how to proceed with teaching mathematics?

Well, change the learning process to something interesting, especially since it's homeschooling. Buy teddy bear online of medium and small sizes so that you can make the teaching process of counting things easy.

You can either ask kids to count the bears and teach them the numeric system or ask them to make different shapes by placing the toys correctly. Also, you can teach them addition, subtraction, division, etc., by asking them to either take out or add up the bears.  

Aids in writing skill

You can use teddy bears in your home school for quite a good age range of activities. Suppose you are introducing letter writing, story writing, or any such writing skill activity for the first time; you can always use this soft toy as your prop for a class activity.

Firstly, either you can give them a suitable situation and make them write an informal letter to their favorite teddy so that apart from the basics they learn the entire process. Also, you can give them pointers and make them write a paragraph or a story on a teddy.

Autobiographies can be best taught with teddies. Even though this writing skill activity is one of quite a seriousness, but by merging it with teddies, the action can be very cleverly performed. Like you can ask them to write the life of a certain colored teddy. 

Utilizing it for psychological needs

Home Schooling undoubtedly does not focus only on gaining bookish knowledge but solving various aspects, which becomes even more common when dealing with kids. Teddies can be a huge help for solving a fight among kids, resolving a misunderstanding between teacher and student, when a student is sulking or upset, etc.

In such cases, you need an extra factor to resolve the issues. And you can use a teddy bear to cheer up the kid or explain something by making the child realize his/ her mistake and fulfill many more psychological needs of kids. In such sensitive situations, scolding or intellectual words might not really help to get through the message to your kid properly.

Teddy bear-themed picnic

Last but not least, what is schooling without a picnic, be it at home or not. Also, the teddy bear picnic has been quite a common picnic theme. Here, you as a teacher need to totally focus on fun and light-headedness because that is a necessity for kids as well.

Allow them to make arrangements like taking different teddies with them, cutting out cute little dresses for them, decorating blankets with teddy prints, carrying different teddy color books, dressing up like them, or opt for bear face painting, etc. You can also help them to indulge in making teddy-shaped cupcakes or preparing a lovely teddy picnic basket apart from making the main picnic meals.

Final Thoughts

Teddy bears are not only believed but scientifically proven to be extremely important for kids, especially in their initial years for healthy growth. Hence, it has quite a large role to play in the learning process of children, especially during homeschooling, where the process is carried out in a more impersonal manner.

Beginning from sleeping down, hugging a teddy, to using it in homeschooling, its uses are almost uncountable. Thus, do try out these ideas while you carry out homeschooling for your kid.