10 Strategies to Get Your Child Excited About Learning

Each fall most students return to school and are excited about their new grade level and teacher assignments. Some become anxious because school is challenging for them. Others may have a history of struggling to learn or functioning successfully in a classroom setting. These students need added intervention support to ensure that they will succeed in school.

Here are ten proven strategies that parents can reinforce at home:

Identify a response for your child that motivates them to respond positively when encountering a challenging situation or difficult task.
Consistently reinforce each positive behavior with this motivating response.
Many children become overwhelmed when they must rush through life with too many scheduled activities. Pace their lives with balanced times for eating, sleeping, family activities, exercise, chores, and screen time.
Give your child time to chill. Some children need to find a quiet place to decompress when they are overstimulated or agitated about a situation. Give them the space they need away from too much stimulation or annoying situations.
Respect your child’s individual differences. Children need to feel valued and supported by their parents. Encourage them to reflect on the value of their many strengths and how they can effectively overcome various challenges.
Give your child the gift of your personal attention. Today’s parents are busy. Their children are busy. Slow down and find time to talk with your child daily. Hug them and love them for who they are.
Schedule time for your child to socialize with other children. Today’s families are overly scheduled with work, planned activities, and life’s responsibilities. Ensure your child has opportunities to play with other children and make friends. These experiences will help them learn how to plan and work more effectively with classmates and lifelong friends.
Limit screen time. Ongoing research indicates that children are more anxious, depressed, and challenged with too much screen time. Some children stay up late at night monitoring electronic devices. Others become addicted to online games and texting instead of building personal relationships.
Walk your talk. Apply what you say to what you do. For example, do you balance your daily life and allow time for eating, sleeping, family activities, exercise, and limit screen time?
Finally, express gratitude for all that is good in your life, your children’s lives, and in your community

Happy new school year of many successes!

Recycling and Environmental Conservation

I am passionate about conserving resources and mindful recycling (or reducing waste). Each school year I want to help students become aware of what is going on around them in relevant and useful ways. My hope is for each child to connect with something that interests them as they become an advocate or steward for change and making a difference in their community.

Get Kids Excited

Initially, I get the kids excited about their learning environment by adopting a class mascot. Last year our class adopted sea otters. We learned that sea otters are important in managing sea urchins and keeping the ocean’s kelp forests healthy. Students were excited as they learned more about these topics:

Sea otters are aquatic engineers and balance harm to ocean environments.
Kelp feeds sea otters and absorbs carbon in the ocean.
Management of microplastics and single use plastics in the environment can reduce pollution.
Effective conservation strategies in the home, community, and the environment can have a significant impact on waste reduction.
Kids can make a difference in their communities.
Honey bees are important in balancing the ecosystem.

Learn About Recycling

Our end of the year project was to invent and create new objects on collage boards after collecting recycled trash at school and in neighborhoods. The students worked as teams to build a honey bee playground. They used plastic tape, food packaging, bubble wrap, cereal cups, straws, and plastic bags. As students worked on their projects, they learned it takes 20 years for a plastic bag to decompose and 200 years for a plastic straw. Now their next challenge will be to study products that can made from these byproducts. For example, I recently purchased a recycled purse made from cork and gave a friend a recycled cosmetic bag with recycled soaps.

Limit Waste

As we enter our next school year, what can students, parents, and teachers do together to limit the pollution and waste in our communities? Please share your ideas in the comments section below this blog.

New State, New School, New Challenges

When we decided to move from California to Illinois, my first panicked thought was, “What about school for the kids?!” I felt completely overwhelmed by the idea. How would I support them in a positive way and find educational solutions for each of them? My oldest son is extroverted, very involved in extracurricular activities, and will be a sophomore in high school. He loves his charter school here in California. I currently homeschool my other two daughters under the support of a charter school. I had no clue about homeschooling laws in Illinois. My middle daughter also has an extensive IEP. How would her services transfer in a new state? I spent a few sleepless nights thinking about their unique needs. To be honest, it was less thinking and more like frantic worrying.

One Day at a Time

We are now only a few days away from our big move. At this point in our transition, we have a plan in place for the next school year and I feel more confident. Unfortunately, I don’t have a nicely packaged, “one size fits all” solution that will work for all families facing a cross-county move. I can only offer this: take deep breaths and move forward every day, even if that means taking baby steps toward a solution. Nothing about my kids’ education for next year came together all at once. I tackled one question at a time, and eventually it all came together. Eventually, I started sleeping better at night.

When to Move

First, we decided on a timeline. Since we had the luxury of choosing when we would move, we decided to wait until the end of the school year. This allowed my kids to be able to finish the year in a familiar place with their friends instead of trying to transition to something new in the middle of the year.

Different New Schools for Different Needs

Once we answered the question of when we would move, I started working on what the new school year would look like. I researched public schools, private school options, and Illinois homeschool laws. I called school districts. I talked to superintendents, principals, and special education directors. My husband and son took a spring break road trip to our new state, so he could tour his new school. I talked to a few parents with kids in local schools to get their perspective and input. One step at a time, we made a plan that worked for our family.

And now, it’s time to pack the U-Haul. Deep breaths. Once box at a time.

Summer Math Activities

Each summer my grandkids incorporate a variety of fun activities with basic math concepts. We also like to play board games that include counting money (Monopoly), matching numbers with analytical game playing strategies (Mexican Train Dominos), or learning how to strategically connect intercontinental train lines (Ticket to Ride). We spend hours completing puzzles. Over the years, my kids and grandkids used their math skills when helping with various household activities. Below are ten activities that can support math skill development:

Use math for a home project. We are in the middle of painting and fixing bathrooms. We are teaching our grandkids how to calculate the square footage of each room for painting, carpeting, and refinishing hardware floors.
Budget a trip or outing. My teenage granddaughter loves to shop. She is very astute in managing her clothes buying budget and determining how much money she will need for an activity. She loves math and is passionate about getting the most value for her money by researching and comparing prices online and at stores.
Balance checkbooks and statements. Our grandkids are learning how to manage their money with debit accounts. Their parents transfer their allowances into online debit accounts that the teenagers can use for errands and food purchases. They can also check statements throughout the month to monitor expenditures.
Encourage kids to use math when selling products or providing services. An elementary grade school grandson loves to make cookies and lemonade to sell on a busy street near his home. He must measure ingredients to prepare various cookie recipes. He must then determine how much he spent for supplies so he can identify a cost for each item that he will sell to generate a small profit. He will repay his parents for his supplies and keep the profit from the items sold.
Incorporate career explorations and internships. A middle school granddaughter started a custom stamp making business online business. She made beautiful return address stickers and artistic stickers for envelopes and scrapbooking projects. A high school grandson was able to use his increased skiing skills to teach younger children how to ski. He plans to extend his skills when working with children with special needs next season.
Use math when completing community service activities. The middle school grandson is passionate about trains. He and his grandpa volunteer for a nonprofit recreational train depot at a county park. He is learning how to support the basic maintenance of trains and is meeting the engineers who service the trains. He has memorized the commercial train whistle signals. He is also learning carpentry and uses math skills for fixing fences and various train depot repairs.
Use math for landscaping projects. The grandkids help us prepare the soil and layout when planting flowers each summer in our garden.
Design clothes. My younger granddaughters wanted to learn how to sew. We decided to create basic dresses for their Barbie dolls by measuring and cutting out two felt shapes that were bigger than their dolls. We sewed them together with yarn and then we cut out a large opening so the dresses could slip over the heads of their dolls. These handmade outfits stayed on their dolls for months.
Create mandalas. The grandkids love to watercolor. We use a spirograph or incorporate basic shape templates to design a pattern that they can watercolor for cards or for an art piece for their rooms.
Create counting collections. My grandkids are collectors. I have several hundred buttons that I have collected from four generations of family members. We count these buttons. We count coins and exchange them at the bank for larger denominations of cash. We count seashells, ants, stamps, stuffed animals, and any other cherished items. Some of the children categorize specific collections.

May you and your child treasure your own creative adventures while incorporating math into your daily lives this summer.

Getting Kids to Read

It’s summertime! School is out of session and our children love to sleep in and play outside. It is hot and our children enjoy waterplay and staying up late. But what can we do to avoid the summer slide? As a teacher, I send home 12 donated books for each child to use for summer reading. I instruct them to read each day throughout the summer and write in a journal their reflections about what they read and learned from each book. Then I tell them to bring their journals into class in the fall and share with their teachers their wonderful reading adventures. I also warn my younger readers that if they do not practice reading each day, they may forget how to read at the start of a new school year. They agree that they must practice and are proud when they have completed extended reading homework assignments.

Ten Summer Reading Activities

Below are ten motivating strategies to inspire kids to read each day this summer:

Make it fun. My grandkids asked me to bring some of their favorite books to the swimming pool so they could read to me while eating their snack after a swim lesson. They are excited to show me how well they read.
Be engaged. Although I did not attend back-to-school night, the grandkids made sure I sat with them as they read their stories to me. One granddaughter described how she is in a published book. Another wrote about having a funny grumpy grandpa and nice grandma who helps her.
Incorporate art. Each grandchild keeps a journal at my home. A favorite activity is having a sibling, cousin, or me draw a picture in their journal. Then they draw their version of the illustration and write a story about the picture. Favorite themes have been bloody horror and scary stories. Other themes include how to stories and fantasy adventures.
Take the kids to the library and relax while reading together various books. Our library sells children’s books for $1. I encourage them to purchase books that they would love to keep.
Research your family history by checking out relevant books about the country that your family immigrated from. Study the history of the communities you and your relatives have lived in throughout generations.
Encourage your child to write a graphic novel. They love to create talking bubbles with illustrations. They can also develop a book of their favorite characters with a new adventure or storyline.
Explore having your child submit a creative writing story to the Highlights Magazine for kids.
After completing an art project, have your child research and write a story about how they created their project and what they can do in the future to expand their skills. For example, our granddaughter loves to watch YouTube videos about how to draw specific animals. Then she researches specific books about the animal to understand their behaviors and their habitat
Help your child plan for a summer camp or family vacation by having them research places to visit and the history of specific activities. For example, a granddaughter will be traveling to New York, New York this summer. After reading and researching various activities, she is excited to visit the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Central Park, and a Broadway play. She will also collect postcards and memorabilia to add to her scrapbook with a story about her travels.
Research the rules about a sport. My grandson is passionate about sailing and spends hours reading and researching all the safety regulations of sailing in the bay. He also must master how to safely prepare for and navigate a sailboat in various weather conditions.

Much success as you and your children incorporate reading into relevant daily life summertime activities.