On the morning of March 23, 2019, the Vietnam-Finland International School (VFIS) organized the workshop on  "How to prepare your child for Grade 1" with the participation of the leaders of the schools, teachers and parents. The workshop was presented by Ms. Annina Autio - a VFIS teacher with over 15 years of experience in teaching preschools and primary schools in Finland and Asian countries.

At the workshop, based on Piaget and Erikson’s theory on development stages, the speaker introduced parents to understand the characteristics of thinking and changes of the brain as well as factors influencing this process. After having gone through 2 stages - feeling of movement and pre-operation mainly based on natural reflexes and playing, pre-school children enter the third stage - specific manipulation. At this stage, children have many changes in thinking and action, and children begin to consider problems from many perspectives and aspects including critical thinking or abstract thinking, and etc. in order to solve particular problems. 

In addition, based on other theories related to children’s psychology, the speaker also guided parents into caring about the comprehensive physical and mental development of their children, especially in their diet of meals, nap, hygiene, and physical training. Besides, it is necessary that the activities are created for the children to practice their study skills and mentally prepare, so that the children are ready to enter a new learning environment with many interesting things.

The workshop provided practical knowledge and hands-on experiences with the speaker, which made it easy for participants to identify the psychological issues that first graders often face, thereby helping parents build a solid foundation for their children in their early school years, and also helping children easily get rid of their initial confusion and experience the truly happy education environment instead of the invisible pressure from classes every day.

Some pictures of the workshop: