THE IMPORTANCE OF DOWNTIME IN YOUR CHILD’S DAILY ROUTINE

During the months of August through May students’ days are filled with a combination of school and non-school related activities from homework and projects to sports, chores/errands, play dates, extracurricular activities, and hobbies. Many days are filled with tightly wound schedules with little room for downtime — even on the weekends. During the summer months, schedules can easily be filled with things to do and places to be all day long. Regularly scheduled downtime can easily get overlooked or pushed to the bottom of a priority list. While this is true, it is important that children are still given the opportunity to explore this uninterrupted time.

What is Downtime and Why Is It Important?

Lindsey Frey explains that “Downtime or quiet time is unstructured time, away from screens or other stimulating play, to allow kids to engage in independent activities” (Frey, 2023, para. 4). Kids of all ages might have difficulty finding activities that do not involve other people or electronic devices. However, this unstructured, quiet downtime allows individuals time to process new information and experiences, independently explore interests, and building executive functioning skills.

Incorporating Downtime into Your Schedule

Even if you are an expert in rest and relaxation yourself, your child might not have the tools to master downtime right away — and that is absolutely okay! Just like any new skill, your child may need guidance, practice, and modeling when they first start routine downtime. Here are three quick tips for implementing downtime into your child’s daily routine:

1. Set a timer and start in small increments! Make sure your child has time to explore their interests, but give them a set time to practice time management and organizational skills. You can start with a small amount of time and slowly build their stamina as your child is ready. Don’t forget to celebrate their wins! For older students, a set amount of time will allow them to plan how they would like to spend their downtime.

2. Create a choice board or lists! This gives your child the opportunity to make a choice and helps them understand the boundaries of downtime. It is a great way to help children with task initiation if they are unsure of how to start. Sometimes as children get older, it can get harder to manage schedules, assignments and tasks. Creating a list, or specifically a to-do list, can promote independence and college/career readiness.

3. Change the environment as needed! For the younger children, this could mean playing independently in different areas of the house or even outdoors. For older children, it may be reading, writing, etc. in a public setting such as a library, park, or coffee shop.

Starting a Routine This summer

Although summer break can easily be filled with camps, vacation, and special activities, family schedules are usually a little more relaxed than during the school year. Summer is a wonderful time to incorporate routine downtime so children master the concept before the upcoming school year. For younger children downtime could look like reading/listening to books, playing independent games inside or outside, mindfulness activities, playing with chalk, bubbles, or play-doh, watching the clouds, coloring, or drawing. For teenagers it could look like reading, journaling, mindfulness/yoga, nature walks/hikes, puzzles, rest/sleeping in, creating and following routines, adult coloring books, and even listening to podcasts/books.

A healthy combination of playtime, downtime, and family time, or PDF, will have a lasting impact on your child! One of the best things you can do for your child during downtime this summer is to model and set an example for them. Who knows, you may even discover a hidden talent or hobby yourself!

References:

Frey, Lyndsey. “Busy Schedule? The Benefits of Daily Downtime for Kids May Surprise You.” Inside Children’s Blog, 19 Mar. 2023, www.akronchildrens.org/inside/2023/04/03/busy-schedule-the-benefits-of-daily-downtime-for-kids-may-surprise-you.

Written by Ami Z.

Cultivating Cognitive Flexibility in Your Child

Of all the executive functions, cognitive flexibility stands out as one of the most crucial skills to develop in our youth. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt, revise, and shift behavior in response to roadblocks, changing situations, mistakes, and new information. By nurturing cognitive flexibility, you can empower your child to approach new challenges with creativity, problem-solving skills, and resilience.

The Role of Cognitive Flexibility

Life doesn't always go as planned! Being cognitively flexible allows you to explore alternative solutions, adjust based on new ideas or information, think creatively, and ultimately be more successful. School-aged children thrive with routine and consistency, which is fantastic for them, but it can also lead to somewhat rigid thinking. By explicitly teaching strategies to build a sense of flexibility, you can help your child balance their love of routine while also freeing them to problem-solve, think creatively, and thrive in all of life's complex and ever-changing situations.

Change in Routine

It is easy to get stuck in the same routine day in and day out. By adding small and manageable changes to your daily routine, you can actually improve your child's cognitive flexibility. Try changing the work environment for your child's homework time. If you normally work at home every day, maybe head to an outdoor picnic table one day or the library and see how it goes! If every weekend your child likes to play at the same splash pad, change it up and go to a completely new one! These small adjustments to the routine may seem simple, but they can play a huge role in strengthening mental flexibility.

New Experiences

Engage your child in opportunities for new experiences often! Trying new foods, experimenting with new hobbies, traveling to new places, and learning new skills can all help your child develop more cognitive flexibility. New experiences actually allow the brain to develop and strengthen new connections!

Sports, Games, and other Fun

What could be more fun than playing a sport, a board game, or learning a new dance? The best part is that all of these activities are awesome ways to cultivate your child's flexibility. Let's take soccer as an example. If a kid has the ball and wants to try to make a goal, but a player on the opposite team blocks them, they must adapt by either passing the ball or going another way. This kind of thinking will be required in almost any sport or game, and all will help with this executive function. Puzzles, brain-teasers, and art projects also apply here.

Perspective and Open-Mindedness

Encourage your child to be open to new ideas and perspectives that might differ from their own. This can be achieved through discussion, reading books about other cultures, and even role-playing. Having an open mind and the ability to tolerate different perspectives fosters both empathy and flexibility.

Mindfulness Practices

Introducing mindfulness activities, such as deep breathing or meditation, can help your child develop focus and emotional regulation. Strengthening these skills will enhance cognitive flexibility while also reducing impulsivity.

By fostering cognitive flexibility, you can provide your child with the tools to navigate the complexities of life, adapt to new situations, and approach challenges with resilience and creativity. As your child's cognitive flexibility grows, they will become better equipped to embrace the ever-changing world with confidence, curiosity, and adaptability.

Written by Laine J.

7 Ways to Reinforce Executive Functioning Skills this Summer

As the final school bells ring and the summer heat kicks in, many families are gearing up to enjoy a summer break filled with quality time, relaxation, and planned activities. Before school ends, many teachers give tips, tricks, and resources to avoid the “summer learning slide”, referring to a student’s loss of reading and math skills during the summer months. While these resources often include practice pages and suggestions to maintain academic progress, it is equally important for students to exercise the executive functioning skills they frequently practiced through school systems, structures, and routines. Here are 7 ways these skills can be easily incorporated into your student’s summer break through a combination of day-to-day routines and fun, engaging activities.

Get organizeD

During the summer months, many families experience less structure in their daily schedules and may fill their time with non-routine events such as camping, vacations, playdates, summer camps, and more. This transition can be challenging for students who may have relied on visual supports or daily routines during school. You can support this transition at home by using organization/planning tools to keep track of important dates and information, setting timers as needed to display how much time your child has left to complete a task, and helping your child create morning/afternoon checklists to stay organized and keep track of any routinely scheduled tasks that need to be completed.

Be mindful

Another way to practice executive functioning skills is through daily mindfulness exercises. Angela Pruess, a licensed clinical family therapist, highlights eight benefits and examples of mindfulness for children. Practicing mindfulness can look like daily meditation, “down time” or “quiet time”, yoga, nature walks, spending time outdoors, mindfulness apps, blowing bubbles, coloring, journaling, and listening to music.

Play, play, play

Playing games is a great way to practice skills like planning, memory, self-regulation, flexibility, self-control, organization, and goal setting. Specific games like Monopoly, Uno, Bingo, Connect 4, Jenga, Mancala, Memory, Battleship, and Guess Who can work on these skills. Prepped Learning offers additional suggestions for games to improve executive functions. Not only are games a great way to improve critical thinking skills, but they are also a fun way to make connections and create memories with your child.

Create a summer activity wish list

Have your child create a summer “wish list” of realistic activities and goals for this summer. Goals can range from “read 10 books” to “see a new movie”. Then, encourage your child to plan out and set a timeline to accomplish each task. You can add this to your family organizational system or create a personal calendar with your child so they can view and self-assess their progress.

Join an organized sport or activity group

Your child could join a summer camp, team, or program to increase their team building and executive functioning skills. Many sports and activity groups (band, music, theater, martial arts, etc.) help children develop skills such as organization, self-awareness, self-regulation, attention, memory, vision, and goal setting.

Run a lemonade stand

Your child can plan an activity with friends, family, or independently to run a lemonade stand. They can create a list of materials, set goals of how much lemonade to sell, practice following multi-step directions while making the lemonade, organize their stand, modify plans as needed, and improve task initiation skills. This can also give an opportunity for children to reflect, using developing their metacognitive skills, and problem solve for any necessary improvements.

Create checklists for planned activity days

If you have an activity planned, such as a beach day, vacation, camping trip, etc., you can ask your child to get involved in the planning process by creating a checklist of necessary items to pack. Not only does this checklist help create responsibility, but it also works to improve skills like planning, organization, and prioritization.

Whether your summer has a jam-packed schedule, or is filled with rest and relaxation, there are many fun, and exciting ways your child can continue to develop their executive functions and prevent the summer slide!

Written by Ami Z.

Supporting Children as They Develop a Sense of Self

As humans, our sense of self is integral to most every aspect of our life. Identity can be formed from a variety of factors, including hobbies, personality traits, occupation, spiritual beliefs and more. As opposed to their youngest years of life, children entering elementary school and beyond begin to develop their unique sense of self in a more meaningful and abstract manner. Integrating projects, enrichment activities, discussion, reflection, and hobbies can all benefit children in the development of their identity and their ability to express themselves.

Choice Projects

Project-based learning is ideal for the development of a positive sense of self because it promotes intrinsic motivation, curiosity, questioning, reflection and child-led task initiation. Projects might be child-led, teacher assigned, or created by a family member! If assigned a project for school, children can find small ways to tailor the project to fit their interests. For example, they can find a topic that speaks to them, or choose a manner to present their project that excites them. Perhaps they are a visual learner and want to hand-draw every picture in their presentation, or they love making movies and choose to do their presentation video style! With summer coming up, this is a great time for parents to encourage their children to pick a project of their own to work on over the next couple of months. Self-directed projects offer a full creative outlet for children to work within, all while learning more about themselves and what makes them who they are. Long term self-choice projects appropriate for the summer might include: learning how to build and maintain a garden bed, writing a book or comic book, creating a dance routine or talent show, doing a research project on a place they want to travel, or building their own robot! The options here are endless, with an end-goal of finding something that encourages the joy of discovery and is as self-led as possible.

Enrichment Activities

Enrichment activities, or extracurriculars, play a huge role in building a child’s sense of identity. Parents may offer guidance and support in the process of exploring which activities speak most to their children. Extracurriculars can often become overwhelming and sometimes, not so child-led. It is beneficial to really observe children’s interests and help them to choose activities outside of school that are going to spark joy and help them grow as individuals. After all, children end up spending MANY hours doing these activities, so it’s important to pick ones that they find interesting. Take inventory of what hobbies are already most enjoyable to the child and align those with a club, camp, or class. Nowadays, there are an array of options to choose from, like music, sports, cooking, yoga, dance, theater and STEM. It may be helpful to allow children the space to practice a few of these enrichment activities in order to then be able to narrow down their favorites!

ReflectioN

As children grow and advance throughout elementary school, so too does their sense of self and identity. The end of the school year provides a great opportunity for kids to reflect upon goals, achievements, growth and personal interests. Here are some ideas that may jumpstart this process. Students can put together a portfolio of all of their favorite projects, art pieces, writing samples and other accomplishments. They can share this with friends and family and talk through the “why” behind their choices. To reflect on their best memories from outside of school, encourage children to create a “top 10” list of the ten most memorable, funny, interesting or unique things that happened to them over the year. This can become a scrapbook of sorts if they tie in a small writing and add photographs or illustrations to go along with each item on their list. This type of self-examination will ultimately help children to better evaluate their strengths, passions and gifts!

A strong, and positive sense of self is helpful in every arena of life down the road. Understanding one’s own core beliefs and identity benefits the ability to set boundaries, achieve goals, develop and maintain relationships and so much more. Finding ways to weave in self-exploration throughout the school-aged years, ultimately fosters and nurtures the confidence and pride a child has with their own identity.

Written by Laine J.

Avoiding the End-of-the-Year Burnout

It’s May, the final month of the school year! This is the time when you really have to pull out all of your parenting superpowers to help your kids finish the school year strong. Putting in a little extra effort to set the stage for success during these final weeks can make all the difference.

Healthy Habits

The end of the school year often feels extremely busy. Teachers work to fit in their final learning objectives and organizations put on special events to showcase students’ accomplishments from the year. Because extra stress can bubble up as the school year winds down, maintaining healthy habits is a must! Encouraging your kids to focus on their three M’s (meals, movement and meditation) is so beneficial. Packing extra special lunches for the final weeks of school can provide a midday pick-me-up and bring kids joy. Just as important is the need for kids to get some energy out after school. For those who do not have sports or other physical activities built into their schedule, you can suggest that your kids choose to go on a walk with a friend, play with the family pet in the yard or go on a bike ride. Beginning and ending each day with a mindful minute is a simple yet powerful practice to reduce stress and calm the body down.

Built-In homework Breaks

If your nightly habits have fallen off, it’s not too late to get back on track. Assisting your student to create a daily homework checklist with both assignments and tasks to complete for upcoming projects and tests provides a concrete to-do list. Colored pens and highlighters can be used to prioritize or emphasize tasks. While some older students can create and monitor their to-do list independently, younger children often do best with support. Setting a kitchen timer with a goal work time (which varies greatly based on age and attention span) to earn a 5-minute break can help keep the worker motivated. Younger students do well with visual timers. You can mark the clock with a fun sticker to indicate when it is time for a break. Strategies to lighten the mood and make homework time more productive during the final weeks of school are great!

sprinkles of Encouragement

Have you started to feel more like a homework drill sergeant than your children’s supporter? If so, they could be feeling extra stress and pressure. Focusing on the positives and providing small accolades for hard work can be really powerful when students feel burnt out. You can leave handwritten post-it notes in workspaces, select fitting inspirational magnets for the refrigerator each day, or slide cute little greeting cards into your kids’ backpacks each Monday to encourage them to keep working hard. When they feel your support, they might be more likely to push through to the end of the year.

Daily Motivators

If intrinsic motivation is low at the end of the school year, small daily rewards can help kids make it through the last weeks of school. The rewards should be goal-focused but also personalized to bring your kids joy. Some ideas include: choosing a special dinner, watching a favorite TV show as a family, getting a free pass from chores for the night, earning extra screen time, and going out for frozen yogurt. For younger students, it is fun to create a deck of reward cards together at the beginning of each week and let them pull a random card each evening as they earn one. A little extra motivation can go a long way.

Written by Krista G.

Simple Strategies to Teach and Enhance Annotation Skills

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to help students connect better with a text that was both simple and enjoyable for them? Well, learning to annotate a text can be just that! Annotation does not have to be complicated or intimidating. This blog explores some simple, yet effective, strategies for middle and high school students to learn how to annotate a text in order to better comprehend and retain the information they are analyzing.

Why Annotate?

Simply put, the annotation of a text is, “any action that deliberately interacts with a text to enhance the reader’s understanding of, recall of, and reaction to the text.” So, why is this important for students to effectively learn how to do? Middle and high school students are busy with extracurriculars, family events, school and then homework each night. Oftentimes, it can be easy for them to go on auto-pilot when reading an assigned text and “check it off” of their to-do list, while not actively engaging with the text. When revisiting that same text on a quiz, test or paper they might have very little memory of what they previously read. When a student actively annotates a text, they will better connect with it, develop a deeper understanding, and retain more of the information presented within the text.

Strategy 1: Model the Basics

One of the most effective strategies for teaching a student how to annotate is to first model the process. Basic annotation concepts to teach might include: highlighting a phrase or sentence and writing a small note about it, circling words that need to be defined, putting a star next to important ideas or themes, and writing a short summary after each key section of the story or text.

Strategy 2: Practice, Practice, Practice

Students should practice annotating texts outside of their regular reading material to gain confidence in their annotation skills. Practice passages should be short in length. It can be beneficial to share examples of different types of notes to make beforehand. It is also very helpful to provide opportunities to openly discuss and go through notes that were made after a practice session.

Strategy 3: Use an Anchor Chart

Making, or buying, an annotation anchor chart can be a useful visual tool for readers. There are often pre-made annotation charts on platforms like Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Or, they can be tailor-made to suit a specific type of text annotation based on the subject or type of literature. Making an annotation bookmark, with a list of all the associated symbols and what they stand for, serves as a great cue while reading.

Strategy 4: Color-Code

Color-coding is another visual tool that is an alternative to an anchor chart. Sticky notes, or colored circle stickers can be used with this method. Assign each color a specific task. For example, red might mean “character development”, blue might be “themes or symbols” and yellow might be “questions”.

Strategy 5: Make it Fun

Especially for those students just starting to annotate, playing annotation games can make the learning process enjoyable. Each number on a die can be assigned something to look for while reading. Students can take turns rolling a die and practicing what to annotate based on the number rolled.

Strategy 6: Don’t Forget about Digital Platforms

Most digital reading platforms nowadays offer fabulous annotation tools within them. Many have highlighters, underlines, circle or drawing tools, sticky notes, and fun symbols. Students should explore and take advantage of this function on all reading platforms they use when they read digitally.

Text annotation does not have to be incredibly complicated. By using some of these simple strategies, students can begin to gain confidence in annotating and comfort with interacting with texts.

Written by Laine J.

Stress-Free Ways to Incorporate Breath Work into Kids' Daily Lives

Learning practical self regulation tools while young equips kids to manage big emotions and stressful situations throughout their entire life. Deep breathing is one of the easiest, most effective tools that kids can use to self regulate. Breathing exercises activate the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system that controls reactions to stress. These exercises help relax the body, refocus the mind and reduce anxiety. Teaching your kids deep breathing exercises in an intentional, personalized manner will encourage the daily use and auto-retrieval when stress gets high.

Teach the concept in a calm moment

When emotions are running high, kids’ brains are not in a state to learn a new self-regulation tool. Teaching breath work during calm moments allows children to receive the information in a positive, relaxed manner. The more they practice breathing exercises while they are calm, the higher the chance they will pull on these tools when they are experiencing big feelings of anger, sadness or worry.

Model deep breathing during stressful times

Modeling deep breathing can be a great way to demonstrate how and when to use a relaxation technique. If you, as a parent, are experiencing a big emotion, you can talk through your process of calming down out loud and incorporate breath work. One example might be, “I’m feeling so frustrated right now because traffic is moving so slowly. I’m going to try to relax and take 5 deep belly breaths while I wait at this red light.” You might find that your children begin to breathe with you as you model the behavior.

Use Visual Cues around your home

Sprinkling visual cues around your home helps teach and remind kids about breathing techniques. You can hang a breathing chart on the refrigerator or place a custom deck of mindfulness cards on your kids’ desks. There are even tasteful pieces of art you can display in your family room that subtly reinforce the importance of deep breathing. Simple daily reminders will signal your children’s brains and remind them about the tools they can use for self regulation.

Find ways to make it Enjoyable

Kids of all ages enjoy learning new breathing practices in a fun way. Little ones love to use their imagination and more willingly participate in activities with motivators, like bubbles or stuffed animals. Older kids appreciate the use of scents, such as essential oils or flowers, and guided meditations with themes of interest.

Create a daily routine

One of the best ways to normalize the concept of deep breathing is to create a family routine. Every morning before breakfast or each night at bedtime, you can share a mindful minute with a deep breathing exercise. Find a moment in your family’s schedule that feels natural and manageable and hold it as a sacred practice. This can be a bonding experience and help to create a peaceful home.

Written by Krista G.

Strategies to Improve Memory and Retention for Exams

Test-taking can be quite difficult for students if their foundational memory and retrieval skills are weak. Luckily, there are an abundance of strategies out there to help improve memory and retention of academic concepts. According to Judy Willis, a master in the neuroscience of learning, “The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is.” This idea is so vital in thinking about the way we have our children work on memorization and retention of new information for exams. The key is to choose not just one method to improve these skills, but to apply several to create interconnections in the brain and reinforce understanding and retention of what is being learned. Students can use these five strategies to improve their memory and retain information in preparation for their tests.

Setting the stage

We’ve all been there before…it’s the night before an exam and your child hasn’t even looked at the information once…so it’s time to cram. Understandably, this is not the best way for them to retain learned information. Strategies to support memory and retention will only be useful if the brain receives information in a well rested state and in digestible pieces. Students benefit greatly from creating a study schedule, chunking information to be learned over time and using the power of sleep. A couple of weeks before a scheduled test, setting aside even just 10-15 minutes a night to review information is very beneficial. Getting a good night’s sleep after studying has also been shown to improve memory. Breaking down the process of studying this way not only makes it less overwhelming, but also converts the information to our long-term memory much better.

Writing it Out

Let’s say a student has to read the next 4 chapters of their book for English class for homework. Then they go to school the next day, there’s a pop quiz over the material and they can’t remember a thing. Oftentimes, when students are just reading a book or textbook, they tend to go on autopilot and not truly absorb the information being presented. That’s why taking notes, especially in one’s own words, can help to improve the understanding of the key concepts and events. One example of “writing it out” might include taking notes during lessons at school and then at the end of each week creating flashcards that summarize all of that week’s notes. Another example is to jot down all of the key events, characters or important ideas at the end of nightly reading assignments. Creating visuals, like mind maps, or drawings that represent concepts is another way to engage different parts of the brain retain new information.

Using Memorization Tricks

Mnemonics and songs are wonderful ways to help improve memorization, especially of long lists of things that need to be remembered. ‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally’ to learn the order of operations is likely the most common mnemonic device that everyone learns in grade school. But mnemonic devices can be applied across all subjects to help memorize lists, orders and details. Creating a song or jingle can be especially helpful when memorizing math facts or math concepts.

Creating a Self-Test

It is not enough (for most people) to simply read through a set of flashcards five times and expect to have all of that information stored and ready to pull out in a testing situation. The idea of self-testing is a crucial one to enhance memorization and knowledge of what concepts need to be studied more and which ones are already mastered. There are now great websites, like Quizlet, where students can input terms, definitions, concepts, etc. and the website will create a quiz or test based on the details provided. Alternatively, students can ask a friend or family member to quiz them for a more interactive approach!

Teaching it to Someone Else

Playing the role of a teacher has to be one of the best ways to truly know if students understand a concept or piece of information. Try teaching it to a friend or family member. Being able to teach something to someone else means that you yourself must have a very solid understanding of the ideas at hand. This might be a good final step in the studying or memorization process!

There are many different strategies out there to help retain more information. It is not necessary to use ALL of these each time, but it is beneficial to experiment with different methods and find which ones work the best for each unique individual!

Written by Laine J.

Curing Those Homework Time Blues

Homework time can be one of the most stressful times of day. After all, kids already spend 6-7 hours per day at school and are then asked to do even more work once they get home. This can feel frustrating and draining. By putting structures and positive practices into place, homework time can become more manageable and feel pleasant for the whole family. While tutoring is a great option for support, there are steps you can take to create the perfect homework routine for your family.

Set up a Daily Routine

One of the first steps you can take at home is to set up a dedicated workspace for your children for their homework time block you set each day. This space should be inviting and distraction free. Although your children may initially complain and whine, setting up a system where they put their cell phone and other electronic devices away in a specific spot during their homework block will greatly reduce distraction. If you stay consistent with this practice, they will soon build good habits that will translate to other independent work time.

Use Sustained Attention Tricks

Sustaining attention during work time can be particularly challenging for students with ADHD and executive function deficits. One helpful strategy you can try if you have a child who struggles with this is body doubling, a technique where you sit quietly in the same or an adjacent viewable room to model focused work time. This makes your child feel more comfortable and encourages completion of tedious tasks that might otherwise be neglected. For those who still have difficulty, students can also try to stimulate one of their senses by using a fidget or putty in their non-dominant hand, sucking on a mint or listening to soft instrumental music. By giving their bodies something to do, it can enable their brain to focus better on the work task at hand.

Set Movement Breaks

Each student’s attention span is unique. Some kids can sit for an hour straight and some need a brain break every ten minutes. Whatever the case may be for your children, you can set a timer for each of their work cycles and then encourage them to get up and move their bodies for five minutes to reset. The trick is to learn how long they can work before losing focus, as you want to catch them for a movement break just before. To reenergize, they might like to jump on a small indoor exercise trampoline or have mini dance party to their favorite song. To recenter, they can try choosing a couple yoga poses or stretches that they enjoy. The key is, however, to structure your kids’ movement breaks so that they know after five minutes they need to get right back to work.

Find Pick-Me-Ups

Let’s face it, homework isn’t always fun. Finding small ways to make the time a little more enjoyable is important. Some ideas your kids can try (depending on their age) include: having a stuffed animal nearby, eating a small handful of their favorite snack after each task, having a family pet sleep at their feet or setting up a homework date with a friend. Study time can also feel more pleasurable by turn studying into a game or to use a white board with fun colors and visuals for practice.

Develop Metacognitive Practices

Encouraging your kids to attempt their homework assignments independently first is a great way to foster independence. You can offer small colored Post-It Page Markers to your children to flag items that feel confusing or difficult and invite them to check in with you near the end of their homework block for assistance. Having them communicate what they do versus do not comprehend enables them to build important metacognitive skills.

Written by Krista G.

Programs and Apps to Build Confidence in Elementary Math Skills

Let’s talk about math! The subject of math contains so many critical foundational skills at the elementary level. Concepts spiral and build upon each other, so the subject can cause monumental frustration for struggling students. Today, we hope to share some programs, apps and ideas that can help elementary-aged children gain more confidence in their math abilities.

Reflex Student by Explore Learning App

The Reflex Math app is geared toward students in grades 2-8 to help them attain fluency in their math facts across addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is a game based app, so it provides a fun way for children to gain more confidence in their math facts. It also continually adjusts based on each individual child’s progress to encourage maximum growth in math fact skills and memorization.

Splash Learn Kids Learning App

Splash Learn is another game-based app perfect for kids Pre-K through 5th grade. This app is tailored with curriculum specific to each grade level. For example, in 1st grade some subjects covered include addition and subtraction strategies, place value, and telling time. Whereas fifth grade content includes word problems and consolidating the basic fundamentals previously learned. Parents can set up personalized learning plans and include motivating rewards to keep kids coming back to the app for continued skill building.

Intro to Math by Montessorium

Using the Montessori principles, the Intro to Math app teaches many of the basic math fundamentals, like an introduction to even and odd numbers and spatial relationships, all while “staying true to the Montessori principles.” This is a great option if your children are visual learners.

Komodo Math App

For ages 5-11, the Komodo Math app aims to personalize the learning experience for kids by making adjustments as they work through various concepts. Komodo covers many different math concepts such as: counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, decimals and percentages.

Math Shake

For dealing specifically with word problems, Math Shake is a great app to consider. The program divides word problems into six different levels centered around each operation. The app presents a word problem (and can even read it aloud to your child) and a little character who can help work out the steps to solve each problem. This app does a great job of helping students identify the important numbers and KEYWORDS that allow greater comprehension of word problems. It also supplies them with different strategies to help solve the problem once they get it into equation form.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has an extensive library, instructional videos and many more resources to personalize math for your child. Kids can learn new skills and practice old skills, and the app even offers feedback and recommendations on what to work on more. The videos can be extra helpful when concepts are confusing, as they offer an alternate method of explanation.

When it comes to math skills, the websites and apps out there are numerous! Many of the apps shared above provide cute characters, excellent visuals, exciting games, progress tracking and goals and rewards to keep math new and intriguing for children. Using an app or program in addition to whatever is being worked on at school can be a great way to improve math skills and ultimately instill more confidence in your child when it comes to math!

Written by Laine J.

Start the Morning Off Right: Tips and Tricks to Create a Smooth Before-School Routine

Has your family’s morning routine become a race to get out the door? With a consistent, peaceful morning routine, you can help ensure that your kids get to school on time and that they are prepared for their day mentally, physically and emotionally. Here are some tips and tricks you can try with your kids to help them start their day off right!

Prepare the Night Before

If your mornings tend to feel rushed, try creating a ‘night before’ organization checklist to tackle some of the to-dos before the busy morning even arrives. Some items your children can accomplish the evening before include: putting their homework and belongings into their backpack, packing their lunch, filling their water bottle and picking out their outfit. Not only does this allow your children to check items off their morning list, but it also reduces the stress of having so many morning to-dos.

Let a Little Light In

Building appropriate sleep and waking habits are instrumental to your kids’ wellbeing. With a good night’s sleep and sunlight cues, your children might wake naturally without the use of an alarm clock. This synchronizes the body’s biological clock and increases immunity and mood. Since it’s not always possible to wake with the morning sun, there are also really cool electronic tools, such as Hatch, that can illuminate a mock sunrise and even play peaceful morning sounds, like chimes or birds.

Set Clear Expectations

In particular for little ones, it is beneficial to create a morning routine checklist to set clear expectations for your children. This checklist can be hung in a central area of your home, like on the refrigerator in the kitchen, and can incorporate the use of choice items, such as stickers or dry erase markers. The list should be clear and concise, yet the level of detail can vary depending on your kids’ age and degree of independence. Younger kids frequently enjoy charts with visual cues. Older kids tend to do fine with a simpler format. It generally works best not to allow the use of electronics during the block of time before school so that your kids can stay focused on the tasks at hand.

Practice What You Preach

In order for your children to learn good habits, it is imperative that you, as the parent, model the behaviors you wish to see from them. Hopping out of bed, getting dressed and brushing your hair and teeth are behaviors your kids will expect to see from you before they follow suit. Sitting down for a balanced breakfast, whether it be a quick protein smoothie or a more elaborate oatmeal bar, is another important routine to have as a family. Kids look to their parents as role models, even when it comes to building their morning time management skills.

Use Fun Weekly Rewards

Offering your kids a weekly reward for leaving for school on time five days in a row might be just the extrinsic motivation your kids need while they are developing their good habits. Providing them the opportunity to earn a Friday afternoon hot cocoa or ice cream treat is a great way to increase their buy-in. You can keep a simple sticker chart in your vehicle for tracking and motivation purposes!

Written by Krista G.

Encouraging Children to Find Their Voice through Journaling

Guiding our children in finding their unique voice is one of the most important jobs we have as parents. This helps kids build self-esteem and confidence. Of course, there are many ways to encourage voice throughout daily life, but in this blog we focus in on using journal writing as a method for kids to find their voice. The process of writing itself is unique, in that it forces a thoughtful and slower-processing of feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Giving your child a journal is a great way to allow them to experience this. Ultimately, a consistent journal writing practice can help children find their own unique, creative voice in a space free of judgement or rules. Through writing, they can learn to dream, goal set, work through internal conflicts, and become a more assertive and confident individual. Here are some considerations to make when introducing journal writing to your child:

Include Them

Planning a special outing for your child to shop for journaling supplies will add a layer of excitement! You can encourage them to pick out a journal that speaks to them and inspires them to write. You can also invite them to pick out a special pack of colored pens and some items to add creative flair, such as stickers, to make it an enjoyable process.

Keep it Stress Free

We do not want the idea of journal writing to become “just another homework assignment.” Work together to come up with how and when your child will use their journal so that it fits into their daily or weekly schedule and is something that brings them joy. Please remember, journal writing is a safe space for children to be FREE from the rules of spelling and punctuation. It should also be a personal experience for them, not one with you. When your child is able to feel free from stress, more fluency in their writing will follow.

Use Prompts

Children often find it difficult to look down at a blank page and just begin pouring out their deepest thoughts and emotions. Prompts can be a powerful tool in helping your child begin to process their thoughts and find their voice on paper. Using prompts that are written in first person enables the writer to connect more easily with the questions. Here are ten prompts that might be particularly beneficial for your children to use in their initial journal writing:

1. What makes people happy? Which of those things makes me happy?

2. What job would I like to have as an adult and why?

3. How do I know if someone is a good friend to me?

4. What is something I would like to get better at and why?

5. Who is my hero and why?

6. What is my favorite ___________ (insert any noun, place, food, etc. here) and why?

7. What do I love about my family?

8. What has been the happiest day of my life and why?

9. Who is my favorite character (books, TV, movie, etc.) and why?

10. What would my dream vacation entail and why?

Highlight Your Child’s Unique Passions

Here is an activity that might help your child uncover their unique likes and dislikes. Have them share their values by first listing ideas like, “I love it when…”; “I dislike when…”; “I feel sad when…,” etc. Then try to help them match these values to an emotional need. For example, if they wrote “I dislike when I can’t play outside” you could match this to an emotional need of being outdoors. Eventually your child will get more accustomed to expressing these needs verbally. This activity can help your child understand their emotional needs and come closer to finding their own voice in the world.

Writing can be such a powerful tool to highlight one’s unique perspective of the world. You can promote the practice of journaling in your child’s routine and allow them to explore, dream, work and play in a way only possible through writing.

Written by Laine J.

Structuring a Balanced After-School Routine

Let’s face it…life for kids is busy. Between school, homework and extracurricular activities, they have so much to manage. Helping your children plan out and structure their time can help them feel organized, reduce their stress level and ensure they have balance in their lives. Below are some tips on how to create a well-rounded weekly schedule for your children.

Extracurricular Activities

It’s crucial that kids find passions in life and begin to develop a sense of self through the activities they do. Giving your children a choice of weekly activities (art, music, dance, sports, martial arts, yoga, etc.) allows them to feel a sense of control and confidence. It’s helpful to provide guidelines, however, to ensure that the choices include physical activity for exercise, are age and ability appropriate and work with your family’s overall schedule. Many programs offer free trial classes, which is a fabulous way to let your children try a variety of activities before committing to specific choices for a whole season or semester. To avoid over-scheduling, start with a single activity per day no more than 3-5 days per week. As kids get older, they might be able to manage a longer daily commitment. It depends on the individual. High interest activities tend to have very specific time constraints, so other components of your children’s after-school plan can be scheduled around their choices.

Consistent Homework Time

While there is an ongoing debate about the ideal amount of homework, many schools follow the research-based rule of thumb that students should receive 10 minutes of homework per class per night. That means, for instance, that a fifth grader should expect to spend 50 minutes on average per night doing homework. Teachers don’t always accurately estimate the length of time that activities take and each individual student has their own work pace, so the amount of time your child needs to block off for nightly homework should be individualized based on their actual circumstances. Scheduling a consistent daily time block for your children’s homework completion helps them get into a routine and emphasizes the importance of completing their assignments.

Family Dinners

Carving time out of each day to spend as a family is important. Putting family rituals into place while your kids are young will also help once they hit adolescence. Having family dinners at least four nights per week is a wonderful way to enjoy time together. It opens up space for dialogue, develops relationship-building skills and provides the opportunity for your kids to share details about their experiences and reality. One fun idea might be to let each child choose one dish for the family’s weekly meal plan and to have them help you prepare it so you have extra bonding time.

Daily Duties

Despite your fast-paced life, your kids can benefit and start to learn a sense of responsibility from doing age-appropriate chores. Having a set daily or weekly time for your children to accomplish a short 15-minute checklist of tasks is really helpful. A few ideas of age-appropriate duties for a 10-year-old, for instance, are (un)loading the dishwasher, folding and putting away their laundry and keeping their bedroom tidy. As kids get older, they gain interest in earning money for their work. As they approach their tween years, you can help them explore opportunities for a weekend neighborhood job, such as doing yard work, babysitting or dog walking. It is important, however, that they do not overcommit to a job so they can continue to manage the other aspects of their weekly schedule.

Social Time

It’s important that kids have time to be social and have fun. Life should not feel like it’s all work and children learn, develop and grow trough their social experiences. Outdoor and screen-free play are amazing. It is also acceptable for kids to set aside one hour each day for gaming or talking with friends online. There are really great parental control tools, like Bark, to help you manage and protect your kids on their electronics.

Down Time

Winding down with an hour of screen-free time at the end of each night can help ensure your kids’ minds and bodies prepare for sleep. After a nice warm bath or shower, some great activities you can suggest to your kids are reading, journaling, doodling, guided meditation and restorative yoga. Encouraging your children to create their own ritual will help them buy into this practice.

Reasonable Bedtime

Getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis is important for kids’ overall wellbeing. Research indicates that children with appropriate sleep habits have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, emotional regulation, quality of life, and mental and physical health. Depending on their specific age and unique needs, school-age children should get between 8 and 12 hours of sleep per night. Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule will benefit your kids greatly.

Sample After-School Schedule

Here is a sample after-school schedule that is appropriate for a 5th grader. Individualized times would vary depending on the specific age of your children. It’s very helpful to post a weekly version with your children’s specific activities per day on a whiteboard or wall calendar so they can start to develop their time management skills.

3:45pm Activity 

5:00pm Homework

6:00pm Family Dinner

6:45pm Daily Duties

7:00pm Social Time

8:00 Down Time

9:00pm Bedtime

Written by Krista G.

Winter Break Activities to Strengthen Executive Functioning Skills

December is here and with that means a long winter break from school! With so much time to fill, it would be a great idea to come up with some fun, festive activities for your family over break. A bonus?! These activities are a sneaky way to incorporate all of those executive functioning skills you’ve been working so hard on all year with your child! Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into how building a gingerbread house promotes the development of so many executive functions. This activity could also be interchangeable with baking and decorating cookies. At the end, we’ve provided a list of some other activities to try this winter break that are also great for executive functioning skills!

From organization, to planning, and even goal-directed persistence, making a gingerbread house is a gold mine for practicing executive functioning skills in a fun way this winter!

Planning

Planning comes into play in a couple of different ways here. Firstly, have your child come up with a plan for what ingredients, baking tools, etc. they will need for their gingerbread house. Will it be a pre-packaged kit, or do they want to make it from scratch? What ingredients are needed for the cookies and icing? Should they buy any extra candies or sprinkles? Secondly, when they’re ready to make the house, have them draw a picture or jot down some ideas of what they want their gingerbread house to include and look like! Planning ahead will help prevent a gingerbread meltdown later!

Time Management

Time management is a huge factor in having a successful gingerbread house creation day! Help your child to be responsible for planning a day and time to do this activity and decide if they want to invite friends or family to join in on the fun. Most gingerbread house kits suggest you build the actual house hours in advance of decorating to let it set. Your child will also need to factor this into their plans for the day. Time should also be set aside for the cleanup after the project.

Organization

There’s endless ways to incorporate organizational skills into making a gingerbread house or cookies! You can use paint trays to set out and separate different candies, sprinkles and chocolates. Labels are great for icing colors and styles. Have your child make sure that everything has its own place, and that they have enough tools, piping bags, etc. for everyone to be able to work at once.

Sustained Attention

Decorating a gingerbread house from start to finish certainly requires some sustained attention. If you notice your child start to lose interest before the project is over, try turning on some fun music or taking a hot cocoa break. You can also chunk the decorating process into smaller sections and take a 5-minute movement break in between each side.

Goal-Directed Persistence

Let’s face it, gingerbread houses can actually be a bit daunting to complete! I, myself, have already tried making one this season and found certain aspects of it to be less than relaxing! This project actually provides a great opportunity to strengthen your child’s goal-directed persistence skills. Sometimes kids start out on a project like this and when it doesn’t go exactly as planned they experience big feelings, like frustration or sadness. Help them to see the big picture by setting a goal for the end. For example, what will you do with the gingerbread house when it’s done? Perhaps you can use it as a centerpiece in your home or take it over to a friend or family member’s house as a gift! When your child finishes the house, shower on some praise and take a picture of them with their house so that they can have a memory of something they feel proud of.

Here are a few other winter activities to think about this year that also incorporate many of these above executive functioning skills:

• wrapping presents

• making cards and gifts for friends and families

• planning and/or cooking a holiday meal

• building a snowman

• doing a big toy or room re-fresh and clean up

Written by Laine J.

HOW TO HELP PREPARE YOUR CHILD FOR FINAL EXAMS

With the end of the semester approaching, many secondary students are feeling anxious about their final exams. As a parent you can incorporate specific practices in your home to help your child feel more at ease and make their testing experience a positive one. Here are five useful tips to help your student enter their exam week with confidence and ease.

Get Clear on Expectations

Before your child dives right into the studying process, set aside time for a brief check-in to offer support and encouragement. Taking a few minutes to go through your child’s course materials and communications from teachers together can ensure your learner has a complete, accurate list of all test and project requirements. Making a to-do list for each course is a huge help! If your child has any gaps in materials or understanding, you can suggest they reach out to a classmate for guidance or you can help your child craft a message to their teachers to clarify expectations.

Create a Visual Plan

It is extremely beneficial to create a visual plan that includes the dates of all of your child’s exams and a study plan for each day for 1-2 weeks prior to the test dates. You can use a large month-view wall or desk calendar or create a multi-week sticky note calendar  that allows for manipulation of information as plans change. With your guidance, your child should be the one to actually fill in the details on the calendar with colors and markings they enjoy so that they feel in control of their own study plan. Encourage your student to make a logical plan based on how much preparation is necessary for each exam, the actual date of each test, as well as any other activities they need to work around during those weeks. Your child might need a gentle reminder that it will be best to study multiple days for each exam.

Block Off Time to Study AND Time for Breaks

Setting up an efficient study schedule often requires time for the actual studying to take place and time for rest, movement or recharge. For each study day, it is important that your child blocks off chunks of time in this manner. For the available study time, suggest a certain pattern based on your child’s unique needs. One method that might be useful for final exam preparation is the Pomodoro Technique, where a student uses a timer and takes a 5-minute brain break after each 25-minute study period. After 4 study rounds, the student can take a well-deserved longer break to eat and do something enjoyable for an agreed upon time. You can even incorporate a reward system with this study model if it is beneficial for your learner.

Use Tailored Study Techniques

There are many useful study techniques and some might work better for your child than others. It can be very helpful to have a dialogue with your child prior to their study time each evening to ensure they are making logical technique choices based on the subject matter they need to review. You can offer to quiz your child over material once they have reviewed information independently, or they can flip the role and try to teach you or a sibling the information they are learning to really make sure they are clear on the concepts. More than anything, however, it is incredibly important for you as a parent to maintain a positive outlook so your student feels good about the work they are doing and the support you are offering.

Focus on Health and Wellbeing

Since your child will be expending great amounts of energy on assimilation and retention of information, it will be essential that they drink plenty of water and eat ‘brain’ foods and balanced meals with limited sugar. They should also aim to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. To help calm their nerves, you can also suggest they set up a daily ritual to destress, such as spending 10 minutes using items from their calm down kit each morning, afternoon and bedtime during their final exam week. Throughout the week it will also boost your child’s mood and confidence if you find opportunities to acknowledge their hard work and let them know that their personal best is always good enough for you.

Written by Krista G.

Creating the Ultimate Calm Down Kit: Using the Five Senses to Reset and Regulate

What is a calm down kit you ask? Well, a calm down kit is a tool that can be used to help children self-regulate, center themselves, and reset. Building a calm down kit does not have to be expensive or complicated. You and your child can create a simple and effective calm down kit by focusing on items that engage with the five senses. So, grab a basket, box or bag and let’s begin to curate the ultimate calm down kit!

Below are some ideas for items or activities that your child might enjoy placing in their calm down kit that correlate with each of the five senses: Sight, Touch, Listen, Smell, and Taste.

Sight:

Items to add to your child’s calm down basket that will appeal to the visual senses might include:

-breathing exercise cards

-glitter jar or snow globe

-I Spy book

-family photo album

Touch

Below are some tools to help your child engage with the sense of touch:

-fidget toy, like a Pop-It

-palm or scalp massager

-putty or slime

-stress ball

-sensory bag or pillow

-Rubik’s cube

-soft and cozy blanket

-if younger, a favorite stuffed animal

Listen:

Items that will create a sense of calmness through listening might include:

-headphones to listen to a calming playlist

-rainstick

-sound machine

-music box

-chimes or gentle bells

Smell:

Aromatherapy is a great way to immediately trigger a sense of calm. Here are some objects you can add to your child’s calm kit to ignite the sense of smell:

-essential oils

-nature scents

-lotions

-scented markers

-scratch and sniff stickers

-candles

-diffusers

Taste:

It’s always nice for your child to have a little treat or something appealing to their sense of taste:

-dark chocolate

-mints or gum

-tea

-hard candy or lollipop

-favorite quick snack

Other Items to Include:

Some other items you may want to think about including in your child’s calm down basket might include:

-mindfulness coloring books

-yoga pose cards

-small puzzles or crossword books

-gratitude or regular journal

-bubbles

Depending on your child’s age and general self-regulation needs, invite them to select about 8-12 items to place in their calm basket to start. Objects can be swapped out monthly or seasonally. After selecting items for the kit, set some boundaries about when and how to use it. Your child should find a special place to put their calm down kit, ideally in a quiet and comfortable environment. A good time to use this kit is whenever they are feeling overwhelmed or frustrated or experiencing any other big emotion.

Calm down kits should be used for around 10-15 minutes per session as a quick brain and emotional reset. During this time your child should choose 2-3 items that they are drawn toward and that they feel will help them regulate their emotions and lift their mood.

A calm down kit is a simple and effective tool for social and emotional regulation that can be added to your house today! Here is an example of a calm basket shared on Peak’s Instagram account.

Written by Laine J.

Promoting Student Social and Emotional Wellbeing At Home

Social and emotional wellbeing is such a crucial aspect of student health. As children progress through school, assignments lengthen, activities increase and demands heighten. All of the sudden, your child can find themselves overwhelmed, stressed and struggling to keep up with a heavy workload and tight schedule of extracurricular activities. So, let’s talk about what social and emotional wellbeing is and how you as a parent can promote wellness at home despite all the demands of school and life.

Social and emotional wellness essentially comes down to an individual’s ability to create and foster relationships with others, make responsible decisions, and comprehend and cope with their emotions. One’s ability to develop a healthy and strong sense of identity, manage emotions, achieve personal and academic goals, and adapt to changing circumstances all rely heavily on their social and emotional wellness. Social and emotional wellness also strengthens one’s ability to create healthy boundaries, build a positive social network, navigate conflict, and encourage communication and trust. Clearly, social and emotional wellness is incredibly vital not only to academic performance, but also success throughout all of life’s challenges and twists and turns.

Research shows that when students are explicitly taught social and emotional learning skills and given opportunities for practice and reinforcement that they have better behavioral, social and academic outcomes. So, let’s go through a few simple ways you can encourage social and emotional wellbeing as a family at home:

Coping Skills

Help your child to come up with some self-affirmations that will foster self-confidence and resiliency. Self-affirmations might be phrases like “I can do this,” “I am enough,” or “I can do amazing things.” Another activity which encourages coping skills in students is a daily journaling practice. Reflecting upon the day's events for 5-10 minutes a day can help to achieve goals, track progress, inspire new ideas and build confidence.

Gratitude Practice

Create a gratitude journal that your child can fill out each day. If the idea of a journal is too daunting, try sitting down as a family at dinner, or at the end of the day, and have everyone say three things they are grateful for. Modeling this practice is very helpful for kids. It’s beneficial to have your child share specific people, places and experiences, as well as why they feel gratitude for each.

Self-Care Routine

Incorporating self-care practices into daily life helps to strengthen social and emotional wellness. Finding a way for your child to exercise lightly each day for 15-20 minutes is a great way to encourage self-care. Dancing, yoga, bike riding and a walk around the block are all simple ways to get daily movement in. Apart from exercise, you can encourage your child to create other enjoyable nighttime routines to unwind and relax, like taking a warm bubble bath, coloring mandalas or reading for pleasure!

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is one of the absolute best ways to increase focus and reduce stress. Compiling a list of breathing exercises your child can choose from when they need a break, like the Take 5 breathing, or practicing a daily mindful minute together as a family can be so powerful. Spending time as a family outside listening to the sounds of nature is another great mindfulness activity.

Connection

With our busy schedules, it can be difficult to find opportunities to come together as a family. Though it may be hard to find the time, it’s important to make the effort to connect as a family each day. Enjoying family dinners, baking cookies, playing board games or coming up with a special craft or day-trip can all be fabulous ways to connect.

Written by: Laine J.

Tips and Tricks to Strengthen Working Memory in Math

Of all of the executive functioning skills required to succeed in mathematics, working memory may be one of the most important! Working memory refers to how the brain uses, holds, processes and manipulates the information stored in our short-term memory. Working memory allows us to plan, problem solve and reason, all of which go hand-in-hand with the necessary skills to complete a math problem. Let’s dive into some tips and tricks which can help to strengthen working memory, specifically in relation to the world of math!

Play Games

There are many popular games that can be played as a family that utilize working memory. Games like Concentration, Uno, Crazy Eights and Go Fish all require the players to use their working memory system. Simon Says, Follow the Beat, Tongue Twisters, puzzles and brain teasers are other excellent examples of activities that can be used to strengthen working memory. In many of these activities, our brains must actively recall information, and in-turn manipulate it to make the next move!

Put Your Child in the Teacher Role

When working through a new math concept, once a child has begun to master the concept at hand, they should attempt to teach someone else how to do it. When the child becomes the teacher, they are switching into a more active role and thus enhancing their working memory skills. For example, if a child is working on adding fractions with a different denominator, they should be able to walk someone else through each step necessary to solve this kind of problem and explain the “why” behind it.

Practice Every Day

For things like math facts (simple and quick math problems across the four operations), practicing every day can help to reduce the strain on working memory capacity. The more automatic these quick facts become, the more space is freed up in the brain to utilize other math skills and solve larger and more complex mathematical equations and word problems.

Visualize

When working on word problems, it is best to come up with various visualization strategies that can be used to solve each problem. Examples of visualization strategies in math might be drawing an array, making pictures or using math manipulatives.

Make a Plan

A great general rule of thumb for math problems (especially those tricky word problems) is to NEVER leave math in your head. This means write down as much as possible. Circle, underline or highlight the key words in a math problem and then make a plan to solve. Write out each step as a number sentence, and use the visualization tools mentioned above to help solve the problem.

Practice Yoga & Mindfulness

Research has shown activities like yoga and mindfulness can improve working memory. Both of these practices aim to draw our attention to how and when our mind wanders, which in turn can help increase focus and the working memory function of the brain. There are many wonderful YouTube channels for kids yoga, such as Cosmic Yoga that can be completed daily. Alternately, try simple breathing exercises in the car on the way to school as a way to practice mindfulness each day.

Use Mnemonics and Songs

Making a mnemonic device or turning something that needs to be memorized into a song are two more fantastic ways to strengthen working memory. The most famous mnemonics device in Math is PEMDAS with “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” as the words to remember the order of operations. There are also fun and silly songs on YouTube to help learn and memorize math facts. Putting information into a catchy song allows our brain to more easily store and remember it!

Written by Laine J.

Organization: Tips for Creating and Maintaining an Inviting Home Workspace

Did you know that having a clean and organized personal workspace can actually have psychological benefits? Studies show that having a well organized and clean workspace can increase persistence by as much as 84 % and help sustain attention longer than a messy one. With summer vacation coming to an end, now is the perfect time to begin getting organized and work with your child to create their own personal workspace for the upcoming academic year. Providing your child with a dedicated home work space is a wonderful way to instill responsibility over personal space and develop an organizational foundation. Here are a few ideas to create a winning workspace!

Encourage Use of This Space with Personalized Details

Find fun ways to personalize the desk or work area and tailor it to your child’s specific interests! For younger kids this might be a little framed photo of their pet or family or some fun posters! For older kids this might be adding some twinkle lights or small plants! Adding some inviting elements to make the space peaceful and cozy help invite your child to want to spend more time in their workspace. You could also give it a name like “Katie’s Home Office” or “Jeff’s Work Cave” to make it extra special to them.

Design the Ideal Workspace

An ideal workspace for your child will have a desk with plenty of space to write and draw on and perhaps a few cubbies, drawers or shelves nearby. It is best if the space is quiet and removed from extra stimuli as much as possible (not by a TV or right in the middle of the living room). Keep only the most necessary items present on the desk space so that it isn’t cluttered. Use shelves and drawers to store papers, folders, books, writing utensils etc. It can be helpful to label specific spots for things so that everything has its designated space.

Make an “All Tidy” Reference Photo

When you first set up this workspace, take a clear photo of how everything looks and where each item is. Print the photo out and tape it to the desk or a clipboard. This serves as a wonderful visual cue for how to maintain organization and cleanliness in the space from day to day.

Create a Routine to Keep It Clean

At the end of each work session, your child should do a quick 5 minute tidy up of their space. You could even make them a little written check list with items like “throw away any trash”, “put away extra papers”, “pack homework into back pack” “tuck in chair” etc. They can use their “all tidy” reference photo to try to make sure they leave their space looking the same way each day. Once a month, do a de-clutter session to pack away papers, books and other items not needed anymore. An incentive for keeping their space clean and tidy might be getting to buy new decorations or special office supplies for their desk every once in awhile!

Written by Laine J.

Simple and Fun Ways to Incorporate Math Skills during Summer Vacation

Taking two months off from essential math and computation skills can be worrisome for many parents of little ones. After all, many math skills build upon each other and require year round practice to not fall behind or forget important facts. Luckily, there are many fun and unique ways to incorporate math skills into summer break and help your child reinforce the skills they have been working on all year long in school.

Acknowledge and Work on Math in Real World Situations

One of the simplest ways to use math during the summer is to point out all of the times in everyday life that we use math skills, perhaps without even realizing it! If your child is working on ratios, fractions or division, invite them to make a recipe with you from start to finish. Going through a recipe together is a great way to strengthen understanding of all of those skills. Another example might be having your child start to notice how much items cost at places like restaurants or grocery stores and use basic computation skills to tally up totals or how much change they might need. Lastly, try giving a back-to-school shopping allowance to your child and tell them they need to buy a certain number of items with the set amount of money you gave them. This activity is fun and puts real world problem solving and computation skills to work!

Make it an Experience

Another way to use math in summer is to come up with experiences that rely heavily on certain math skills. Things like garage sales, lemonade stands or bake sales are perfect examples! Children can calculate how much they need to spend to buy the items for the sale, how much they’re going to charge for each item and (depending on their age) can even start working on concepts like how much profit they are making.

Keeping Score

Family game night is another scenario where math skills can be reinforced. Games like Sudoku, Set, Monopoly, Connect 4 and many more help with math computation skills as well as problem solving skills. There are also endless card games that can be used to work with math concepts.

Apps and Games for Basic Reinforcement

Finally, to make sure your child does not lose their math facts, try to find a fun app or game that can be used to do a daily 10-15 minutes of math facts practice every day!

Written by Laine J.