With the advent of Zum Los Angeles and other ride-share options, school children now enjoy an improved school bus commute. How best to make use of the updated travel methods and time that it frees up?
Kids Can Get More Sleep
Although you may fight to get them to bed often, kids need more sleep than adults. While adults can get by with seven or eight hours of sleep per night, children require an extra two hours. This provides their growing bodies with appropriate rest and rejuvenation time.
You’ve probably already done battle to get your child to adhere to a particular bedtime, so instead of changing when they go to bed, let them sleep later. Since they no longer need to leave as early in the morning as they once did, they can sleep in a little. This provides parents with a rare treat, too. You earn a little more time to yourself in the morning.
Learning Games During the Commute
In some cases, children’s quick commute won’t provide much more than a ten-minute ride. Others will have a significant commute in front of them. You can make the most out of this time by providing them with something fun, yet constructive to do. This can include an educational game you install on their phone if they’re old enough to carry a smartphone or their school allows them to carry them.
If you don’t want your child carrying an electronic device to school, you can come up with a learning game they can play on their own during their commute or with a bus buddy who lives nearby. This includes word games, trivia, or quiz games.
Review Time for Notes
You can teach older kids to review their notes before class during their commute time. This prepares them better for their day’s classes and for the work world. If they have a test that day, the commute provides time to review their notes one last time and helps refresh the information in their mind.
Homework Time
The ride home can provide an important homework window. Children can review their homework for the day and begin assignments that don’t require Internet access or research. Starting while the information remains fresh and before the temptations of home arise, such as the telephone, TV, gaming system, etc. can help them speed through assignments and better learn the information.
Why Keep Kids Busy?
You may wonder why it remains important to provide children with something productive to do at all times. Research from Achieve3000 shows that when provided with learning games or challenges on their commute, children behaved better during the commute and exhibited a “better overall attitude.”
In the Berkeley County school district examined in the Achieve3000 research, children behaved better during transit to and from school. They got into less trouble at school as a result.
Emerging school transit options provide a world of opportunity for US schoolchildren. You can help your children benefit from these new options by helping them make good choices for their commute time and the free time the new transportation methods afford them.
