Product Review: Uptime Robot
Do you have your own robot working for you yet? Uptime Robot is a free website monitoring service that works so you don’t have to. This business tool is my secret weapon. Uptime Robot checks your website every few minutes to see if it’s up and running and notifies you if it’s down. Downtime happens to the best of us, but hopefully, you can catch it before your customers do. Just this week I was trying to find the menu and hours of a new business but I got an error with every link I tried. Bummer. When I visited the restaurant that day, I let them know and they thought I just had the wrong link. It was up and running today, but using a service like Uptime Robot could have saved them egg on their face. It takes just a few minutes to set up this free service and you can choose to receive an email or text message when your website or course page is down. Plus their smart team of robots can monitor all sorts of other things for you, except what’s in your fridge or when you are running low on basic supplies like…
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. I have 4 strategies that work across all grade levels and all abilities of learning. 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 independent level…
Business Basics
What business have you thought about launching? I used to wonder what it would take to start my own tutoring business and if I had the courage and energy to launch a business. I’m so glad I jumped on this roller coaster! It’s been a wild ride and a fun adventure. Now I want to help others get started. Are you ready to start your own tutoring, coaching, or lessons business? My course is here to help you launch your own business and to be your own boss. From start to finish, you will learn how to set up and grow a successful tutoring business that brings you joy and freedom. Every lesson teaches you what we are learning, why it’s important, and how to do it. You will also get examples of how to put the lesson into practice. There will be a brief quiz to see if you understood the material. You will then be given a few action steps to complete. The discussion board is where you can share your ideas and ask questions. It’s that simple! In this course Business Basics, you will have 12 lessons to open that should take 15-30 minutes each to complete,…
Book Review: Imperfect Disciple
What do you do when you struggle to get your act together but keep failing? Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together, by Jared C. Wilson, is the perfect book to read with a friend this summer. Wilson’s conversational style of writing makes you feel like you are sitting across the table at a coffee shop or at an airport waiting area having a chat. His wisdom makes you feel smarter not smaller once you finish a chapter. Read a chapter, let it settle in, then discuss it with a friend or two. Repeat 10 times. Preferably with an iced coffee. Wilson takes readers on a discipleship journey through his own stories with humor and honesty. Knowing you are not alone in this journey nor do you have to have it all together all the time will build your confidence. Discipleship is doing life on life with someone else. Normal life. Messy life. Wilson understands a life full of questions and knows a Book full of answers. After hearing Wilson speak in person a few years ago, some friends and I did a book study with Imperfect Diciple. There are not questions at the end of…
Summer Tutoring Openings 2022
What is on your summer schedule to promote academic growth in your children? Shocking but not surprising are the gaps in the reading development of US children in the past 2 years. Now is the time to sign up for summer tutoring! Summer tutoring clients will participate in literacy lessons, vocabulary practice, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension practice, and writing exercises geared towards the four building blocks of literacy (reading, writing, listening, and speaking). We hope to see significant improvement in multiple reading outcomes to bridge some of these gaps over the summer and avoid the summer slide which happens when students do not practice their skills over breaks. Getting a jump start on future reading progress will also help build confidence in children and set them up for success in the new school year. This summer at Tailor Joy, I am only offering reading tutoring as that seems to be the biggest educational need this year. The 2022 summer reading program is for confident and reluctant readers alike. Everyone has room for improvement and repeated practice. Summer READING Tutoring June 13 – August 26, 2022 What the summer sessions will look like: Oral fluency practice Vocabulary practice with a…
Be Your Own Boss
What would it look like to be your own boss? Being your own boss means you work for yourself. You carry all the heavy responsibilities, but you also celebrate all the personal and professional wins. It’s a roller coaster that many people are trying to decide if it’s worth getting in line for. Some of you have been on this ride. You know the ups and downs. Six percent of US employed people are self-employed and the average of self-employed workers worldwide is about 46% with variances across countries. For me, going into business for myself means that I have the freedom to set my own hours, and I can be available for my family whenever they need me. My former jobs have not been so flexible, and, when my aging parents needed my help, I ended up quitting my teaching job to help them out. Being my own boss provides me flexibility in my hours and my location. Since starting my own business I have worked at home, in coffee shops, at relatives’ houses, and across the globe. The COVID pandemic gave many people the opportunity to try working at home, but that still did not offer the flexibility…
Welcome Note for Guests
What makes you feel at home when you are a guest in someone’s house? Make your guests feel at home by leaving a framed welcome note for guests with helpful information on the dresser. Why do I say a framed note? That way you don’t have to rewrite it each time! Let’s get you started in making a note for your home. It’s quite easy. First, think about what guests might want to know when they visit you. WIFI password? Extra towels? Where the snacks are? Make a list of helpful things for guests. Next, add anything particular to your house. Maybe where to locate the ironing board, thermostat, tv, fuse box, and washing machine. Possibly add notes about the fitness options. Also, consider adding your contact information and location address. If a guest needs you or emergency services, having it on a note is quicker than looking it up. Lastly, what do you want guests to do upon departure? My guest note asks them to please put the sheets and towels on the bathroom floor before they leave and push “run” on the thermostat to return it to its usual settings. Whether or not I’m home when the guests…
Sprinkle Joy Like Confetti
What do you think about when you hear the quote “sprinkle joy like confetti”? “Sprinkle joy like confetti” is an interesting quote. Does it make you think of a celebration? A cupcake with sprinkles? One of those party poppers? I think of glitter! You know, the glitter that gets all over you and you can’t wipe it off because it just spreads more? I think about little flower girls in twirly glittery tule skirts at a friend’s wedding. Everyone who held one of those girls had glitter on them, their clothes, and their cheeks. The father of the bride said he even had glitter in the back of his pickup truck after hauling around wedding supplies! Pretty sure the sewing room was never again glitter-free! But you know what? That glitter spread joy! Today it brought back pleasant memories of a wedding, love, flower girls, food trucks, and family fun on a beautiful October afternoon. I want to sprinkle around that kind of joy with my words and deeds. I want to do things that make people smile in the moment and in the memory. May starts the busy summer season of parties and celebrations. Don’t wait for an invite…
Vocabulary Courses Now Open
What do you do with the list of science vocabulary words your child brings home from school? Building vocabulary knowledge helps you become a better reader, writer, and test taker, yet most students do not take the time to learn vocabulary beyond being able to pass the weekly matching quiz. According to the Northwest Education Association, vocabulary can be defined as “all the knowledge a person has about a word, which includes knowing what it means, when it is used, how to say it, and how to use it in a sentence.” Do any of these sound familiar to you or your children? You just Google the definitions for vocabulary word homework. You don’t study for vocabulary tests. You just guess using the word bank. You don’t really have a good plan for how to study, but you read the word list a few times. After the vocabulary test, you do not often remember the definitions anymore. Imagine what a difference it would make if you knew some easy ways to learn and study vocabulary. You could confidently study vocabulary words. You could expand your reading and writing by making word connections. You could learn and use vocabulary words with…
Book Review: How to Read Books Like a Professor: For Kids
How does seeing figurative language help you be a more thoughtful reader? You can read a book and think it’s a good story. Or you can read a book and notice the symbols, setting, and figurative language and understand the meaning of the story on a whole different level. This book is for the reluctant reader and the avid reader, the young and the old, but especially for the middle schoolers. Written by New York bestseller author and professor Thomas Foster, How to Read Books Like a Professor: for Kids teaches the reader some secrets to understanding books and points out helpful examples and connections along the way. Through humor and insight, the Foster teaches how to read books using familiar books, stories, and movies as examples. With chapter titles like “Nice to Eat You” and “Where Have I Seen You Before,” readers learn about the skills needed to find meaning and make connections. Not only will they read better, but their summaries and conversations about literature will also be much richer. This book is so good I suggest you get a copy this summer and read it aloud to your kids, ages 5th grade and up, especially the middle…