We're all short on time, but here are a few big family ideas for parenting that you can fit in no matter how much you have:
5 Minutes: Student Homework and Fun Family Activities
- Look at your student's homework, but don’t just say it’s nice. Experts say kids are more motivated when you tell them exactly what you like and how it makes things better for them and others.
- Play I Spy. Say “I spy something aqua colored” or “I spy something that begins with the letter N.” Kids love to play guessing games, and won’t even realize they’re learning.
- Build his vocabulary. Ask him to repeat a word like “physician,” and then explain what it is and how it’s used in a sentence. Kids with large vocabularies become stronger readers faster. But they can’t get it from TV, which even at its best uses only about half as many complex words as books and magazines.
20 Minutes: Parent-Teacher Communication and Exploration
- Call or e-mail the teacher in K12 grades and ask how your daughter is doing in reading or math.
- Read a book part-way and ask her to guess what comes next or to create her own ending.
- Help her explore her world by seeing how water changes from a solid to a liquid to a gas. Let her hold the ice. Ask her what she thinks will happen when she puts it in a warm pot? And then when the water boils? Is it still water? What would happen if she put it back in the freezer? Tell her how making guesses, testing them and being honest about what you see is what science is all about.
120 Minutes: Field Trip Ideas and Parents' Stories
- Take him to a zoo, college campus or nature center and let him lead the way using a simple map.
- Just for fun, ask him to help you write your shopping list or read signs to find an item at the store.
- Tell him a story about how your community was different when you were a kid and why it changed. Better yet, show him examples of how different things are now. You’re the first history book he’ll ever read.