How to Prevent Homework Battles

It’s been a long day of school. Your child is tired and wants to relax, however they have some homework to finish. You ask them to do their homework, but they refuse, and this causes an argument. These arguments between a parent and child over homework are very common, and known as homework battles. In hopes of avoiding a homework battle, I’ve compiled a list on how to make doing homework easier for you and your child.

1. Expectations
Sit down with your child and discuss your expectations and goals for homework now. This step will only get harder as the school year goes on. Having clear expectations will make sure that your child can’t say they didn’t know they had to do their homework

Also, as the year goes on, it might be more difficult to keep track of the expectations you set at the beginning of the year, but you must fight this, and keep reminding your child that they have expectations to keep. The constant, daily reminder of expectations, will make sure that your agreement never slips either your or your child’s mind.

2. Set aside time in the day
Creating a daily routine, and setting specific time for homework is important to acknowledging their importance and making sure your child isn’t doing anything else. Very often in homework battles your child complains that they were playing and don’t want to do their homework. With a specific time for homework, you can tell your child things like: “it’s 5 o’clock, what do we always do at 5 o’clock.” 

For a good time to do homework, I recommend giving them about an half an hour to an hour of free time when they get home from school, before setting aside time for homework. Also, feeding them a healthy snack before work can help their brain better engage with the work.

3. Know how much to help
It is not a bad idea to help your child do their homework, but doing their homework is another story. In fact, children sometimes use parents to do their homework, so they can get back to playing. In hopes of avoiding this, you should help the child get to the answer, but never ever actual give them the answer. This will help them critically look at a problem, and be able to solve it themselves. A perfect gauge of the effectiveness of your helping, is seeing if your child can answer a similar question alone. If they can, that means you helped them figure out the process to get an answer, and not the answer itself.  If you feel like you are just giving away answers, just walk away and let your child work alone.
4. Find the best location
At the beginning of the year ask your child to pick the spot that makes them the most comfortable to concentrate and work in. Once they’ve picked, make this the homework spot, and they sit there when doing their homework. Each child has a different spot that is comfortable, finding the perfect one is a key to making them happier and less argumentative to do their homework.

5. If all else fails, visit us!
 Light in the Attic Learning does offer the Homework Hub. The Homework Hub is an instructor monitored work center, where students can complete their homework. If they need help, the instructor is there to assist them. As always, If you have any questions about the Homework Hub you can click the email button below and email me.

In the end, I hope these five tips will lead you and your child to less homework battles and more, smoother homework sessions.

All the best,
David

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The Different Ways to Learn

Throughout the education sector a debate about class sizes has been raging on for decades. Many studies have shown that smaller class sizes are beneficial to most students, especially those in earlier grades and with learning disabilities.

One reason reducing class sizes is so effective is because it allows for more individual learning styles to be explored. There are many different learning styles, that range from a student more effectively obtaining knowledge from reading off a page, to those who learn through taste and smell. Here is a link to a page with some different learning styles. It is important to discover a students unique learning style because it allows the teacher to focus lessons on student’s learning strengths, while avoiding that student’s weaknesses in learning. Which, in the end, will help the student obtain more knowledge, and lead them down the path to academic success. In fact, a study proved that matching a lesson to student specific learning style can lead to that student being 8.3%* more academically successful. That is an improvement of more than a letter grade.

To clarify any confusion with this abstract idea, let’s use an example. If student x understands more when listening to the teacher speak, but has trouble picking up the meaning of a book they read, they can be classified as an aural learner, with their difficulties coming in print learning. For this student to be more academically successful, it is important to talk to them, and read out their written work, instead of getting them to read their work on their own. This is a way of creating a lesson that works towards a student’s strengths.

A environment that allows a lesson to work towards a student’s strength, is one on one sessions. One on one sessions are so effective because they allow the teacher to entirely focus on one student. Meaning that the teacher can gear their lesson towards that students learning style. With the student is being taught with their specific learning style, they may be 8.3% more successful.

If you are interested, and having trouble figuring out you or your child’s learning style, Light in the Attic Learning does offer personal learning evaluations. As always, if you have any questions about personal learning evaluations, or anything else, don’t hesitate to email me by clicking the button below.

All the best,
David

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Some Food for Thought

Think about this morning, think about your routine, think about what you did. You woke up your child, helped them get dressed and maybe just left for school. In this routine, what’s the key ingredient that’s missing? Like 8% of children under 12 years old, your missing breakfast.

Making sure that your child is always feed properly with healthy food is vital in ensuring a strong academic performance everyday. According to a study, there was a direct connection between hunger and a child having behavioral, emotional, and academic problems.

With the connection between performance and hunger so prevalent, it is important to make breakfast part of your daily routine. As well as having breakfast, packing a healthy lunch for your child everyday is important. These lunches should include fresh fruit, cheese, juice and a healthy sandwich. The lunch should be big enough to make sure your child will stay full for the entire afternoon, but not big enough to make them bloated. It will take some communication and trial and error with your child to find the perfect size lunch. 

As part of Light in the Attic Learning’s commitment to make sure your child never goes hungry, we are proud to provide healthy snacks for your child. These snakes include delicious, healthy treats, such as cheese sticks and crackers.

As always, if you have any question about the snakes we offer, you can click the email button below and send me an email.

All the best,
David

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Four Ways to Manage a Successful School Year

School is back!

As part of preparation for the new year, I went on CP24 yesterday and talked about the four ways to manage a successful school year. If you missed them, here they are:

1. Develop Organization Skills

Organization skills are critical to academic success. There are several things you can do to help and encourage your child to stay organized. The single most important tool for organization is an agenda. Digital or paper, an agenda helps your child stay on top of upcoming tests and assignments. Purchasing an agenda is simple enough but actually keeping it up and actively using one is not innate. To help your child learn how to get the most out of an agenda you can request long-range plans from your child’s teacher (see Get to know the teacher) and build a schedule working backwards with your child. Make sure your child is cataloging all upcoming tests and assignments in the agenda and work backwards to determine a schedule of activity that will allow them to meet timelines. You can also keep a large calendar in view featuring major milestones so they are top of mind for the family.

2. Build good study habits

Routine is the name of the game for building good study habits. Build into your daily schedule a specific time set aside for homework and STICK TO IT. Ensure your child has a quiet, well-lit place with all of the tools they need (pencils, paper, geometry set, etc.) so that there is no need for them to procrastinate. Younger children (under grade 6) should be doing their homework in a public part of the house (kitchen
or dining room table). Older kids can use a separate quiet space as long as they can stay motivated. If you find that your older child is not maximizing their study time, back to the kitchen it is! Discourage distractions. This means no TVs or music on. Remember that agenda? Actively using it can help your child prioritize what they should be doing during each study period.

3. Set Screen Time Restrictions

Many of us are familiar with setting restrictions for TV and computer time at home, but the proliferation of personal mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, adds another layer of complexity to distractions. Instead of simply limiting TV time, we recommend limiting ‘screen time’ which includes
texting with friends, updating Facebook and tweeting. Set expectations with your child and provide them with a reasonable limit for screen time after homework time. They may just get bored enough to pick up a book!

4. Get to Know the Teacher

Teachers can be your child’s biggest allies. Get to know your child’s teachers by booking time to discuss
objectives and goals for the year. These meetings are a great time to request long-range plans. Let them know you are looking forward to working with them as a partner to help your child achieve maximize success. Ask them how they prefer to receive communications. Some teachers prefer email, others would rather set up time to chat face to face. If issues come up throughout the year, such as behaviour or poor performance, make sure they feel supported. Try to create a collaborative team environment where you both work together for the benefit of the child. If you agree on a path forward, make sure you hold up your end of the bargain.

In the end, by following these four tips, you can help your child succeed in and out of the classroom.

All the best,
David

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