Table Talk 3 Especially for the Younger Years
When was the last time you had an engaging conversation with a preschooler? It is never too early to begin asking good questions, especially at the kitchen table. I love asking kids questions. My favorite question is “Are you more like a pencil or a school bus?” While that is a great conversation starter, it does not really work with the younger years. They are more inclined to answer “should kids have a bedtime?” or “what does grandma do when she is not at our house?” What you need is a list of conversation starters for preschoolers. I created Table Talk 3 especially for the younger years. Use the 30 printable Table Talk questions at home, in carpool, at school, and just about anywhere. You can ask questions on the list, in any order, or you can print and cut out the cards. You can use one a day or spread a few of them around a table to use as conversation starters at your next party. You’ll be more likely to actually remember to ask good questions if you print them out and put them on the table! When was the last time you had an engaging conversation with…
Small Business Saturday
What small businesses can you support this week? The week of Thanksgiving is all about turkey and transactions. It’s the rush of getting all the dinner supplies (or at least the few things you were assigned to bring plus a hostess gift to apologize for not wanting to go to all the trouble to host this year) and weeding through all the Black Friday ads in your inbox and phone. In the age of online shopping, Amazon has been bookmarked and bots are hired to do your searching. Too bad there is not yet a robotic maid, housekeeper, and cook to take care of Thanksgiving dinner. Actually there are plenty of ways to support small businesses in your Thanksgiving week. Instead of ordering it all online or purchasing at a big box store, try getting a few items locally from small businesses. Buy local produce. Pick up a fresh pie or flowers from a local business. Hire a friend to help cook or clean this week. This Saturday is Small Business Saturday. It follows Black Friday and comes before Cyber Monday. Sometimes the joy of shopping is lost in the rush of Black Friday. Think about how you can support…
Daily Writing Practice
How can you incorporation meaningful writing practice into daily life? Writer’s block tends to crop up every time students are given a time limit and a short writing project. They do well with week-long projects where they can think through things, but the short writes seem to stop them in their tracks. Getting started tends to be the biggest obstacle! Here are five suggestions for working writing into everyday life for students. Practice restating the prompt as a way to get started. One can always go back and strengthen the hook or opening statement at the end, but just get started by turning the prompt into the first sentence. Write often, even little things. Consider dictating your grocery list to your child or have them write down a phone message or note. Practice writing summaries of daily classes (great to use Cornel Note style and write a summary at the end) as a way to study. Use key vocabulary to strengthen the summary (great way to study for a test). The New York Times has weekly writing prompts for students. They can keep the writing in a journal or submit it online. (You don’t need a subscription to access the…
Start a Business NOW
What month is a good time to start planning a new business? October is a great time to start building a business that opens on January 1st. What are your roadblocks? Not enough time? Not sure of the steps? Not confident in your ability to start a business? Keep reading for answers to these questions. Schedule time into your weekly schedule to build your business. An hour here or there will give you time to work through the steps to building your own business. My 12 short online lessons walk you though the 200+ steps of starting your own tutoring, coaching, or lessons business. While it’s geared toward tutors and coaches, the majority of the steps are very applicable to many small business start ups. You will get organized action steps with each lesson and a pdf or Asana checklist to keep you on track to completing the steps. Scheduling time each week and working through the checklist will build your confidence AND your business. Business Basics course is self paced and begins the moment you purchase it. Now would be a great time to start it! Why is October a good time to start planning your business? Taxes for…
Product Review: How to Invest $1000
How would you invest $1000? Does investing seem like a daunting challenge? Zach Reynolds unpacks this in his video “How to Invest $1000” by giving viewers three different ways to invest money and what the returns could look like. Zach is passionate about personal finance and helping others save money. He posts new videos on his channel each Monday with topics like credit card balances, stock market, and credit scores. Most of his videos are six to ten minutes long. Zach has been steadily growing his subscribers and his content in the past few years. You will want to investigate his YouTube channel for more personal finance tips. Here are a few of Zach Reynolds’s most popular videos: How to Increase Your Credit Score in 2022 Apple Card Review Capital One 360 Checking Review As a young entrepreneur, getting subscribers to follow your channel is one of the best ways to build up your business. Follow Zach for two reasons: increase your financial knowledge and increase his subscribers. It’s a win win that won’t cost you anything! Know of other young entrepreneurs with up and coming channels or websites? Drop a link to them in the comments so we can…
20 Read Aloud Books for the Middle Years
What was your favorite read aloud as an elementary or middle school child? Most parents think of read aloud as something you do at bedtime for preschoolers, but read aloud is valuable at any age. It is especially helpful during the middle years as upper elementary and middle school kids are learning to think critically and to make sense of the world around them. Reading aloud and discussing it helps you guide and stretch their thinking. As a fourth grade teacher, my students and I loved read aloud time. It was a great way to teach across subjects and objectives, and it leveled the playing field for the wide range of reading abilities in my classroom. The discussions were rich and the “five extra minutes of read aloud” was a highly coveted prize in my weekly ticket drawing. I often found my parent volunteers listening to it as well. There are so many new books and books lists available by categories online, but I tend to favor older forgotten books that not every kid has read already. I look for books that have a strong character and often a topic that’s a bit of a controversy so we can have…
Libraries
When was the last time you visited a public library? The other day I had a half hour of time before an appointment so I stopped in at my local library to get some cookbooks for stepping up my weekly menu planning. I lost track of time and was almost late for my appointment. I forgot how much I loved free public libraries! Every season of my life has library memories, from filling a huge canvas bag of books as an elementary kid to checking out a big bag of books as a young mom with toddlers. We have Googled local libraries on rainy vacation days at the beach, visited library story times while traveling, and found joy in perusing the shelves of public libraries and bookstores across the country whether or not we take any books home. As a young mom, I got a new cookbook every time I took my kids to the library. Recently I had houseguests with school age kids for a few months and we took regular visits to the library where I told them they could get as many books as they could carry. Benjamin Franklin started his own lending library company in 1731…
Create Your Own Internship
Have you ever dreamed of learning something new or living overseas? Creating your own internship is a great way to try something new, live overseas, or gain experience. I used to think that internships were just for college grads as a stepping stone to the job world. Now I know that they can happen at any stage of life, paid or unpaid, and for any length of time. Here are a few scenarios to get you thinking. Many high schools offer an internship course where students can gain valuable hours of experience in fields of interest well before they have to settle on a college major. My youngest daughter sought out occupational therapy offices to intern at while in high school. They were reluctant at first because she was not the typical college intern, but by the end of the school year, they had her training their college intern. She choose several different practices to shadow so she could have a variety of experiences. When it came time to apply to grad school, her shadowing hours were well over the minimum and the experiences she gained were invaluable to helping her choose a career. Many students choose to get a…
Back to School Routines
What does back to school make you think of? For many adults, “back to school” conjures up shopping for school supplies like yellow No. 2 pencils and new folders. Supplies nowadays are ordered at the click of a button and homework routines involve watching YouTube while pretending to work. It’s time to get back to the healthy routines and rhythms of life. Here’s a few tips for setting your family or tutoring clients up for success. Choose a homework spot no matter if your child is 5 or 15. Give them a little say in the matter, even if it’s just what new supplies to add to their workstation. Make it easy for them to get started on school work each day. Choose a new school supply that is not on the list. Let your child choose a fun colored homework folder or a set of colored pencils for home. My kids and tutoring clients are always excited about new dry erase markers in fun colors. (Brainstorming essay outlines, math problems, and to do lists are always more fun on a dry erase board!) Draw up some back to school routines that work for your family. Consider bedtimes that allow…
Strategies to Reinforce Learning
How can you reteach or preteach topics during school breaks? Summer is a great time for parents or tutors to reinforce learning when there’s less academic stress or pressures of homework, and here are 4 strategies to reinforce learning that work across all grade levels and all abilities. Teaching vocabulary – Reinforce the vocabulary and languages of the standards. Review vocabulary from the past year or get a jump start on the upcoming year. If the student cannot understand the big words in the test or assignment question being asked then they probably cannot answer the question very well. If they KNOW what the question is asking, it will be a better test of their knowledge. Struggling students will learn so much of the lesson through just the key vocabulary. If the unit does not come with a list of vocabulary words and definitions, try googling a vocab list for that topic. Chances are they are pretty available. Print a copy of the words and definitions. Print a second copy and cut it apart. Have the students match words and definitions even if you need to limit it to sets of 2 or 3. Build confidence by starting at their…