Time to Organize

Is your craft bin getting the best of you?

Are the markers, scissors, beads, papers, glue, fusion beads, craft sticks, crayons, stickers, stamps, and McDonald’s toys getting OUT OF CONTROL?

The time has come to teach your children the life-skill of organizing:

1. Present the problem. “We are going to get new craft things for Christmas, and we need a place to put them.”
2. Make it a challenge and chance to spend time together. 
3. Ask you child to make decisions “What do I do with this?”  
4. Model organization.
5. If children struggle with organizing and the job is overwhelming, give specific jobs to do.
   For example, my daughter organized the crayons. She found all of the crayons in all of the drawers, made a to-go bag to take places, a bag to keep in the drawer and a bag to make into candles.
6. What can you use to sort things?
   Sandwich bags, snack bags, little jars, pencil bags, organizers you buy in the store or build from cardboard.
7. Make a give-away bag and a garbage bag.
8. When you get frustrated or tired, save the rest for another day. 

What other ways can I teach my children organization?

• Model organization by using shopping lists, to-do lists, and calendars.
• Give your children calendars. Highlights makes a fun kids’ picture-find calendar with stickers for special days.
• Make lists with the kids on paper of what they want to do for the day. Check off things on the list as you do them.
• Review the lunch menu for school every day to see if your kids want to take a lunch or not.
• When students start having homework calendars for school, make sure things are written down and checked off as students complete tasks. This seems obvious, but many students struggle with this undertaking.

Another article to view: 10 Ways to Organize Your Children

Ask Your Child’s Teacher

If you think you are the only one who wants your child to succeed, guess again. Your teacher, your school principal, and the state in which you live have a vested interest in the success of your child.

Do not be embarrassed if you don’t know how to do your child’s homework (even if it is 1^st  Grade). Other parents don’t know how to do it either! So be your child’s advocate and an advocate for all of those afraid to ask.

 

Over the last 20-30 years, the philosophy of teaching has changed,

• the funding of school has changed, 
• school leadership has changed,
• school accountability has changed,
• and teacher’s average knowledge and ability has changed significantly!

Also, if your child is having learning difficulties, teachers can share strategies they are teaching at school. You can reinforce these. Teachers have a life-long collection of helpful learning tools and suggestions.

Your child’s teacher has so many ideas, so much pressure, and so little time to teach what they have to teach!

More advice for parents, including free printables. At www.teachervision website.

Thinking Outside the Box

One of the great things about being a parent and not a teacher, is that you do not have to stick to the school curriculum. You can do things that are fun, creative, and help your child grow in different ways.

Idea – tooth picks connected by mini marshmallows. See who can build the tallest structure – if you want to be competitive. Allow marshmallows to dry overnight and display crafts on a dark piece of cloth.



Gumdrop Tower

Better idea – Make a Gumdrop Tower to support a candy bar.
- Use tooth picks and gum drops.
- Or instead of the tooth picks, use a bag of spaghetti.
- Give each group the same number materials to begin. See who can make the tallest tower to support a candy bar.
- This was done by teachers at a university.


Find more fun activities to keep you young people busy through the cold months of the year. These activities help grow their brains too! http://pbskids.org/zoom/printables/activities/

Helping Young Readers with Comprehension

Good readers do not just read a text. They think about it before, during and afterwards. They predict, connect vocabulary and meaning to prior knowledge, draw conclusions, see causal relationships, compare, contrast, and visualize.     Wow!

There are things you can do to start good comprehension thinking habits in young children before they can read for themselves.

Anticipate – Before reading, look at the front cover and discuss what you think the book might be about. Then if you want, peek at the pictures inside and guess the story.

Read the story. Discuss words and ideas children might not understand. Help them connect words and ideas to things they already know.

After reading, discuss what you thought the book would be about and then what it really was about.

For beginning to intermediate readers a great exercise during or after reading is to make a diagram (“graphic organizer”) of what the story is about with a circle around the main idea in the middle and spokes around it, representing supporting details.
For free graphic organizers of different types go to http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer.

Make a Book Together

It has always been my dream to write books together as a family.

One day, my 5 year-old daughter decided she wanted to make a book with me.

• She put the pages together, stapled them, put stickers on and colored in the sky.
• Then she said that it was my job to put in the words.
• I asked her what she wanted to call the book. “Zebras of Cazooby” was her reply.
• She also wanted me to write everything on the cover that a regular book has, such as the author (me) and illustrator (her).
• After it was finished, she showed the book to people, reading the words to them.

Other book making ideas have you punch holes in the paper and thread yarn through the holes.

You can use any kind of paper, cardstock, colors, stickers, glitter glue, crayons, or cut out pictures from magazines.

Other Resources:

• Make Books on your computer using Real E Writer, FREE download.
This simple program allows you to insert photos, scans and words before printing out small books.

• Order inexpensive empty books with hard covers from Barebooks.com!

More online great book making ideas: http://library.thinkquest.org/J001156/makingbooks/makeown.htm