Teacher’s Brain

Author: teachersbrain

Educator

Summer Practice for Kids

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Activities for Kids that ENHANCE Summer

If you have ever worried about your kids suffering from summer brain drain, then there are some easy things you can do to keep them motivated to learn all summer.

Kids Reading, Relaxing, Kids On Vacation, Summer


Here is a list of things to tell children’s parents to do with your child at home:

Helpful Tips

1.Crack open a dictionary.  Ask them to find a hard word like, “integrity” in the dictionary. Then, have them explain the meaning to you.

2. Teach your child how to do the laundry.

3. Play a board game with your child.

4. Teach your child to set the table.  Have them count all the silverware.  Reinforce the “game” by offering desert for the right answer.  Continue with teaching them how to make a special dinner.

5. Children at any age love to paint! Give them water colors and paper outside. Let them go crazy with splattering/flicking paint on the paper.  If they have an outdoor playhouse, let them paint it with water colors.  When it rains, it come right off.

6. Encourage your child to tell you a prediction to an ending to a movie or story.

7. Tell your child they can only watch TV or play a video game if they can tell you the time on the clock. (not digital…) 

8. Encourage your child to do a garage sale with you or open a lemonade stand to earn a little extra money.  Tell family members to come visit so they can not only participate, but test them on giving change for items.

9. Father’s Day is often overlooked during the school year, so let your child make a project or go shopping for dad and give them a budget.

10. Ask your child to come up with words that rhyme and challenge them to make a rap using the rhyming words.

11. At bed time, ask your child to sequence the events of their day.

12. Create a new dance move or hand shake with your child. 

13. Do some wood working with your child, but letting them use a hammer and nails to build something like a birdhouse with your supervision.

14. Ask your child to show you a Jumping Jack, Push Up, or Skipping. 

 You would be surprised how many kids can’t do these tasks.

15. Use chalk outside to make Hopscotch. Teach them how to play.

16. Teach your child figure out how to play frisbee or tennis.

Summer Practice for Kids

Sending home summer practice packets for kids is a great way to keep kids actively learning all summer too!

Over 90 printables to review what students should already know from 4th Grade to practice on before they enter 5th Grade. It has math, literacy, and writing activities. There is a summer weekly journal for kids to write daily about their summer events. Parents have suggestions and directions they can do to keep their kids prepared for the next level!

CLICK HERE FOR:

Related Products

☀️ End of the YEAR Summer Packet From 1st grade to 2nd

☀️ End of the Year Summer Packet For KINDERGARTEN to 1st Grade Review

☀️ End of the Year Summer Packet Pre-K to Kindergarten

☀️ Summer Packet for 2nd Grade to 3rd Grade

☀️ Summer Packet for 4th Grade to 5th Grade (NEW)

Make Learning FUN!

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WHY?

I had someone once try to make me feel bad about having fun while teaching in my kindergarten classroom. They even said I should use the word “engaging” instead of fun. 

Never mistake smiles and laughter in the classroom as not learning. It is the way to build rapport and capture interest. It is a tool to open the door to learning! Don’t ever let anyone make you feel guilty about having fun in your classroom! Open that DOOR! 

Always?

Not every lesson is going to be a Disney experience. We want students to value learning even if it’s not always fun. Plus, teachers would be exhausted planning lessons. That is a great reason to used Teachers Pay Teachers to find “FUN” lessons. Rigorous learning entails deep thought and reflecting on those thoughts. You should also run a very tight ship when giving instructions or it will lead to repeat instructions and misunderstandings.

We are competing with technology now in a new way. Today’s technology is a game changer in education! One great way to ensure engagement is to integrate technology into your lessons. I try to make every educational resource have some kind of fun hook or exciting end of the unit review to capture a moment that students will be inspired to learn. Most of them include technology.

I want children to wake up excited to come to school. FUN lessons are a perfect tool to increase student engagement, to retain information, and to build a rapport with your students. We should strive for creating fun memorable moments with students regularly. Research shows that engaging students in the learning process, including technology, movement, comedy and collaboration increases learning.


?? Share your ways you build rapport with your students.

Quote: I dream of a world where children wake up excited to go to school!

Secret Tips to Successful Goal Setting

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Hi, everybody!  I promised you last week that I would share with you my secret tips for goal setting, making sure you feel successful at the end of the day, and ways that you actually will follow through with your goals.  Time got away from me last week, but I am here now!

I want to let you know that making goals in today’s world is a MUST! You have got to set goals or you are just going to spin your wheel’s and not get anywhere.  So let me share with you some of my goal setting secrets.

First of all, you have to know what your big mission is whether that be doing something great in your business, losing weight, or wanting more family time.  

What is it that you want?  

This is going to help you decide what your goals are in the morning.  I want you to do these first thing when you wake up. You could do these at night, but I believe that it is important to do this first thing in the morning!  

Write Down Your Goals

So when you wake up, before you grab your phone, I want you to write down three goals.  These are doable or fairly simple goals. I want you to physically write these down. Even though you may believe that you can just say them in your head and memorize them, studies show that when you write something down (like these goals) you are fives times more likely to follow through with your goals.  

My three goals for today:

  1. Do a Facebook video about goals! (DONE!)
  2. Write a Blog. (In the Process!)
  3. Workout for 30 minutes. (DONE!)

Visualize Your Goal

Now this next part is very important! Don’t skip this!  Right after I write that down, I close my eyes for about 30 seconds, and I visualize myself doing each one of my goals.  I will also try to attach some sort of feeling with it. How will I feel after I am done with the workout or how will it feel to do my Facebook Live, and to follow through with something I told everybody I was going to do? I put a feeling with each goal by visualizing it.  

These goals can be little things, but they are all leading up to the big mission or mission statement that you are wanting to work up to completing or accomplishing.  Harvard studies actually show that if you are doing little things that are of some importance to you, and you finish them in a short period of time you will go to sleep feeling successful, accomplished, and satisfied.  

Sometimes life happens. I will make 3 simple goals that I think will get done within one hour, and I do not even get them completed that day!  That’s okay, because I will just add them on to the next day. I put them on my list for tomorrow, no big deal. I still feel successful the next day if I get them done, and I will still feel accomplished.  Chances are if you can not visualize it when you are trying to think about your goals, you are not going to do it. So if you come up with something too big and you can not picture yourself doing it in that 30 second time frame, you will most likely not follow through.  

Final Goal Setting Secrets

Those are all my goal setting secrets that actually have been working for me that I wanted to share with you.  Make sure that you know what your end game is or your end mission. If you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to get there?

Go ahead and start tomorrow!  

Create 3 simple goals that are doable, write them down, visualize it, and FOLLOW THROUGH!  Now go be a great goal setter!

Black History for KIDS

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Celebrate

Black History Month presents a great opportunity, not only to celebrate the achievements of African-Americans who have helped shape our culture, but also time to reflect on where we are as a nation.  We need to continue to grow together.  Above all, it is a time to rise-up to remember that the only race that defines us is the human race.

In the Classroom

Teaching Black History to children helps build a connection with history, so they can better understand the past, and develop compassion for other people.   Furthermore, engaging children in activities such as reading books, listening to music, making meals, or watching video footage of actual events are great ways to teach kids about the African-American experience. These are activities that can be explored all year, not just in February. Almost every new teacher asks for ideas on how to teach Black History in the classroom, so here are some ideas to consider.

  • Food to try.
    • Stoplight Cookies with M&Ms (discuss the inventor of the stoplight, Garrett Morgan)
    • Twice-Baked Yams
    • Okra
    • Banana Pudding
    • Sweet Tea
    • Shrimp Creole
    • Peanut Soup (discuss George Washington Carver) *Make sure you check for any food allergies before serving.
  • Listen to music.
  • Watch a video. (Make sure it is culturally sensitive by maintaining a strict level of sensitivity to language.)
  • Make a craft.
  • Seek out guest speakers.
    • I like to find a parent or a teacher who can talk about their choice of an African-American who made an impact in our cultural. They can read a book or do a speech. This should be approved by an administrator.
  • Write about your favorite African American Hero.

Finally, here is a list of African-Americans who are influential for students to write about:
•Oprah
•Elijah McCoy
•Harriet Tubman
•Frederick Douglass
•George Washington Carver
•Booker T. Washington
•Samuel Morris
•Dred Scott
•Matthew Henson
•Garrett A. Morgan
•James Weldon Johnson
•Colin Powell
•Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
•Barack Obama
•Mary Mcleod Bethune
•Ruby Bridges
•Mahalia Jackson
•Marian Anderson: singer
•Maya Angelou: singer, actress, activist, writer, poet
•Lil Hardin Armstrong: jazz musician
•Pearl Bailey: singer, performer, stage, film, special ambassador
•Marian Anderson: singer
•Regina Anderson: librarian, playwright
•Josephine Baker: entertainer
•Willie B. Barrow: minister, civil rights activist
•Daisy Bates: journalist, civil rights activist