Teaching and Learning at Home

Why mindfulness? Though we are all doing our best to keep our kids away from today’s news, the drastically different school day, reduced playtime with friends, increased time being cooped up at home, and glimpses of adult daily worries has potentially increased some of our children's’ tendency to be anxious. You may have noticed this anxiousness manifested in a variety of ways including but not limited to physical ailments, a greater degree of emotional sensitivity, avoidance of family and friends, and perhaps more commonly through a deluge of dramatic meltdowns. You might be wondering where did my kid go and how do I get them back?! I know our family has experienced these ranges of emotions just in the span of the last 24 hours alone. What is mindfulness? While we can’t control what’s going outside our homes, we can to some extent try to control the thoughts in our heads that lead us to these more extreme, anxious reactions. This mindset, of actively and purposefully ...

Video clips are a great multi-sensory way to provide just-in-time bits of information. If captions are enabled, these clips allow students to access information by visual, auditory, and textual means. They have the potential to amplify the accessibility of information only if kids are actively thinking while watching content. Note taking is one easy strategy students can use to engage their brains while watching.

There seems to be a bit of anxiety among parents about the “new math” kids are learning these days. Isn’t math just math? Why can’t kids learn math the way we were taught? Isn’t 2+2 always going to be 4? All good questions. Whether kids are engaging in Common Core, Everyday Math, Singapore Math, Russian Math, or another equally promising program, math programs these days attempt to break down algorithmic thinking by building up a child’s number sense. In plain English, knowing the why and how behind addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division steps lends itself to knowing relationships between numbers when doing algebra, calculus, and trigonometry problems. Some math programs today are more visual, some more hands-on, some emphasize modeling, some problem solving, but all have the same end. Kids need to deeply understand why and how 2+2=4, beyond memorization of the fact alone. How do we know number sense is important? Countries who take the time to develop number sense...

Video chats between students and teachers are an innovative way to sustain quality instructional experiences during our current crisis. They allow teachers and students to connect in real time, answer each other's questions, align goals for the day, introduce new topics, as well as review concepts. The potential of these chats can be realized if students use the following guidelines:

The increased number of people at home during this crisis has inevitably increased our amount of housework as well.  It's difficult to keep things clean and organized while also trying to keep kids entertained, engaged, and learning. Is there a way to combine our daily and academic tasks? With some imagination, maybe so. Consider embedding learning opportunities (and fun) while engaging kids in your daily tasks. While there are limitless ways to do this, here are just few easy examples: Cooking      Trying to cook while kids are running around the house? Try engaging them to cook with you. Here are just a few benefits of working together: Reading  - Understanding directions is always a terrific academic endeavor - no matter what the age. Kids who can follow directions perform better in school. Practice this skill by having your child either read directions to you as you model each step or vice versa.  Writing - Come up with your own recipe. How w...