Say Goodbye to the Summer Slide: Fun and Effective Strategies to Keep Kids Learning

Are you ready to make this summer a season of learning and fun for your kids? Say goodbye to the summer slide—a term that describes the loss of academic skills over the summer break—and hello to engaging activities that will keep your children sharp and ready for the next school year!

The summer slide is a real concern for educators and parents, especially for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who may not have access to educational resources during the break. But don’t worry; with the right approach, you can turn summer learning into an exciting adventure for your kids!

Here are some fun and effective strategies to keep your kids learning all summer long:

  1. Student Choice: Let your children choose what they want to read or learn about. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, giving them a say in their learning will increase their motivation and engagement.
  2. Various Modes of Texts: Don’t limit learning to just books. Consider audiobooks, ebooks, graphic novels, and magazines to cater to different interests and reading levels.
  3. Curriculum-based Activities: Check with your child’s school or teacher for materials that align with the previous year’s curriculum. This can include books, activities, or projects that reinforce what they’ve learned.
  4. Family Involvement: Start a weekly family book club where everyone reads and discusses a chosen book. Make it fun with snacks, cozy blankets, and maybe even a movie night based on the book!
  5. Real-life Connections: Connect reading material to your child’s interests or experiences. If they’re going to soccer camp, find books about soccer or soccer players. This makes learning more relevant and engaging.

By incorporating these strategies into your summer routine, you can help your children combat the summer slide while having a blast! So, grab some books, gather the family, and let the summer learning begin!

Conquer the Sunday Scaries for a Stress-Free School Week

🎒 Banishing the Sunday Scaries: A Guide for Elementary Schoolers and Parents 📚

Ah, the Sunday scaries – that feeling of dread that creeps in as the weekend winds down and the school week approaches. 🙈 Parents, teachers, and even little elementary schoolers aren’t immune to it. But fear not! We’ve got your back with some epic strategies to beat those Sunday scaries and kick off the school week like champions. 🌟

📌 Get Your Game Face On: Mastering Organization

Parents, in the early years, you’re the maestros of organization. 🎻 Lay out those clothes, pack that lunchbox, and prep for the action-packed week ahead. Gradually, your little ones will catch on and embrace these organizational skills like superheroes in training. 💪

🎈 Super Start: Help your mini-me check the weather and plan Monday’s outfit. Rain or shine, they’ll stride confidently into the week, ready to conquer whatever comes their way.

📋 Conquer Chaos: The Power of Checklists

Picture this: a weekend checklist that battles the chaos and tames the Sunday scaries. 🦸‍♂️ Get your family together and craft a game plan for the weekend tasks. Spread the load, and voila – you’ve defeated the stress monster.

📚 Wise Warrior Move: Prioritize tasks like homework and reading early on the checklist to avoid panic later.

🔮 Crystal Ball Gazing: The Art of Looking Ahead

Grab a cup of tea and settle in for some light Sunday night fortune-telling. 🔮 Peek at the week ahead and banish the fear of the unknown. Family appointments, school events, and everyone’s responsibilities – they’re all fair game.

⏰ Time Traveler’s Tip: Let your little legends take the reins. Teach them to decipher the week’s calendar and own their tasks. They’ll rock the week with newfound confidence! 🚀

Remember, the Sunday scaries are no match for your family’s supercharged strategies. 💥 So, get organized, rule those checklists, and peek into the future – because the school week is about to get schooled! 🎉

Wishing you fearless Sundays and soaring school weeks, 🚀

#BackToSchoolBliss #SundayScariesNoMore

 

🚀 Launching a Rockstar Back-to-School Routine: Your Ultimate Guide!

Hey there, super-parents and awesome kiddos! 🎉 Can you feel it? The school bells are ringing, and it’s time to switch gears from summer vibes to school-time swag. We know it’s not always easy, but fear not – we’ve got your back! 🚀 Let’s dive into the magical world of routines and make this school year the best one yet!

  1. Embracing Routine from Day One: The Toothpaste Trick 🦷

Imagine if you could put the toothpaste back in the tube! Well, starting a routine right from the get-go is like that – it keeps things smooth and avoids the mess. Let’s decode why kicking off with a cool routine is your secret weapon!

  1. The Benefits of a Set Routine: All Aboard the Success Train! 🚂

Guess what? Routines aren’t just for grown-ups. They’re like the superhero capes of the kid world! 🦸‍♂️ Discover all the rad perks that come with having a routine that rocks.

  1. Nurturing Healthy Habits: Steps to Kickstart a Successful Routine 🌈

Ready to get your groove on? Check out these wicked strategies to get your kid’s routine game strong:

– Set Clear Expectations ✨: Let’s make the rules crystal clear, so your kid knows what’s up. No more “But I didn’t know!” moments.

– Master Time Management ⏰: Time isn’t just a number – it’s your secret weapon. We’ll spill the beans on how to make time your BFF.

– Provide Essential Structure 🏰: Just like building a LEGO castle, having structure makes everything sturdy. Learn how to be the architect of your kid’s day.

– Reduce Anxiety with Predictability 😌: Say bye-bye to the jitters! Routines are like comfort blankets that chase away those anxious thoughts.

– Strengthen Bonds through Trust 🤝: Teamwork makes the dream work! Let’s chat about how routines can be the glue that sticks your fam together.

  1. Flexibility Amidst the Chaos: Adapting and Thriving 🌪️

Life’s a rollercoaster, right? But guess what – you’re the fearless rider! 🎢 Find out how to keep your routine cool, even when things go topsy-turvy.

  1. Practical Steps to Launch Your Routine: From Calendar to Collaboration 📅

Ready to rock? Let’s get hands-on:

– Create a Family Calendar 🗓️: Time to unleash your inner Picasso with a colorful family calendar. It’s like art and organization had a baby!

– Encourage Responsibility 🌟: Middle-school peeps, this one’s for you! Step into the spotlight by planning your own activities. 🎤

Conclusion: 🎈

Alright, legends, it’s go time! 🚀 As the new school year zooms in, grab the chance to create an epic routine. You’re the director of this blockbuster, and routines are your superstar actors. With a dash of flexibility and a sprinkle of fun, you’re all set for an unforgettable ride. Let’s make this year a routine-tastic adventure! 🌟🎒🚌📚

Executive Functioning & Distance Learning: Part I

As educators and mental health professionals, helping students manage their executive functioning is a critical aspect of building the foundation for academic, social, and emotional success. For neuroatypical students, particularly those with ASD and ADHD, addressing executive functioning skills within the classroom setting is already challenging enough. However, with current hybrid models and distance learning, these students are struggling even more to adapt. 

 

Background info for educators 

Executive functioning is often thought of as the “management center of the brain” or the control center of thinking. Our executive functioning assists with many different cognitive skills, which is why it not only impacts students academically, but also socially, emotionally, and physically. Some skills associated with executive functioning include: attentiveness, self-monitoring and regulating, emotional/impulse control, organizational skills, ability to prioritize, perspective taking, and planning/chunking larger tasks into smaller pieces. Many of these skills help us to perform tasks throughout our entire lives. Therefore, executive dysfunction can have a lifelong impact on students beyond their capabilities in the classroom.  

 

What does executive dysfunction look like?

Difficulties concerning executive functioning vary from person to person and also differ in severity. Common examples of ways in which students exhibit executive dysfunction include:

  • Avoiding tasks or struggling to initiate an assignment 
  • Procrastinating; trouble with managing time
  • Difficulty prioritizing tasks or steps in a process
  • Misplacing things
  • Struggling to put thoughts on paper; difficulty explaining oneself
  • Difficulty transitioning between tasks or moving from one activity to another
  • May struggle to follow directions or to complete steps in chronological order
  • May exhibit a preoccupation with a small detail of the task; i.e. missing the big picture
  • Difficulty with working memory; they may forget what they heard or read
  • May struggle when schedules, rules, procedures, or expectations change; i.e. exhibit a level of inflexibility when they’ve become used to a certain routine

 

Providing assistance with these struggles in the classroom is much easier; educators are physically there in person to alleviate issues and help students to troubleshoot their individual challenges. In the classroom, we have the ability to personally connect with students and provide them with necessary supports and accommodations, like check-ins, checklists, organizers, etc. Now, with distance learning, students with executive dysfunctions are not necessarily getting the same level of support and attention. We can fix this, however, with a little creativityand a lot of patience!

 

Strategies for teachers during distance learning  

Here are a few tips for supporting students with executive functioning issues:

  • Assess: Take inventory of your students’ needs and tendencies. I began the school year by asking every student which part of the writing process he/she hates the most. Do they struggle to begin writing? Drafting? Organizing a cohesive argument/essay? Revising? Getting thoughts down on paper? For students who said that they find it difficult to get started, I provided several supports.

 

  • Model: Firstly, every writing task that I ask students to do, I also complete and spend one class period reading my draft and discussing my writing process. Seeing an example of what the final task should look like is beneficial for all students, but especially those who struggle to initiate writing and to see the big picture. During this “modeled writing session,” I ask students to tell me what they notice about the sample. Their answers provide me with insight into how they interpret the assignment, which allows me to see who really needs greater scaffolds and who does not. 

 

  • Specify: Secondly, when students disclose that getting ideas onto paper is their greatest challenge, I provide them with very specific, thoroughly broken down organizers with sentence starters. This removes the “getting started” barrier and gives them a jumpstart to initiate the task with some momentum. 

 

  • Organize: Finally, for my students who struggle to piece together their writing (organize and revise), I find it helpful to color-coordinate the different aspects of the essay or paragraph. For example, I may highlight students’ thesis statements in red, transition words in blue, evidence/quotes in green, and analysis in orange. When reading through a student’s draft, I can easily direct them to certain sections with specific instructions to add more orange, for instance. This tells them immediately that their paper is lacking sufficient analysis. It also tells them where that analysis or orange should be placed so that the guesswork is gone.

 

  • Check-in: Another best practice that we regularly use in the classroom is to chunk larger assignments and include check-ins throughout the project or essay. With distance learning, I’ve found that breakout rooms in Zoom allow for me to specifically check in with each student during a writing work session. The platform allows students to share their screen with me 1:1 so that I can check their progress individually. This practice also allows me to see who is far behind in terms of completion. The check-ins prompt students to set small goals while working, but they also allow enough time for me to intervene if a task looks like it’s falling to the wayside.

The Juggling Act: Executive Functioning Help

One of the more common stressors that parents and students are experiencing with the new distance learning initiatives involves organization. Since students are no longer getting daily, face-to-face instruction, and academic and behavioral supports are likely inconsistent, many executive functioning skills that students would typically acquire and practice in school have been left by the wayside. To add insult to injury, at-home learning, as we’ve begun to realize, requires a great deal of time management, organization, flexibility, task initiation, prioritizing, and self-monitoring on behalf of the student. It is as though we have suddenly removed the training wheels and encouraged students to try mountain biking!

With rotating schedules, office hours, Zoom meetings, email check-ins, daily assignments, and weekly tasks for each subject area, not to mention that these are posted to various online platforms, it is no wonder that parents and students are feeling the stress of juggling so many components. There are strategies, however, that parents and children can begin to employ to help ease the stress and flex their executive functioning muscles!

 

  • Write out a clear, color-coded weekly schedule and post it where all members of the household can view it. Below is a sample for what an elementary or middle school weekly schedule might look like:

 

Monday/Wed AM
  • Review all course announcements, posts, updates (15 mins)
  • Write due dates for each subject area in agenda book (10 mins)
  • Daily reading assignment (20 mins)
PM
  • Zoom/office hours for English & Math (50 mins)
  • Independent work time (60 mins)
  • Review HW and email questions to yourself to ask during next office hours (30 mins)
Tuesday/Thurs AM
  • Check email (10 mins)
  • Daily reading assignment (20 mins)
  • Independent work time (60 mins; use agenda to prioritize)
PM
  • Zoom/office hours for Science & History (50 mins)
  • Check agenda for upcoming HW/tasks (10 mins)
  • Independent work time (30 mins)
  • Art, music, language, leisure activity (30 mins)

 

Friday AM
  • Review completed work; submit anything due (15 mins)
  • Daily reading assignment (20 mins)
  • Check email (10 mins)
PM
  • Zoom with study buddy (30 mins)
  • Independent work time (60 mins)
  • Organize materials for next week (20 mins)

 

  • To help with the initial creation of the schedule, parents should reach out to teachers about the approximate time that their child should be working on the course content per day. Of course, this will vary from time to time; however, the key to building a routine is to set the expectations and stick to them. This includes expected timelines for working during the day.
  • If parents believe that their child is spending too much time in front of a screen or is struggling to complete work in a reasonable amount of time, they should reach out to the content teacher.
  • Another important detail that parents and students will find helpful is to jot down where each course will be posting their updates and materials. Since some teachers are using Canvas or MyMCPS, while others are using Google Classroom or Padlet, simply finding the work can become a task in itself. To stay sane, keep a running post-it note inside the child’s agenda book or on the back of the weekly schedule. On the post-it should be each teacher’s name, course, preferred platform for instruction, and email address.
  • In addition to the post-it cheat sheet for finding materials, parents can help ease transition times between activities by bookmarking crucial websites with their kids.
  • To help with time management and prioritizing work, at the start of each week parents should encourage children to consider which tasks will be most difficult and/or time consuming. This allows students to begin to see how prior planning can help alleviate unnecessary stress from procrastination or task-avoidance.
  • By writing tasks and due dates in an agenda book, students are enacting executive functioning skills on several different levels. First, the act of writing out each assignment helps to solidify the information into one’s working memory. Secondly, the visual schedule of due dates helps students anticipate priorities and plan appropriately. Finally, when finished with a task, students should check off or cross out the completed assignment. This becomes a satisfying method for self-monitoring one’s progress throughout the week.