When Travis Cohn Royce (now a teenager), was in grade school, his most faithful homework buddy was his mom, Lisa Cohn. At the time, Travis was enrolled in a challenging public school program that often required several hours of extra work. Lisa sat next to him at the kitchen table each night and helped him with his schoolwork. Over time, she got more involved - volunteering time in Travis’ classroom and regularly staying up past midnight to help her son finish projects. “I admit, I even did some of his homework for him on occasion,” says Lisa. “Sometimes he had so much work he couldn’t get to bed at night.”
The symptoms of a school slump are easy to spot. Your child trudges home with a sagging backpack after school, and discards it by the door until the next morning. Any questions you ask about school are met with an eye roll and/or a shrug. The process of getting your child out of bed in the morning is growing longer and more painful with each passing day. You know something is wrong, but what should you do? Luckily, slumps like these are not permanent. All most kids need is a little energy boost, and a couple of teacher’s tricks of the trade. Read on to find out how you can help your child bust out of the slump.
Have you noticed that anytime you’re outside with children, they naturally begin to pick things up and ‘collect’ them? It’s part of their natural curiosity about the world, and it is a wonderful thing. Nurture that curiosity by encouraging the children in your life to make collections of all kinds. Younger children can choose three or four treasures to save and display. Older children are able to do ever more detailed collections of all kinds.
The kids are in school all day. What are you going to do with all that free time?” I’m sure you’ve heard this. I know I have – as if there is such a thing as “free time”. The truth is, even though the kids are in school for a majority of the day, things are actually more hectic. Most weekday mornings start out chaotic; making sure everyone gets ready, has all their supplies and eats a good breakfast.
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