Learning | The Whole Kitten Kaboodle

Teach Your Kids to Love Learning

When it comes to kids and school, it can be difficult to get your kids to enjoy certain subjects. Some children enjoy subjects like math and science, while others are more into art and reading and writing.

One subject that most children have a love/hate relationship with throughout school is science. Why? Because it can either be a lot of fun or downright boring. If you have a child who is handling science class in this way, know there’s a simple solution to the problem.

Make learning fun. There are many ways you can do this, and the best way, especially if you can’t spend much money, is to create activities around the house and yard. Your backyard can offer many different science activities for kids. Over the past ten years, the availability of science-related items has exploded, with many different toys that let kids explore science. From growing a terrarium to growing crystals and building your own butterfly habitat, the possibilities can be endless. Some of these items may even work well with backyard science exploration.

The backyard can be explored with simple objects like magnifying glasses, allowing kids to see seedlings, sprouts, and numerous bugs up close. You and your children can bird watch with or without binoculars and keep track of the birds you see. You can even make a collage from items in the backyard. Leaves, blades of grass, flowers, and even a preserved but or two–all can make a beautiful collage of nature. With these items available outside, your child is sure to find something of interest.

Filed Under: Education, Elementary, Parents Tagged With: Educational Resources, Learning, Science education

Reading and Writing are Intertwined

Reading and writing are two of the most important things your child will learn in school. You can not have one without the other. They are intertwined in a way that learning one can help your child improve their work in another.

One of the best ways to help a struggling reader in school is to help that student learn to write. When they are making the connections between what is on the page and what is in their head, it can make a big difference. A creative student, who likes to write down his or her stories, will eventually become more receptive to the stories that others have written down. Showing the student how to read other stories for ideas about their own is a great way to get them interested in reading as well.

If you have a student who is struggling with writing, let them read more. It is a case of giving them the chance to learn by example. The author’s work is actually modeling for the student which way is the best way to write things. The more a struggling student reads, the more confident he or she will become in their ability to write. Explaining to the child that perfection is not expected at their age, but that the more they read and write the better they will get at both may help motivate someone who is struggling and wants to quit.

Some children have significant, undiagnosed reading disorders. Pushing a child who has issues that they can not control does not help anyone. If you suspect that your child has a reading disorder or a learning disorder of some sort, it is best to have them tested so that different teaching methods can be used with them before they begin to get discouraged.

Filed Under: Education, High School Tagged With: Learning, Literacy

How To Find Your Child’s Learning Style

Each of us are born individually and with our own unique learning style. What is a learning style defined by definition? Well, it is no other than the specific ways, in which each person does learn the best. Therefore, in order to get the best learning possible. The best learning style is a requirement that must be applied from childhood.

We all are born equipped with a defined learning style. It is this specific learning style that helps each of us to be able to learn more effectively. By identifying one’s own learning style. A person is able to capitalize solely on their strengths and learn how to benefit exclusively from these particular strengths. Children are no exception to this rule. If anything. They are the ones. Who can gain the most from their certain learning style in the world of learning.

How to find your child’s learning style involves exposing them to what works in the world of learning. Parents do have a major role in helping to educate their children and to prepare them to face the world. Parents are the ones who know their child’s uniqueness and they are people who encourage that uniqueness to come to the surface. Parents and teachers are the only individuals. Who can help children to see what their unique gifts are and how they can offer them to the learning process. After these unique gifts of a child’s has been identified. The next step is to nurture them as much as possible.

Discovering your child’s learning style will help make these unique gifts blossom along with his or her maturity.
As soon as a parent can determine what his or her child’s specific learning style is. The thing to do next is to inform their teacher of what learning their child is most receptive to in the learning area. Each child has their own set of strategies that work for them best in the learning department.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: Learning

By Learning K-12 And Beyond

By learning k-12 and beyond. Parents and teachers are arming youngsters with the best versatile learning tool from the onset of a child’s education. K-12 is innovative learning from start to finish and it is a technique that is being incorporated into many forefront schools, colleges everywhere. Learning k-12 and beyond is something that will help to unlock all the potential that your boy or girl has locked up inside of them. A child’s full potential is something required in order to bring out all the best that individualized learning does have to offer for those studying it.

This certain method of learning allows the child to think and come to their own conclusions. Placing a strong emphasis on thinking and letting kids come to their own conclusions is very different from any other form of conventional learning tactics.

One of the biggest advantages of learning k-12 and beyond is that it allows a student to develop their own thinking capability. How much of a thinking capability that a student does possess matters greatly where learning aptitude is concerned. Each student is responsible for their overall success in the world of education. The only thing a teacher can do is guide their students as far as learning goes. A child has to either want to learn or don’t want to learn. The choice is entirely their own and this also applies to applying themselves to their homework and school projects.

Students who learn in a k-12 environment are encouraged constantly to be creative in his or her own way. Boys and girls come up with their own unique ideas and views. They are also allowed by the teacher to coöperate when speaking their minds in their own unique ways. Students are also able to connect what they know with what they do not know. This gives them the chance to gain a better understanding of things overall.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: Learning

The Changing Nature of Learning Environments

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The classroom has been the historic place of learning. That seems obvious, with venerable institutions such as Harvard and Stanford having churned out thousands of bright highly educated graduates over the years. These graduates have gone on to become captains of industries as diverse as science and computing. But has the classroom, a room adorned with desks, blackboards, and eager students, always been the primary learning center?

Looking back through history at the crowds of intellectuals who surrounded the likes of Socrates as he mused over philosophical issues, one might take pause. A lot of great thinking came out of the ancient Greek meetings of the minds, and theirs was no classroom based system. How about the great thinking behind the thousands of inventions credited to Thomas Edison? He did his best work in a lab, usually alone or with an assistant. But never did he seem to spend his time trying to learn the ins and outs of a light bulb inside of a classroom. No, he instead created an environment in which it was safe to learn, to experiment, to fail. Most modern classrooms do not offer this feeling. Students feel embarrassed to even give short speeches in front of their peers, let alone to fail in a colossal fashion.

As physical classrooms give way to digital learning environments, something seems lost in the transition. The student interactions have disappeared. Or have they? The format has changed, but interaction is still a large part of the learning process. For those studying with online programs, web based forums exist to pass questions back and forth, similar to the set up of partner study groups. Not only do students partake of this methodology, but professors also drop in to answer questions which students pose. The format cuts down on such fears as being afraid to fail in front of other students.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Classroom, Education, Learning, Methods and Theories, Socrates, Student, Teacher, Thomas Edison

Simple Ways To Help Your Child Succeed In School

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In regards to a child’s education, parents play an essential role in helping their child succeed throughout the entire experience. Many parents may become nervous at this prospect and mistakenly believe that they themselves must be highly educated in order to help their child embrace school. However, there are many tips and advice for parents that do not require parents to possess a specific level of education. In reality, it is far more important for parents to consistently demonstrate an overall positive attitude about school. This simple, yet crucial action will give your child the extra encouragement they need to succeed in school, even when things become difficult.

Parents can help their children start to think creatively about career aspirations and educational goals by sparking discussions about potential careers that are of interest to the child. At this point in a child’s development, it is important to foster the idea that anything is possible through hard work and a complete education.

Other tips and advice for parents include the fact that children are very impressionable. Therefore, parents must be careful not to let any of their personal negative impressions of school rub off onto their children. Instead, think back on the positive points of your educational memories, and use your successes to help your children in their own right.

Also, embrace the value of setting goals. These can be related to the simple act of turning in a project on time, or reaching the next level of the school spelling bee. Although it is important to keep your child motivated throughout the learning process, try not to let them get too competitive, so that the learning value of the goal is diminished.

Finally, talk to your children about school, even if it is something as simple as asking them about any exciting events that occurred during the school day. An effort to stay involved in the educational process will help your children follow your lead.

Filed Under: High School, Higher Education, Students Tagged With: Child, Education, Family, Learning, Parent

Learning Tips and Advice for Parents

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While parents usually aren’t in a child’s classroom, they do play a huge role in the success of their student. The parent is also responsible for making sure a child receives a quality education. Part of this duty means making sure a child learns in school.
Parents need to reinforce what the teacher does in the classroom and should extend learning to at home. By doing so, the child will perform better at school.
Some tips and advice for parents hoping to help the learning process include asking what the child learned, talking to the teacher about techniques to reinforce at home and planning hands on activities for children.
Parents should help their child retain the information learned in the classroom by asking the student at home about what they learned at home. By asking the child to recite some of the things learned in the classroom, the child is more likely to retain that information and remember it for quizzes and tests at school. Each night, a parent should go over with the child what they did in school that day.
Also helpful is to work with children in areas they seem to be struggling in school. For example, if the student is having difficulty mastering the multiplication table, then extra practice needs to happen at home.
One way to know where a student is struggling is to ask the teacher. Parents need to work with the teacher. They also need to work with the teacher to make sure they’re teaching skills in the same way the teacher is so the child doesn’t become confused. Also, the teacher might have learning tops and advice for parents that want to work with their child.
Finally, a parent can help their child learn by following up classroom lessons with real world experiences. By taking their child to places they read about in school, they’re more likely to remember the lesson.

Filed Under: Parents Tagged With: Child, Classroom, Education, Family, Learning, Parent, Student, Teacher

Things To Consider For A Smooth Educational Experience

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A child’s education is an essential part of their development that will provide lifelong benefits. As a parent, it is important for you to have a clear understanding of what kids need to start and finish school.

The school’s environment is very important. Ideally, your child should attend a location that nurtures their desire to learn, and embraces their unique talents. While some children may be best suited to attend a private school, others will be happier in a public setting. If possible, research the available education options in your area, and take school tours if available. You are most intimately aware of your child’s educational strengths and weaknesses and will probably find that you are also most adept at determining what sort of school setting is most appropriate.

Once you have determined where your child will attend classes, take steps to forge lasting relationships with the teachers and administrative staff. It takes little more than a steady, constant effort to play a role in the educational outcome of your child. Whenever possible, make yourself available to attend school functions ranging from parent-teacher meetings, to junior proms to bake sales. Your attention to these seemingly minor details will motivate your child, and play a part in what kids need to start and finish school.

Help your child with homework when asked, and consider the idea of engaging in extracurricular activities such as community outreach and museum trips to enhance the learning process that is begun at school, yet can continue in the home environment.

Finally, attempt to help your household view education in a positive light and encourage them to support your child’s educational efforts whenever possible. When a child sees their family and friends standing behind them in unified admiration, they will be much more apt to see their education through to completion.

Filed Under: High School, Higher Education, Students Tagged With: Education, Extracurricular activity, Learning, Private school

How To Support Your Child Through A Lifetime Of Learning

As a parent, it is important to help your children view their educational journey as a lifelong experience that doesn’t have to end with their graduation from high school.

If possible, find out what curriculum your child’s school is using, and explore the concepts taught so that you can engage in thoughtful conversations with your child about what they are currently learning, and what they hope to achieve.

During the formative years of your child’s education, they will likely want to investigate every possible option for potential careers and extracurricular hobbies. Therefore, this period can bring about many occasions of a trial and error process where a child engages in many activities before choosing only those that are most suitable. For example, if your child decides that they have aspirations of being a concert pianist, you may want to see if there are any piano instructors nearby. However, if your child only takes six weeks of lessons before determining that they’d really rather be a scientist than a musician, try not to get too discouraged or frustrated. The learning process is all about exploration. Although learning is often thought to be confined to what is taught in grade school, the reality is that learning is constant and occurs in many forms.

Once your child begins to have a clearer idea of the path that they want to pursue in life, consider any possible activities in K-12 and beyond that might help your child achieve their goals. For example, if they have a passion for science and are excited about attending medical school to become a doctor, check with your local hospital to see if there are any internships or educational events for students who want to see what is involved with that particular career field.

The most important thing to remember is the need to support your child consistently through all their learning processes, whether or not they are ultimately successful.

Filed Under: Higher Education, Parents, Students, Teachers Tagged With: Child, Education, Elementary school, Learning