Beat the Winter Blues

With the impending snow forcasted for our area this week, we thought that we would share some of our favorite tips and suggestions to beat the winter blues with the cabin fever you might be experiencing shortly, if not already after last week's storms!

How did your child do in the first half of the school year? Were you pleased with his or her performance, or do you think there is room for improvement? No matter what letters appeared on your child’s report card, January is the perfect time to help him or her get excited about going back to school and learning.

This can be accomplished by creating an atmosphere in your home that encourages learning. Sylvan Learning offers a few tips concerning how to get involved with your child’s learning process and help motivate him or her in the new year.

• Have family reading time at least once a week. Utilize Book Adventure, a free Sylvan-created interactive, reading motivation program that can be found on Book Adventure. Students choose their own books from more than 7,500 titles, take short comprehension quizzes and redeem their accumulated points for small prizes. Book Adventure also offers teacher and parent resources and tips to help children develop a lifelong love of reading. A snowy day is a great time to set this up together and begin earning points.

• Set aside a specific time for homework and studying. Take advantage of this quiet time to sit with your child and work on your paperwork. This visually demonstrates the importance of “work time” to your child.

• If homework was a struggle during the first semester, set up a reward system for this semester. For example, deposit change in a small jar when homework is complete. As soon as the jar is full, treat the whole family to something everyone will enjoy.

• Refresh your child’s “study space.” Make sure that all materials, such as pencil sharpeners, erasers and extra paper are easily accessible and in adequate supply. When something is new and exciting, kids will want to use it. As one of our students recently commented after starting in our Study Skills program, he went out and bought a new agenda book because he knew he would be so excited about it he would actually use it.

• Create study plans. Have your child do his most challenging assignment first, while he is most focused, then have him work on easier tasks. Finish each homework session with a fun activity.

• Search the Internet with your child to learn more about topics being covered in school. Try TeacherTube (kind of like YouTube but more kid-friendly) for videos on different items from Social Studies or freerice.org to learn new vocabulary.

• Invite your child to participate in cooking or shopping to strengthen his or her math skills.

• Encourage your child to choose a classmate with whom he can study and swap reading books. On Amazon.com, you can download an app for your home computer or smartphone to read Kindle books, many of which you can also download for free from Project Gutenburg or other free sources.

• Get your child organized inside and outside of school. By being organized, your child will have plenty of time to complete all assignments, and she will also learn the value of time management.

• Talk to your child’s teachers. The second half of the year can be more challenging than the first. Find out if your child needs extra help in a specific subject in order to keep up with the class.

For more educational resources for children in grades pre-K through 12, please visit www.SylvanLearning.com or call your nearest center.

Clinton, NJ 908-638-6788
Hamilton, NJ 609-588-9037
Flemington, NJ 908-806-4010