Archive: Early Education

Teaching Kids About Flowers and Plants

In the final days of spring, it’s the perfect time to start teaching kids about flowers and plants. Here are a few tips that Mom Trusted put together to make the learning process easier and more fun:

Grow a flower

Decorate a simple pot with paint. Try stamping colorful handprints all over it. Then, plant easy to grow flowers in it. Try daisies, since they’re such a hearty flower.

Sprout a bean

Have your kids help you place a bean in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag. Then, place in light and wait for them to sprout.

Plant a vegetable garden

Plant seeds to a veggie garden. Try out tomatoes, potatoes, peas, beans and carrots. Watch as they grow and munch on them when they’re ready! Nothing tastes better than homegrown veggies.

Sort seeds

Sort different flower and plant seeds. Use simple ones like pumpkin, sunflower and tulip bulbs.

Visit a florist

Take a fieldtrip to a local florist. Look at all the different kinds of plants and flowers and buy a bouquet so that you can give each little one a flower to hang onto.

Smell the roses

Blindfold your kids and have them take turns smelling different types of flowers. Older children can also turn it into a guessing game and try to name the flowers they’re smelling.

Sources:

-“How to teach your child about flowers” Yahoo! Voices

-“Interactive plant biology: a kid’s guide to the life cycle of a flower” Pro Flowers

-“Teaching children with flowers” BorBer

-Photo courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/freedigitalphotos.net

Mommy Math: Reading and Singing to Children

While most experts agree that reading to children improves literacy and language skills later on in life, new studies show that singing also has a positive impact on children’s learning. MomTrusted put together this infographic on reading and singing to children. Check out how many parents read, tell stories and sing to their children of different ages:

Mommy Math: Children and Reading

Did you know that the amount of parents who read to their pre-kindergarteners daily has decreased by 5% in recent years? Yet college enrollment seems to be on the up-and-up or at least it was until 2010. MomTrusted digs into the statistics behind children and reading, from reading scores to college enrollment:

New Study Finds Happier Kids

A new study found that kids who perform acts of kindness are happier and more accepting.

Researchers in Vancouver, Canada studied how performing kind acts influenced behavior, emotions and even popularity of 9 to 11 year-olds. The researchers had two groups: one was asked to visit three places each week, while the other was asked to perform three random acts of kindness each week.

The experiment lasted for four weeks and, in the end, when compared to previous test results, both groups of children were deemed happier. The ones who performed random acts of kindness, however, were also deemed more accepting of their fellow classmates.

Researchers believe that because the acts of kindness were intentional and planned, they created more positive, accepting attitudes among the children. Observers believe that this could be a solution to bullying in schools. By encouraging kind acts in children and creating more open-minded attitudes, the hope is that the acceptance will spread throughout school children.

Sources:

-“Acts of Kindness Make Kids Popular.” Parenting.com

-“Random Acts of Kindness Can Make Kids More Popular.” NPR

-Photo courtesy of Ambro/freedigitalphotos.net

Easy Crafts: Make an Educational Felt Board

Looking for some easy crafts to keep you and your little one busy? Check out this felt board that’s both educational and fun. You can use it to teach colors, shapes, letters and more.

What you need:

-Different colored pieces of felt

-Large picture frame

-One plain piece of adhesive felt about one inch l inch larger than the frame

-Scissors

-2 pieces of cardboard board the ½ inch smaller than the frame

-Duct tape

-Kraft paper

Instructions:

1. Remove and discard of the glass from the frame.

2. Cut about 1 inch of the corners off of the large piece of adhesive felt.

3. Tape the felt around the cardboard.

4. Place the felt-covered board within the frame.

5. Add a second piece of cardboard to the back for extra support.

6. Secure with kraft paper and duct tape.

7. Cut fun shapes out of the different colored pieces of felt. Here are a few ideas:

-Letters

-Numbers

-Basic shapes

-Animals

Sources:

-“Felt Board for Kids.” Martha Stewart

-Photo courtesy of Grant Cochrane/freedigitalphotos.net

“Bad” Charter Schools Show No Signs of Improvement

Charter schools have received a lot of attention from the media in recent years. The movie Waiting for Superman shed light on the alternative schools as a positive possibility for solving poor education in the public school system. At the same time, many experts don’t believe they’re the answer due to their small sizes and availability, ability to bend rules like time regulations on school days and their access to both federal and outside funding.

While some argue that good charter schools could be the answer to low reading and math scores in public schools, a new study by Stanford scholars shows that this can only be an option if they start out strong in the first place. According to a report by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO), a group that studies student performance and educational reform, charter schools that start bad, stay that way.

The group followed thousands of charter schools throughout their first five years. CREDO looked for performance trends, comparing early scores to ones after the charter schools matured. The results were basically the same across the board: the ones that started with high scores, still had high scores five years later. However, the trend held true for those on the opposite side of the spectrum. Charter schools that started off shaky were still low performers five years after their launch.

What does this mean for parents today? If you’re considering sending your child to a charter school, do your research. Compare test performance between the charter school and local public schools. Send your child to whichever performs better. And whatever you do, don’t listen to anyone who claims the charter school is just having a shaky start and will work out the kinks down the road. According to CREDO’s new study, they’re doomed to stay exactly where they start- bad charter schools are bad charter schools.

Sources:

-“CREDO at Stanford University unveils national charter school growth and replication study.” CREDO

-“Charter school arguments.” NCSL

-“Charter schools that start bad stay bad, report says.” HuffPo

-“Parents daily news roundup.” Parents.com

-Photo courtesy of criminalatt/freedigitalphotos.net

3 Ways to Help Your Child Reach Their Full Potential

With the job market in its current state, colleges getting more expensive and scholarships getting pickier and more difficult to obtain, the need to help your child reach their full potential is becoming increasingly important. The importance of outshining fellow classmates has become an obsession for many. We’ve put together a few steps to help your kiddos be as great as they can be without putting too much pressure on them:

Step 1: Talk to your child

Ask them questions from when they’re learning to talk to when they’re leaving for college. Ask them about their day. Ask their opinions. Ask about their goals. Throw in a few challenging vocab words when you’re asking these questions. Even if your little one doesn’t know exactly what they mean, he or she can use the context of the question to figure them out, teaching important problem solving skills.

Step 2: Read to your child

Reading stimulates parts of the brain that talking and playing don’t. It also helps grow children’s vocabulary pools and literacy. Keep plenty of books around the house and make sure to take fun trips to the library. Read aloud to them, but also encourage them to read on their own. Ask them what they’re reading about and teach by example by making sure you’re reading in front of them.

Step 3: Praise results, but don’t fuss over shortcomings.

Did your child ace a spelling quiz or learn a new word? Tell them how awesome that is! Don’t necessarily buy them a special toy or treat though. You want to make it clear that getting results is important in itself, not a way of getting presents.

However, don’t make a big deal out of a mistake or not coming in first. Failures are just another way of learning. Remind your child of the valuable lesson they’ve learned and ask them what they think they could do next time to improve. Doing this will set progression tools for the rest of their lives.

Sources:

-“How to Raise Gifted Children.” Parenting.com

-Photo courtesy of photo stock/freedigitalphotos.net