Ways to spend quality time in this lockdown!

In the present situation where nations across the globe are disheveled with the pandemic, all of us are spending time in the lockdown. It is of utmost importance that we take care of ourselves in this hard time and spend our time judiciously to prepare for tomorrow. Schools and colleges have been closed; this leaves students with a lot of time at home. There has been an increase in the number of virtual classes; however, many students are finding it hard to spend their time locked inside their homes. To combat the mundane feeling and be more productive students should come up with a power-packer timetable rather than spending all their time in front of the television or on social media platforms.

Students should continuously try to be productive and learn new things as they come in their ways. The main reason behind this is that students have a lot of energy, stamina, and enthusiasm as compared to an adult. Though it seems hard to achieve, there are a few ways with which you can easily spend your time without having to step out of your homes.

1. Yoga for detoxifying bodies and soul

We all know yoga can do wonders. But did you know that yoga can help you improve your strength and agility that helps to build up your immunity? In times like this, it is essential to stay healthy, both mentally and physically. Yoga can help you achieve both, as it also helps an individual to destress and relax. Don't forget to take a nutritional diet to provide energy to your body.

2. Grow plants

It is easier to destroy things than to build them. Therefore we need to focus on building things around us. The same goes for plants; you can use your spare time to grow indoor plants such as tulsi and aloe vera. It is easier to find these plants in your household.

3. Share your chorus at home


This has given everyone a chance to spend some time with their beloved ones and family. Use this time to have more conversations with your family, and help them around with the household work. This will make them feel good and relax in this tensed situation.

4. Paint

Art healing is real. Painting is widely used across the globe as a healing therapy. Engage yourself in painting to focus your mind on something good—this can help you to calm down. Not just painting, you can engage yourself with drawing, doodling, sketching or anything else you are comfortable with.

5. Watch good movies and documentaries

Television is good, but it should be watched in the limit. Also, don't keep watching the same thing over and over again. Explore new areas and interests and watch inspiring documentaries to educate yourself of the history and culture. If you have an interest in movies, then you can pick a classic movie that might help you to widen your perspective about life and living.

6. Read Books

This is an excellent time to prepare your bucket-list for reading books. You can use this opportunity to engage healthily with your peer-group. Share your bucket list with your friends on social media and challenge them to finish a book in a specified period of time. Additionally, if you like to write, you can share your review about your favorite book on social media for others to read and take up this healthy habit of reading.

7. Learn a new language

Learning a new language adds up to your soft skills. Moreover, it gives you an edge over others. Learning a new language is fun, wherein you don't learn how to speak their language but learn a great deal about their culture and traditions.

8. Go old school

Ask your parents what indoor games they use to play in their childhood. This will give you a chance to engage with them more, and you might end having extra-fun and smiles!

As Rajesh Bhatia, the founder of Treehouse would say, "It is up to us how we want to spend our time. A careful check on your daily routine can make a large difference in career growth."

How to train your soul?

Seems like you've come across this headline somewhere else? What was it...? How to train a....dragon? Oh yes, that was it! Kids loved that movie, didn’t they?

A movie on how a Viking teenager of average-built gains the trust of a dragon and becomes his best friend. If a teenager can gain control of a dragon, how hard can it be to gain control over our minds? This is where spiritual discipline comes into the picture. A man, by birth, is wired to struggle against weakness, erroneous facts, and immoral impulses to rise with a higher virtue

Soul training is very crucial when it comes to young minds, as this is the age when we gain new experiences and knowledge—and because with it comes the pesky distractions that are hard to get rid of.

What is a soul or spiritual training as a discipline?

Since time immemorial philosophers and theologians have debated on the nature of the soul. Spiritual training includes physical exercise and mindful breathing for the better performance of actions and activities. These actions are mainly conducted for inducing spiritual experiences and cultivating spiritual development with the tangible psyche. Like the body, the soul needs daily exercise and training for better performance.

For younger people, this discipline helps to achieve a cleaner soul, getting rid of all pessimism that surrounds them in the times of social media and distractions. So says the founder of Treehouse, Rajesh Bhatia, “using social media judiciously is important to keep away from unnecessary stress.”

What are the benefits?

There are a number of benefits involved in spiritual training. A few are mentioned below:

1. It widens your freedom and field of action.

2. It develops the health and strength of the soul.

3. It enhances the soul's ability to delay gratification.

4. It allows you to make weighty decisions with dextrous wisdom.

How to adopt this for gaining a better academic experience

Soulful exercises do more than empowering minds; it allows the practitioner to improve their health and happiness. Following is the list of exercises that you can do to maximize your capacity for peace, kindness, and joy in the world.

Meditate: What do you visualize when you hear this term? If I am not wrong—a man sitting on a rock, reciting a mantra. Well, meditation isn't necessarily reciting a mantra or emptying your brain of all thoughts. It means sitting with your closed eyes and visualizing something calm.

Write: Isn't giving words to your thoughts beautiful? Writing is a mindful practice that gives you an insight into your inner being, by connecting you with your soul. Teenagers and young children should write and maintain a journal to keep track of their daily activities and conduct. 

Spending time with family: This isn’t necessarily an exercise but involving more with people you can trust can give you the freedom to express your true self. This offers you a second suggestion for your actions that can broaden your perspective.

In conclusion, spiritual exercising can help teens and young people to develop a strong core to build a robust personality.

Play, Learn, Grow in Playschool

Preschool a.k.a playschool is a child's first step outside the home. This is a reason why people consider this place to be comfortable and playful. However, a playschool is much more than a bright, colorful, musical place filled with smiling children. One has to look closer to find the intricacies of a playschool curriculum—a place that is responsible to lay the foundational stone of cognitive development in a child’s life. In other words, a good playschool is designed to set up young scholars up for future academic, emotional, and social success. Therefore, young children are encouraged to identify letters, read, write, and do finger mathematics lessons, and much more.

Here are a few benefits of sending your toddler to playschool:

1. Gives opportunities for growth

2. Prepares children for kindergarten

3. Promotes social and emotional development

4. Provides a structured preschool environment

5. Encourages children to be independent

6. Children grow sensitive and amicable towards others

7. Promotes language and cognitive skills

8. Nurtures curiosity in children

9. Boosts pre-math and literacy skills

10. Develops motor skills

Now that we know what benefits playschool impacts on children. Here is the absolute list of things that you should expect children to learn in preschools.

1. Fine motor skills

Motor skills include actions like running, crawling, writing carefully, and more that allows children to make smaller movements in the wrists, hands, fingers, feet, and toes. At playschools, children are encouraged to do small craft activities such as using child-sized and age-appropriate scissors to cut papers. Many children fail to even use scissors as instructed, but with practice, they can learn to successfully conduct the activity. Beading, coloring, spooning can help little ones to develop fine motor skills. This powers them to write aptly when the time comes!

2. Listening skills

Children don't listen, this is what parents and teachers complain about a lot. And why would they unless you’ve something interesting to tell them about? We all know children are active talkers, and to make them listen to us we need to listen to them first. And by listening, one has to really participate in the conversation. Playschools provide a toddler with the same age group that helps him to open up with those around. Playschool teachers encourage children to listen to their engaging and animated stories thus embedding them with the habit of active listening.

3. Basic needs

Children are dependent on their parents and the people around them for a lot of things. But to prepare them for a world beyond home, they are instilled with a sense of independence at playschools. Playschool trains children to do basic activities such as—opening their lunch box, tying their shoelaces, putting their own jackets, and much more. These activities foster a feeling of independence in toddlers.

4. Social skills and conflict resolution

Children learn to adjust to preschools, where they spend time with other children. They learn to listen to their playmates and empathize with them. This is an ideal way to develop their social and emotional selves. Teachers guide toddlers’ natural instincts to be used as a way for conflict resolution. With proper guidance and care, they can be taught to be morally strong with good values. 

According to the founder of Tree House, Rajesh Bhatia “Parents should be cautious while selecting a playschool/preschool for their toddler. This shouldn’t be something to take for granted as it the early teaching will stay with the little ones throughout their lives.”

What makes learning a better experience?

It is easier to identify a quality learning experience. However, it's not the same when it comes to deconstructing the factors that lead to a greater learning experience! The process of deconstruction is what makes the process more yearning. It allows a learner to push further his comfort zone and develop his own standard and methodology for self-learning.

One of the fundamental rights in any country—the right of education is an important right for all. It ensures all individuals get equal opportunities to sustain in their lives. Education, no matter, improve the quality of living and adds essence to livelihood. This is not all. Quality education is the need of the hour—quality education promotes an individual to do better in life. Deconstructing patterns requires deep dedication, time, and analytical skills. However, once you have deconstructed the pattern once, you can use the same to understand new information, every single time. 

Below are the primary points that highlight the importance of quality learning:

1. Adds value to the learner

Learning something new adds up to the knowledge bank of the learner. This means the individual is competent in doing something they couldn’t before. The entire process of learning is purposeful and puts the needs of the learner before everything else.

2. Focuses on being effective first

The learning experience isn’t great if he fails to bring in the effectiveness of the learner. It is important for individuals to be interactive and visually rich, but these all aspects should be used to enrich the individual’s learning.

3. Promotes further learning

Learning shouldn’t be done just for the sake of passing an examination. This approach will fail to take individuals to better places in their lives. A quality learning experience has the potential to inspire individuals’ to become lifelong learners, encouraging them to pursue education beyond their syllabus and curriculum. 

According to the Founder at Treehouse, Rajesh Bhatia, “learning can be made a better experience by providing learners with quality education and helping them to decode their pattern of learning to make the process seamless every time they have to learn something new.”

How to improve your kid’s communication skills

Parents are often seen complaining that their toddlers scribble down incomprehensible figures on the walls and table-tops. Well, worry not for the ruined wall, because this is your kid’s way to communicate his thoughts!

Children begin their path to literacy (the ability to communicate through reading and writing) as babies. This happens when babies respond to the sound of a human voice, this helps them gain an understanding of a particular voice and words. All the literacy activities such as listening, talking, reading, and writing are interconnected and can’t be treated unequally.

The literacy activities are more like daily chore where the young kid listen, relate, understand, and speak. The idea lies at exposing your kid to different words each day, providing them opportunities to hear and understand the spoken language. This makes them aware of the different sounds of language. This practice also includes gaining knowledge about printed letters and words in books. Young children need to write before they can practice reading, in return reading help them at writing better. However, the children need to talk and listen before they move onto reading and writing.

Pre-schooling helps children acquainted with the early-literacy where they learn to:

1. Name and rhyme alphabets

2. Understand and recognize the sounds of different words

4. Use new vocabulary words in conversations

5. Listen to stories and understand what they hear

How can you help your kid to build a love of literacy?

We have established substantial reasons why literacy and communication skills are required in toddlers. There are plenty of ways through which parents and teachers can help the kids to develop a natural interest in these activities.

According to the Director at Treehouse, Rajesh Bhatia, young kids love to express through their expression and dialogues. Parents can play an instrumental role in providing them a podium where kids can be what they want.

Find the following ways to include literacy into your kid's everyday routine:

1. Active conversation

Have meaningful and thought-provoking conversations with your kid. Understand his interests and ask him what he did all day long. During this conversation, introduce him to new words and challenge him to remember words.

2. Readout loud

Read bed-time stories and your child's favorite books together. This helps the child to develop an interest in reading and writing skills. It also helps in building great bonding with them and gives them healthy ground where they can express themselves as much they need.

3. Fun activities with words!

Children love playtime, who doesn't know this?

Make your child fall in love with literature with fun activities where they can learn new words and their usage.

Learning can be fun, it is about the approach teachers and parents take that make a big difference in a child's interest in learning and growth.

Guidance Sheet: Prepare your Toddler for Playschool

Playschool marks the beginning of a new phase in a toddler's life. Use these tips from Tree House founder, Rajesh Bhatia to prepare your toddler for playschool. (HIGHLIGHT TEXT)

A toddler venturing out into the big world out results in a mixed reaction from parents. Playschool forms the first line of contact for a toddler to space outside his cozy and protected home. Parents experience a great deal of emotions—from feeling proud, happy, apprehensive,  and excited, and more—when kids hit this milestone Well, these emotions are normal.

Playschools are important as they help kids to take new steps in their lives such as making new friends, learning new skills, and gaining confidence and a sense of independence. However, this transition ride isn’t smooth for every child and the experience might vary from one kid to another. However, you can prevent your kid from experiencing bad emotions and experiences form this change. Parents play an instrumental role in preparing their kids for the worst or the best. This can be achieved with simple activities.

Parents can help to socialize while performing daily activities with them such as reading, playing, and exploring together. There are umpteen of activities such as talking to your kid about his hobby, filling the color book, playing the board games, reading books together, and more. Chances are, you might be already preparing your kid for their playschool unknowingly. Read along to discover four of the tried and tested methods to prep your kids for their playschools:

1. Pretend Play: Help your kid to get acquainted with the new place by pretend play, you can perform the role of a teacher while asking your kid to be a student, or by playing the roles of a co-student you can teach an important lesson about peer-relationship. These simple but effective practices will allow your child to get clear insights about what to expect and he would fretless on the D-day.

2. Games: Teach your kid about the importance of self-help lessons to prepare them for playschools. Teach him how to put down his backpack or fasten his shoes or unpacking his lunch box. This allows him to be self-reliant thus preventing him from feeling helpless without you around to help him.

3. Tell him your playschool story: Kids love stories, especially when they come out of their parents. Tell your kid your ‘first day at playschool’ story to encourage them. You can tell them about how you overcome your fear, open up to the teacher, or made your first friend at your playschool. This can potentially help your kid to take his mind off the nervousness.

4. Saying goodbye: The method can ease the jitters of separation from your kid's mind on his first day at playschool. Parents can stay back with their kids to help them adjust to the new place. You can explore the new place with your kid, helping him with a few things such as meeting other children.

Mindfulness: An art to adapt from early childhood

Merriam-Webster defines mindfulness as the practice of maintaining a nonjudgmental state of heightened or complete awareness of one's thoughts, emotions, or experiences on a moment-to-moment basis. In other words, it simply means, living in the moment.

Research suggests that mindfulness if practiced from early life, can bring success and development in later life. This has made learning mindfulness an important art to learn in early life. It has been learned across the world for centuries, however, it wasn't integrated with early education until recently. This approach equips youth with crucial tools, empowering them to behave responsibly and act sensibly. A unique aspect that sets this particular art different from others is that the learning doesn't bind itself to classroom walls. It can be learned almost everywhere and almost at any time. Mindfulness empowers children with excellent self-regulation skills, improved attention to details, increased well-being and resilience to odd situations, as well as promotes kindness and compassion for self and people around.

Teachers can play an instrumental role when it comes to encouraging raw minds to adopt good habits. Therefore, they should put the active effort into conditioning young minds towards adopting mindfulness. Teachers can integrate mindfulness into a child's daily activities in his environment that can help him taking charge of his behavior and actions, increase his focus and engagement, and promote a feeling of ownership and empowerment in him. The idea of integrating mindfulness in a child means to make it second nature of the child, a part of his personality.

The tools used to gain mindfulness aren’t expensive, however, the result you get is worth million dollars. Mindfulness support healthy and quality relationship, be it child to child or child to adult relationships. Read along to know a few techniques that can help your child to adopt mindfulness:

1. Deep Breaths - How do you feel under stress and pressure? Your breathing gets shallow, doesn’t it? How do you react to it? By taking deep breaths! Children need to learn the same technique to cope up with stress. This is the reason why teachers need to teach children the technique of deep breathing whenever they feel stressed about something. With consistent practice, children will be able to PAUSE, BREATHE, CALM, and THINK better when frustrated.

2. Active Listening - Unlike visual representation, listening to sounds need active effort. As simple as it sounds, it takes a great deal of effort from a child to gain active learning skills. However, it is very crucial to gain control over thoughts and gain mindfulness about his environment. By training a child to listen with intent, he will naturally be calm, engage in peaceful listening, and gain awareness about his surroundings.

3. The Glitter Jar - It is easier to hold children’s attention with visual tools. For instance, a glitter jar, ask a child under stress to hold a jar filled with water and glitter. Now ask him to shake it. Ask him what he sees? Apparently, he will say the glitters are moving in random directions. Now ask him to stop shaking the jar, as the glitters start settling down the child will have a sense of stability. This method use sensor (glitters) to calm down the child’s mind. And condition him to be aware of his thoughts and the environment.

According to Tree House founder, Rajesh Bhatia, “Conditioning young minds to be more aware of their surroundings help them to control their thoughts and take charge of their actions. This encourages children to gain stability in their lives.”