Time Management for Kids: Simple Tips to Help Students Stay on Track
Is it harder for you to estimate how long it will take to do a task or to manage your time appropriately while doing the task? As mentioned in a previous post on executive function, time management for kids is the ability to estimate how much time a task will take and manage time appropriately. In school, this can look like completing work within a deadline, knowing how long to study for an upcoming quiz or test, and budgeting time for other daily tasks and breaks. Common struggles students face are procrastination or underestimating how long a task will take. Here are tips and tools to help improve and reinforce time management for kids. Why time matters Part of school education is learning how to manage time and finish assignments within a deadline. Younger grades typically have one assignment at a time, whereas older grades have assignments for each class and further out deadlines. The benefits of time management are reduced stress, improved academic performance, and increased confidence and independence. Teaching students the benefits is as important as the skill itself. Knowing the why encourages independence as they learn to manage their workload effectively. Common challenges for students When students…
Top questions about starting a tutoring business
What are your top two questions about starting a tutoring business? Tutors and teachers often have specific questions about starting a tutoring business. I had to do tons of research into starting and running a small business before I was ready to start my private tutoring business. Sometimes, my research led to even more questions instead of helpful answers. I wished I had someone to ask all my questions to, so I wrote up a Q&A for you with the top questions about starting a tutoring business. Grouped by category, here are 13 topics people ask about when starting a tutoring business. Grab a cup of coffee, and let’s pretend we are at your favorite coffee shop and you are picking my brain about how I got started. I’m already smelling the Italian roast! Starting the Business 1. Legal Structure: Should I register my tutoring business as a sole proprietorship, LLC, or another structure? I can’t give you any legal advice, but I can say that many people choose to start an LLC to protect their personal funds from their business funds. Sam Vander Weilen is a good resource. (Sam has many good resources!) https://www.samvanderwielen.com/how-to-legally-protect-your-online-business 2. Startup Costs: How much…
4 Classroom Organization Tips
Need to tackle some clutter in the classroom or office? Keeping up with classroom organization is part of classroom management. Often we ignore a cluttered space because we do not feel we have time or energy to tackle a whole project. Part of my master strategy in Clean the Chaos: At Home involves sweeping out a space, sorting, and storing the items in a tidier or more useful way. This same strategy is useful in the office or classroom organization; bringing order to some chaos. Here are 4 classroom organization tips to help you tackle clutter in the classroom today. First, choose a drawer, cabinet, or corner and begin to clean the chaos in the classroom. Start small with classroom organization Ten minutes gives just enough time to empty a drawer, wipe it out, sort/toss/recycle/relocate/store the items back into the drawer in a more useful and neater way. Once you do a drawer or two, your motivation will build and you will find more pockets of time to continue the project. And the more you clean the chaos, the more useful the space becomes. Keep reading for ways to maintain your space once you have cleaned the clutter. This will…
4 Classroom Management Tips
How consistent are you in your classroom management? Classroom management is hard to learn from a textbook, even if you have read Harry Wong’s First Days of School. Until you are actually in a classroom, it is hard to know exactly how you will respond and react to certain situations no matter how prepared you are. Here are 4 classroom management tips to point you in the right direction to calm the chaos: in the classroom. Develop Your Classroom Management Learning classroom management is an essential skill for teachers and substitutes and will help calm the chaos in the classroom before it gets out of control. In college, I learned great ideas and tips for classroom management, but nothing truly prepares you for those first few minutes and days like actually being in the classroom. You do need to have some basic ideas of how you want your classroom or tutoring sessions to run, but also be flexible as you hone this skill. You will continue to hone your classroom management system over the years and in different settings. So many of my good ideas are a bit outside the box and came out of situations that needed a bit…
Teachers Pay Teachers Review
What quality educational resource do you wish you could add to your teacher or tutor toolkit? Teachers Pay Teachers, an online marketplace, is a powerful educational resource for teachers, tutors, and parents powered by educators. Instead of a few supplemental activities that only go with one particular curriculum, imagine the whole teacher supply store, your favorite teacher’s file cabinet, data-driven best practices resources, creative ideas, pretty things, suggestions for every topic under the sun, and the homeschool curriculum conference all in one place! That is Teachers Pay Teachers in a nutshell. What is TPT? I discovered this online resource while teaching elementary school and it became even more useful when I started my tutoring business. I knew how to teach the topics, but I was willing to purchase some fun original educational resources or extension activities for my summer school lessons. With over 9 million resources, this is a treasure trove for buyers and sellers of original educational resources. Teachers may need to fill gaps in the curriculum, post anchor charts, or create warm-up material. There are lesson plans, games, flashcards, room decorations, speech therapy activities, assessments, special education resources, seasonal themes, worksheets, projects, foreign languages, ESL, task cards, classroom…
Cure Senioritis in 4 Steps
When was the last time you got a case of senioritis? What is senioritis and how can you cure senioritis? Senioritis is defined as a decrease in motivation and academic performance at the end of the senior year of high school when the college acceptance letters and final exam exemptions begin arriving. We all know that it’s much broader than that and senioritis strikes older and younger students alike. Even teachers and parents can get a case of the “I don’t care anymore” attitude when the summer vacation or job change is just around the corner. Spring fever is a similar attitude where students lose focus in the classroom because they can’t wait to get outside and enjoy the longer days. They have a “let’s just get this done quickly” mentality. Here are 4 steps to cure senioritis and spring fever and finish the school year strong, plus more resources for additional reading. Go outside This is a game-changer. Did you know that spending 20 minutes a day outside will make you healthier, more productive, and lower your stress level? Whether you are the student, the teacher, or the parent, take some time to go outside each day. Put a…
Get Detailed Steps To Start A Small Business
What is stopping you from starting the business you have been dreaming about? Are you afraid it is too much work to start a business or that you don’t know what to do to get started? I’ve got the solution. Got a friend who would be SO good at teaching lessons or coaching others but hasn’t made that leap yet? I’ve got a business course and a tutoring workshop. Ready to work for yourself but not exactly sure what line of business to choose? Consider private tutoring or coaching. I’ve got the steps to start a small business. Immediate Access to Course and Checklist Starting your own business IS a lot of work, but fortunately, many of those tasks and decisions can be made once and you will soon be on your way to working for yourself. In my course “Business Basics” I walk clients, just like you, through the main steps of setting up a small business including checklists and lots of little questions for you to consider and make notes about. I spent many hours researching and writing detailed notes about all the things I needed to do to start a business, build a website, get customers, and…
Free Printable Agenda Page
How many late or missing assignments has your child had this week? How could a free printable agenda page help you? I’m a huge fan of agendas, but I also know that many kids struggle to use them. Recently I wrote a post about using Google calendars as digital agendas, but there are plenty of kids and families who just need a printable agenda page. I’ve got one for you! Whether you have a 5 subject day or 8, I’ve got a sheet for you. You can simply use the extra rows for notes, extracurricular activities, work, etc. Whether you are a parent, teacher, or tutor, this free printable agenda page is for you. Print this free printable agenda page and help your child get back on track. I suggest printing it on colored paper, but not so bright or dark that your child can’t write on it with a pencil. A nice fluorescent green, yellow, or orange helps kids find their printable agenda page in the folder crammed with worksheets, handouts, and missing homework. Take time at the start of the week to write in as many assignments as the teachers have posted online or are predictably due each…
10 tips for using Google Tasks and Google Calendar as a student agenda
How can you effectively use Google Calendar as a student agenda? Time management is a life skill that is important to teach students, and I love a good organizational system! Over the years, I have traded my paper calendars and agendas for digital ones. It is helpful to see what events I have have and where I have time in my schedule for tasks. Many of my tutoring clients tell me they do not need an agenda because they can just look at the list of assignments in Google Classroom, but this does not teach them time management skills nor does it help them chunk large projects into manageable pieces. (Nor are most of them capable of keeping all that info “in my head” as their main strategy for remembering all their homework assignments but I do hear that option quite a bit!) This school year when I teach study skills to my middle and high school tutoring clients, I will include how to use an agenda whether it’s a paper one or a digital one. For a simple digital system for students who have Gmail accounts, I recommend Google Calendar and Google Tasks. Use the calendar events to block time…
Back to School for you – for free
What do you wish you could go back to school to learn? Everyone can teach or tutor something. What skill or hobby are you good at? What academic subject do you enjoy talking about? What do your kids or neighbors ask you for advice about? Being a subject expert will help you grow your confidence in tutoring, but honestly, tutoring is just coming alongside someone to help with their academic or skill learning. Almost anyone can do that, especially with a free tutoring workshop. Here’s a little free vocabulary lesson. Teaching is a subject matter expert giving instruction. Tutoring is helping students with academic learning and study skills. It is remediating or enriching a particular subject or school year. Coaching is helping students with problem-solving strategies to improve productivity or effectiveness both now and in the future. Now is the perfect time to get set up to start tutoring this fall. My short free workshop Tutor Toolkit will give you the tools needed to design tutoring sessions no matter what you want to tutor. It’s perfect for anyone who wants to tutor, teach lessons, or coach clients. What’s in the FREE workshop Tutor Toolkit? In this workshop, I lay…