Perseverance is the ability to keep working towards a goal, even when the going gets tough. It’s a valuable and extremely useful quality that can help kids stay the course throughout their academic career. Here are five at-home activities that will boost your child’s stick-to-itiveness.
This activity is ideal for kids who love to read or who have an insatiable curiosity. All books contain words that become different words when one letter is removed. For example, when you remove the letter C from the word once, it becomes one. Ask your little detective to choose a book and do the following:
- Find 50 hidden words
- Make a list of the words they find
- Use those words to write a new story
- Etc.
Inspired by pointillism (an artistic movement where tiny circles or squares of colour are used instead of brushstrokes), this activity will help your child develop patience, an essential element of perseverance. Here’s what they’ll need to do:
- Research the masters of the pointillist movement for inspiration
- Find a colouring page online
- Print out the colouring page
- Fill the space inside the lines with dots of colour
- Play with the size of the dots to create light and shadow effects
- Etc.
A house of cards is a delicate marvel of construction. One false move or the slightest draft, and everything collapses. Challenge your child to build the tallest structure they can, or give them specific objectives:
- Build a house of cards using a base of 4 triangles
- Reach a height of 70 centimetres
- Create a multi-level house of cards
- Place 30 cards in under 60 seconds
- Etc.
Jigsaw puzzles can be very . . . well, puzzling! Putting every last piece in its rightful place is no small feat of perseverance. If your child loves a good challenge, here are some ways to take this activity to the next level:
- Lay the puzzle pieces facedown on the table
- Mix up the pieces from two different puzzles
- Make it a race against the clock by timing your child’s progress
- Etc.
All kids have tasks and chores they find challenging, like cleaning their room or finishing reading assignments. To help your child learn not to give up when faced with an obstacle and to finish what they start, try finding little ways to acknowledge their efforts:
- Offer them words of encouragement
- Give them a homemade certificate of achievement
- Celebrate their accomplishments (e.g., make a special cake, ask them to pick a movie for you to watch together)
- Etc.
Writing : The Alloprof Parents’ team