PART  OF  YOUR  CHILD'S 

READING  HOMEWORK!!!

When your child starts school and you start receiving their homework assignments and all of a sudden you start seeing all of these new approaches to learning you say to yourself (really how OLD AM I???).  You read it once (perhaps in sheer disbelief), and then again NO this is for real (my child is telling me about this partially, and right now needs a little assistance with it.  So I am delving into this and making sure that I am a diligent parent and fully understand this.  So by the time we are done with this assignment I can assure you I will be a PRO on this particular skill.  Then I will be building up endurance for the next one.  Good luck, parents we are here for you and your children.

A U T U M N   T I M E

The four seasons of the year summer, fall, winter, and spring.  Living in sunny Florida  the subject of seasons is hard for our students to comprehend.  They associate the seasons more with holidays.  Their fall is Halloween, winter is Christmas or Hanukah, Spring is Easter or Passover, and summer is 4th of July or just plain summer vacation time or possibly camp.  We can talk about the leaves changing or the flowers blooming,  how it snows and people making snowmen but really does that happen or is it all "make-believe."

H A P P Y    T H O U G H T S

It is up to the Teacher to make their classroom a happy place where their students feel comfortable and want to come to class everyday.    I always like to put a happy thought or quote on the board each morning and have one of the students read it and we discuss what it means to us.  I suggest that it would be nice to say the comment to someone and watch how they react to it.  That it always makes people feel good when you say good things to them.  Good thoughts and feelings talked about in many different ways daily can really help any students that have that negative approach towards everything.

                    T H O U G H T S
So many students utter these words, "I can't do this,  this is too hard, I don't know how to do this, I was never taught this before" etc....  They receive the instructions, either they listened or didn't bother to listen and now they have the paper of the assignment in front of them and they "freeze".  They see that their classmates are diligently working away and they have NOT even attempted to do anything.  They have these negative thoughts going on in their heads that are preventing them from doing their work.  The more negative their thoughts the harder it becomes for the thought process to work.  They become frustrated, their thoughts do not flow out freely, and that causes more mistakes.  I like to try to erase the negativity as much as possible and just do as much praising as possible and stay away with criticizing remarks.

9/11  REMEMBRANCE DAY

A day that has had a major impact on so many of us.  When we tell our students about the events of the day and what actually happened.  The poor innocent students are in awe with questions of disbelief. "Why would they do that???"  "That is such a mean thing to do."  I had a question from one, aren't they being bullies to us???  What happened to our school classroom rules about treating everyone like you would want to be treated???  Gets rather confusing for a "young mind."

E M O T I O N S

We all have them BUT we have to teach our students how to manage their emotions.  Just like teaching them how to read and their math facts it is important that they learn how to control their emotions.  A  few important steps taught in the classroom can make a huge carry over to the rest of their lives.    They must never hurt someone else  or themselves for that matter.  When they are upset they should take deep breaths and count to 10.   Always use their voice to express their feelings or write them down and tell what they wish would happen.   Ask for help from a teacher, parent, friend, or counselor.  Take time to do another activity or walk away from what they are doing.  

A M A Z I N G

Instilling in your child how special and individual they are is very important.  Every child has AMAZING qualities and they might be completely different then the child they are friendly with or sit next to in school.  One might be friendlier or smarter.  The other might be taller or a better reader.  Children at a very young age become aware of these differences and some children it doesn't phase them at all and others it has a huge impact on them.  Students that are very  competitive or want to always be the one who is the best at everything have a hard time excepting that it doesn't work that way.  So it is important for Teachers to stress how AMAZING they are at what they do so well at.

MY  TEACHER

DOESN'T

LIKE ME!!!!

If your child hits you with, "my teacher doesn't like me," empathize with your child and their frustrations.  Don't jump on the I hate the teacher bandwagon.  Doing so will just cloud the situation and you won't be able to think rationally about it.  Instead talk about the situation and perhaps your child is misinterpreting the situation.  Is the teacher "mean" or just demanding excellence from the students?  The teacher is not mean for having you rewrite a messy paper.  If you had written it neatly you wouldn't have had to rewrite it.  The teacher isn't mean for having you miss recess because you were busy socializing and didn't finish your assignments.  A teacher isn't mean for having you sit in the front of the room next to her because you were being disruptive and she couldn't get through the lesson she had planned.  So help your child to see these things through their teacher's eyes.  Though if things continue and it is a constant conversation set up a conference with the teacher to have a deep conversation about the concerns.