Encouraging kids to keep their space clean helps them acquire a sense of responsibility early in life and sharpens their organizational instinct. Room cleaning routine can also help kids learn the important ability to start and complete a task and offer a sense of accomplishment on a job well done.

Below are some tips that you and your children can follow to create order and eliminate chaos at home. They are also ways to help maintain routine cleaning exercises.

• Arrange your child’s possessions from his or her vantage point. The solution to solving a child’s problem must fit the child. All their properties should be kept in their size and within their reach.
• Make the child part of the cleaning process. Teach your child maintenance methods and organizing skills.
• Build a cleaning routine. Routines like “morning pick up” and “evening pick up” should be built into the family’s time table.
• Bottom to top organization solves many problems. Have frequently used items at the bottom of the shelf while other items can fit on the higher levels.
• Labelling where each item is kept is also a fine way to achieve order. It doesn’t only help to organize but also enhance reading skills.
• Sort, simplify and store. The child’s possession should be well sorted out as regards type, usage and relevance. This helps to simplify organization and storage.

In many parts of the country today, pupils and students return to school after a long break caused by the lockdown measures to check Corona virus pandemic.

It’s been a difficult time for everyone, especially pupils who have not had physical contact with their peers and teachers for a long time. They will arrive with a mix of emotions and as it happens, many kids tend to feel anxious about starting school, especially after such a long break.

Teachers can make their classrooms welcoming on the first day of school through :

• Sharing stories about the lockdown with students and asking them to share their experience.
• Engaging them in a discussion on adherance to COVID-19 preventive measures.
• Giving them something to memorialize the first day. A symbolic gift or a promise of gift is a good idea.
• Recommending the tools and materials that can help them in their learning.
• Engaging in fun activities like decorating entrances and exit.
• Decorating floor markings to direct foot traffic flows can help students and staff maintain physical distance.
• Motivating them by emphasizing what they can do and promise to give them your best.

Research has shown that the teaching profession is one of the most stressful occupations. With the recent state of things, work-related stress may increase as teachers will suffer the consequences of many factors causing severe stress, such as budget cuts, salary cuts, retrenchment, increased workload, and adapting to the current classroom interaction measures. And given that the mental well-being of teachers can affect the mental state of pupils and their academic progress, it is important to address the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on teachers well-being.

Here are some points that can guide in alleviating mental health problems in education:

• slowing down the pace of curriculum; school administrators should look at workload, work patterns, and the work environment.

• School administrators should provide support for staff in order to create a more friendly and positive culture in school.

• Teachers should be given more power to control how they do their jobs.

• Promote a positive working relationship and avoid conflict and confrontations.

• School administrators should ensure that people understand their roles and that there aren’t conflicts in roles at any level.

• School organization change should be managed and communicated in a proper way that considers every member of the teaching staff.

• Teachers should be encouraged to exercise, get enough rest, and make time for fun.

First aid is a life skill that everyone can and should learn. It is important for children and young people to acquire the skills, confidence, and enthusiasm to act when someone is in need of first aid. Teaching children about safety starts from the first time we stop them from touching a burning flame, and we shouldn’t just stop at that, we should also go further by telling them the reasons such things are harmful to them.
From age four upwards, kids can be taught how to call for help and even administer basic first aid. This can be done in a way that is fascinating to children by bringing in relevant skills into ordinary adventures without either terrifying or boring them with lessons

Helping feels good and learning first aid skills early can help children develop their compassion, self-esteem, and sense of purpose.

Here are important tips to consider in teaching children about first aid:

• Describe basic first aid techniques and the importance of knowing them. Allow pupils to discuss the techniques in small groups.
• Narrate everyday examples – This starts when they are toddlers. Any scrape, nosebleed, or fall is a teaching moment, as you verbally describe every step you are taking.
• Watch videos that demonstrate first aid techniques.
• Explore the contents of a first aid kid. Describe each item and explain its purpose.
• Keep it light – Kids learn best when they feel relaxed and playful.
• Teach them about the processes and procedures of calling for help and how to describe the situation.
• Focus on emergency your family is likely to encounter.

Aside from their role as instructors, teachers are also motivators, peacemakers, listeners, managers, planners, learners, and so on. The teacher’s role as a motivator is one of the most important of their roles. And one of the ways teachers can motivate students is by celebrating their achievement.

Some of the ways that teachers can motivate and celebrate students’ achievement are:

• Through verbal encouragement. Praise students who have worked hard to complete a project or improve in a subject area.
• Writing a personal note to them. A note filled with praise and encouragement always warms students’ heart.
• Send a note of acknowledgement to their parents or guardian. This will give students a sense of pride.
• Have their classmates and peers recognize their achievement.
• Make them teacher’s assistant for a day.
• Hold an award ceremony.

One of the significant ways with which we can create a world free of gender-based discrimination is through teaching children from an early age to respect one another as individuals.

Educators are uniquely positioned to show students they have a choice when it comes to forming their own identity, and to highlight the many illusions and traps society has laid before them that prevent equal opportunity in their personal and professional lives.

It’s time to give gender equality the place it deserves in our curricula, from the fine arts to the hard sciences and from kindergarten to secondary school and beyond.

Below is an outline of ways you can promote gender equality in your school:

• Disassociate character traits from gender. Teach students to judge a person as an individual with a complex makeup of characteristics.
• Don’t distance the boys in gender equality discussions.
• Don’t be harsher on boys than on girls when it comes to behavioural matters.
• Use teaching materials that emphasize gender equality and that represent genders equally.
• Teach students to recognize gender bias in language when they hear or see it.
• Teach students to pay attention to cultural differences and diversity.
• Praise and criticize boys and girls equally.
• Encourage both boys and girls to interact and engage with each other.
• Initiate project-based learning that integrates a mix of boys and girls in a small group.

Teachers and parents provide a vital support system to help students succeed.
The quality of parent-teacher relationship can significantly influence students’ long term success.
And at this moment in time, it is important for Educators to set positive, caring intentions to meet the shared goal of caring for students wellbeing and one way to do this is to maintain a wholesome parent-teacher relationship during COVID-19.

The following tips can guide teachers in building a positive relationship with parents during this period:

• Teachers should reach out to parents by creating a line of communication. Sharing information about classroom learning activities is a good way to build a positive relationship with parents.

• School administrators should create a communication mechanism whereby teachers and parents both work together to co-create the new normal.

• Teachers should take the pressure off parents by establishing a strong digital presence. Knowing that the teacher is still steering the ship, gives so much confidence to parents and students.

• Engage in detailed correspondence with parents to share how they can help at home with their Children’s learning.

• Teachers should establish an active partnership with parents during E-learning.

• Make your distance learning strategy simple. Avoid too sophisticated learning tools that can overwhelm parents and students.

• Surprise parents by phoning in to tell them about their Children’s good qualities and accomplishments.

• Since we are all going through and dealing with unfamiliar times, it is important that Educators show empathy in their communication with parents.

As the country begin to relax the lockdown imposed nationwide, the question of reopening schools is front of mind for many stakeholders. Schools provide not just learning and social support for students but also, childcare, without which many parents cannot return to work. However, as we make plans to reopen schools, we should also consider the ability of school systems to create and consistently follow effective health and safety measures to mitigate the risk of infection.
Schools need to adopt and enforce certain health and sanitation measures.

Here are some factors to consider before and after school resumption:

• Put in place adequate health and sanitary arrangement, like soaps, portable hand-sanitizing stations at entrances and common areas, and other standard COVID-19 preventive procedures.
• Create a protocol for movements and contact within the school. You can also consider asking pupils to resume school in batches by giving different resumption time.
• limit the number of children in the classroom and ensure proper physical distancing. You can utilize your empty spaces and buildings for this.
• Consider alternating school days for different groups of students.
• Designated entrances and exit for different student groups.
• Floor markings to direct foot traffic flows can help students and staff maintain distance.
• Anyone or personnel coming to visit your school must give you prior notice. You will need to ensure that the attendance of these individuals at your school does not place them, you, staff, pupils or the school building at risk.
• Training and frequent reinforcement can help staff, parents, students, and entire communities stay updated on important health and sanitation practices.

Fairy tales are magical stories of great events, of otherworldly incidents, and of characters with supernatural abilities. They are surreal narratives. When we talk of fairy tales we talk of magic, fairies, mermaid, talking animals, walking trees and otherworldly elements. Fairy tales are more than just stories; the morals of their narrative can also be used to teach children about kindness, courage, bravery, endurance and a whole lot of other human values.

Looking for ways to engage kids during this period?

Here are some short fairy tales that can help keep children’s mind active during this period:

• Nursery Corona Tales; Halima Saves Her Village; Bayo’s Weekend Trip
  These exciting tales by renowned author, Wale Okediran, give children a sense of awareness of the state of things and ways to live through these times mindfully and responsibly. They contain exciting tales with beautiful illustrations that both educate and educate.

• Beauty And The Beast
  Beauty And The Beast is the story of a young beautiful girl, Beau, who sacrificed herself by taking the place of her father who was taken prisoner by a mean beast.

• Snow White:
  Snow White tells the story of a Princess whose skin was white as snow and her hair as black as ebony and with lips red as a rose.

• Cinderella
  This is the story of Cinderella, a kind-hearted young maiden who was treated cruelly by her step-mother and sisters.

• Sleeping Beauty
  The story of Maleficent, an evil fairy, who cursed the much-awaited daughter of the king and queen to die by the prick from the spindle of a spinning wheel, because it was not invited to her christening. But one of the good fairies who had been invited to the christening saved her.

• Goldilocks And The Three Bears.
  This is the story of Goldilocks, a curious little girl and three bears. This family of three bears had gone out into the wood while their porridge cooled. While they were away, Goldilocks, who had been lost in the wood stumbled upon the cottage of the three bears.