Summer is coming! I am sure you’ve enrolled your kids in summer camps, booked a few vacations, and planned some play dates, but have you thought about how you’ll stay on top of your kiddos’ academics while they’re home? I’ve already started thinking about how to spiral in what they’ve learned this past year to make sure they don’t lose it. I plan to find creative ways to keep them engaged by using everyday things that we have around the house. If you don’t have these things, there’s nothing a quick Amazon order won’t fix. Let’s take the use of dominoes for instance. Quinn is finishing up 5th grade, and one of their math focuses this year was converting improper fractions to mixed numbers. A big focus in third grade for Demi was learning her multiplication facts. In Kindergarten, Max worked on addition and subtraction up to 10. What better way to work on all of these than with dominoes? If you don’t have dominoes at home already, you can snag these on Amazon for cheap. Watch the video below to see how we used them as manipulatives. Have fun!
It’s Teacher Appreciation Week!
Life has been lifing this last month of school. I am an AP at my kids’ school, and y’all, I still waited until the last minute to get their teachers’ appreciation gifts together. I didn’t have much time, but I did the best I could with the materials I had at home, a grocery store run for gift cards and their favorite snacks, and some help from Amazon Prime (same day delivery). I’ve contemplated letting that monthly Prime membership go, but honey, it’s honestly worth every penny. Look at how cute my last minute gifts were for the teachers! I bought these boxes and crinkle cut paper shred from Amazon and used some ribbon I found at home. I would have much rather had used this ribbon, but it wouldn’t have gotten to me in time, and all of you on-time people bought out the school themed ribbon from my local Michaels and Hobby Lobby (insert eye roll). I used my Cricut machine and permanent vinyl to add a nice touch to their names, and voila! It took about 45 minutes to assemble the gifts. Maybe it’s too late for you to do this for Teacher Appreciation Week, but the end of the school year is coming, and they deserve a gift at that time too; teachers actually deserve the world. Thank me later.
Children’s Books About Race and Diversity
Please comment below if you know of any other good books about diversity to add to the list. I would recommend that you also read children’s books by diverse authors (not necessarily about race) to expose your children to unfamiliar writers/ writers who don’t look like them.
- Sister Anne’s Hands- Marybeth Lorbiecki
- Teach Your Dragon about Diversity- Steve Herman
- A Kids Book About Racism- Jelani Memory
- Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation- Duncan Tonatiuh
- Shades of People- Shelly Rotner and Sheila Kelly
- The Other Side- Jacqueline Woodson
- We are the Change: Words of Inspiration from Civil Rights Leaders- Harry Belafonte
- Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans- Kadir Nelson
- The Proudest Blue: The Story of Hijab and Family- Ibtihaj Muhammad
- Mixed: A Colorful Story- Arree Chung
- Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness (Ordinary Terrible Things)- Anastasia Higginbotham
- Ruth and the Green Book- Calvin Alexander Ramsey and Gwen Strauss
- All Because You Matter-Tami Charles
- Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America- Emily Easton
- Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down- Andrea Davis Pinkney
- God’s Dream- Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams
- Desmond and the Very Mean World- Desmond Tutu
- The Arabic Quilt: An Immigrant Story- Aya Khalil
- Skin Like Mine (Kids Like Mine)- LaTashia M. Perry
- This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World- Matt Lamothe
- I Am Enough- Grace Byers
- Happy in Our Skin Paperback- Fran Manushkin
- A Child’s Introduction to African American History: The Experiences, People, and Events That Shaped Our Country- Jabari Asim
- Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice- Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard
- The Day You Begin- Jacqueline Woodson
Sparking Creativity
We are just coming off of the long holiday break where kids were home bothering parents for the 12th snack and screaming, “I’m boorrreedddd!”
We don’t allow devices on weekdays, but I bent the rules a little and allowed an hour of device time here and there throughout the break, particularly for my oldest two kids- Quinn and Demi. (Poor Max has the iPad as his full time babysitter sometimes. Sue me.) I let them choose how they want to split their device time. Of course they always want to use it all in one sitting. When it was time for them to shut it off, Quinn immediately began to complain that he was bored. I told him that he’d better figure out his life because he’s not getting any electronics. He sat for another 30 minutes acting as though his life was ending due to having a bad case of nothing to do. I didn’t budge. I again told him that he needed to figure something out. Demi had already moved on to making me a five course meal in her play kitchen.
While I was doing the laundry, Quinn came over and helped me fold and put away clothes. After that, he took it upon himself to clean the toy box. He then cleaned his room. After he couldn’t find anything else to clean, he decided that he was going to use his legos, train tracks and books to build a “supercool racetrack where [his] Hot Wheels could do stunts.” HIs inventiveness was kicking in, and I liked it.
How often does your child use their imagination? Is it as much as you did when you were little? Remember playing doctor, teacher, house, and cops and robbers? You’d swear we were legit characters in those roles because we played them so well. As an educator, I can tell you that students lack critical thinking and problem solving skills. That is because they simply struggle to use their imagination. Children need to be afforded the opportunity to develop their own ingenuity. Allow your children to play! No, not video games. I’m talking real play. Allow them to do sidewalk art with chalk, paint, build with blocks, mold with play dough, do science experiments and dress up in costumes. (Tip: Buy costumes for the low, low after Halloween.) Let them kids make a mess, Sis. Let them go outside! Explore nature and bugs. Turn on the sprinkler and let them run through it. Let them fly a kite. Let them mimic an airplane and pretend they can fly.
Be honest. Are you providing your children enough opportunities for this type of play? They should not be spending hours at a computer, watching television or playing video games. Hell, watching other kids on YouTube makes them passive participants enthralled in someone else’s fun instead of creating their own. Sidenote- I think I’ve finally caved in to creating a family YouTube channel. Pray for me.
Being enrolled in sporting activities definitely allows them to develop their skills, but they’re not necessarily developing creativity. Don’t let them bother the hell out of you when they’re bored. Give them a cardboard box and have them create something. If your child complains of boredom, force them to figure out for themselves how to fill their time. I guarantee if you stress this enough, their creativity will soar! Who knows? You could be molding the next creative billionaire.
Teaching Your Child to Read
If ya’ll don’t hear me say anything else- hear this. You, yes YOU, need to work with your child at home. Don’t leave it all up to the teacher. Hell, believe it or not, she’s lowkey counting on you.
Trust me! I know that teaching a child to read seems like an impossible task, but I’m going to need you to use that same energy that you spend watching The Handmaid’s Tale, Power, and Queen Sugar to “sat down at the kitchen table with your child and help with that lesson.” Does that sound like your grandmother talking?
Teaching your child to read is going to take some time- not all of your time, but some. You know Rome wasn’t built in…I know you can finish the rest. This task is something that will require patience, commitment, and cursing under your breath- a lot.
I taught my now six-year-old son to read when he was three by using this amazing step-by-step resource (No, I am not getting paid to promote this.) All it took was 20 minutes out of my day. I set a timer, went through a lesson, and closed the book. That’s it. By Lesson 41, he was reading. I am not saying that this is THE resource for teaching your child to read, but it worked for me. The real test will be whether my less attentive four-year-old daughter will be successful with this method. And if she isn’t, that’s okay. We’ve all heard the saying, “Every child can learn- just not on the same day or in the same way.”
I know you’re probably wondering, “How can I help at home?” Glad you asked. Here are some of my recommendations. Take them or leave them- your choice.
- Have conversations with your children- even if they’re babies. You may think it’s silly to talk to a baby, but reading is a language activity. If anyone wants to learn a language, they need to hear it first. Then, eventually, speak it. Literacy skills are developed by exposing children to a variety of words; this is done mostly through conversation- real conversation. Time to eighty-six that goo-goo, gah-gah shit.
- Make reading a regular activity in your home by reading to your child or having your child read to you. Tip: To do this, cut out 30 minutes of scrolling through your social media accounts.
- Your child needs to understand how words work- their spoken parts and the sounds that letters/letter blends make. In case you’re feeling fancy, this concept is called phonological and phonemic awareness in the education world. You’ll know your child has a grasp on phonological awareness if he/she can clap out word syllables, recognize rhyming words or come up with words that have the same beginning and ending sound. If your child can blend (put together) and segment (break apart) words, they have phonemic awareness. To work on blending, have your child listen to the individual sounds of a word. For example b-a-g, ch-in, bl-a-st, etc. They should be able to blend the word together and say it. To work on segmenting, have your child break apart the words. Say the word, and have them tell you which sounds they hear. If you say dish, they should be able to say d-i-sh.
- Listen to your child read and ask questions about what they’re reading. Comprehension is a key part of reading. A child’s reading level is not only based on their fluency but their understanding of the text as well. Here is a list of questions that you can ask your child after a reading selection. Make sure to ask the appropriate questions based on the genre (fiction or nonfiction) of the text.
Remember to be patient, stay committed and curse a lot. Good luck, Mama!