Holiday season is a festive time filled with relaxation, family dinners, and celebration. It’s also a time when many kids take a break from reading, writing, math, and essentially all school work. Yet holidays can also serve as an opportune time to remediate core academic skills – without the regular flow of homework – while still having fun and enjoying the festivities.

Reading

For kids who struggle with reading, holidays are a great time to work on foundational skills. ‎Young kids may have difficulty with consonant and short vowel letters and sounds, and how to blend those sounds together form words. During the holidays, build some reading work into baking! When making gingerbread cookies, for instance, spread out some flour or sugar onto a large cookie tray and ask your child to trace the letter p by saying “down, up, and around,” then say the sound /p/ like pizza. Likewise, she can trace a (“around, up, and down”) and say the sound /a/ like apple, or t (“down and across”) and say the sound /t/ like table. Then create separate flashcards with those letters on them (i.e. p, a, t) and use your spatula to show her how she can combine those sounds to form the word “pat.” Do the same type of blending exercises with different consonants and short vowels.

You can even roll out thin logs of cookie dough and have her form letters with the dough – then try to blend those sounds together to form words. The idea is to make the activities fun, holiday-like, and engaging. For more formal teaching, a tutor can use a structured multi-sensory approach using an organized lesson structure to work on foundational reading skills – including decoding, fluency, and comprehension.

Math

Many kids struggle to understand basic math concepts. What does it mean to add objects? Which number is bigger or smaller? ‎How many apples would I have left if I started with three and ate one? To help your child build core math skills, in the spirit of the holidays, purchase a bag of multi-color gumdrops. Start by making piles with different quantities of gumdrops, like a pile of 3 and a pile of 5, and ask your child which pile (and therefore number) is bigger. Then make piles of, say, 9 and 6 gumballs and ask which one is smaller, and so on.

To practice addition, start with 2 gumdrops and tell your child that his friend was in a jolly mood and decided to give him 1 more gumdrop. Ask your child how many total gumdrops he now has, and tell him to count up to the number 3. Then using a mini white board or sheet of paper, write the problem: 2 + 1 = 3 (and explain that two gumdrops plus one gumdrop equals three gumdrops). Practice several of these types of problems with addition, gradually increasing the number values, and always writing the math problem on the board after your child counts up the total. Later, try these same types of problems with subtraction. Start with, say, 6 gumdrops and tell your child he lost 2 of the gumdrops. How many does he have left? Then write the problem 6 – 2 = 4 on the board. If your child continues to struggle to grasp these basic math concepts, having a tutor utilize a structured multi-sensory approach to math with him may be very beneficial, and during the holidays, when there is little or no school, is a great time to do so.

Writing

We all know that most kids receive some type of gift(s) during the holidays. Why not use this break from school to practice writing skills while writing thank you notes? Start by reviewing the structure of a basic sentence with your child, which consists of a subject and predicate (I saw. He ran. Dad swam.). Then challenge her to expand her sentences with questions like Who? What? When? Where? How? Why? For instance, rather than just writing “Thank you for the gift” in her letter, perhaps she can write, “Thank you so much for the colorful sweatshirt with swirls that looks great with my new black shoes!” Then ask her to expand upon the number of elaborate sentences she includes and the overall length of her letter. You can also tie in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar lessons – all within the context of holiday letters. As with the other skills above, if you child is showing significant struggle with her writing skills, consider having a tutor work with her during the holidays to solidify her written expression abilities in a more structured format.

Holidays are certainly a time for family fun and cheer. Yet why not integrate continued learning into this time off from school? In doing so, your child will feel more confident and skilled, and ready to ‎swing back into school once classes resume.

The post Fun Ways to Keep Your Kids Learning Over the Holiday Break appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Help your child continue to build her academic skills and prevent the all too common “summer slide” with these fun ideas.

Summer is a time for outdoor games, poolside laughter, and fun in the sun. Yet, it is also a time when many kids lose valuable academic skills. In fact, research tells us that kids can lose up to three months of academic gains in reading and math over the summer. Help your child continue to build her academic skills and prevent the all too common “summer slide” with the ideas detailed below.

Read…a lot!

It’s easy to let regular reading time slip over the summer when days are long and activities often run late. Yet, it is important that kids continue reading on a consistent ‎basis throughout the course of the summer. This isn’t just limited to novels–your child can read newspapers, comic books, trivia books, short stories, or the like. You may even try setting up “family reading hour” (or portion of an hour) where all members of your family gather together for a pre-set time period and read. Try to lead by example and show your child how much joy reading can bring. In doing so, he will likely follow your lead and eventually come to enjoy the task.

Play (fun) learning games

Most kids enjoy playing games, so take advantage of down time this summer to play some education-based games that are still loads of fun. You can play Boggle, for instance, where you shake a tray filled with dice to form a grid of 16 letters. Players then have three minutes to create as many words as they can using the letters. You can also try playing Apples to Apples, where players build their language skills by matching red “object” cards to green “descriptive” cards and try to come up with the best pairs. To build your child’s vocabulary and reading skills, play Zingo!, where players match pictures and words, or you can play HiHo! Cherry-O with younger children to build foundational math skills, like number recognition, counting, and basic arithmetic.

Have fun in the kitchen!

To build your child’s math skills, ‎try cooking a meal or baking a dessert with him. If you decide to make brownies, for instance, ask your child to measure the correct amount of oil and water in a measuring cup. You may try “doubling” the recipe and ask him how much more of each ingredient you would now need, and how many more brownies you can now expect with the doubled ingredients. Have him read the recipe and directions to practice his reading skills, or perhaps have him write a menu for a meal you cook your family, or a review on each dish you created. The more fun and interactive you can make the process, the better!

Practice writing at the beach

For younger children, you can work on basic skills development, like letter and number writing, using sand at the beach, dirt at the park, or even flour in your kitchen. For instance, if you are practicing the letter p, have your child say the words “down, up, and around” out loud as she traces the letter in the sand, or “around, up, and down” as she writes the letter a. You might try spraying some shaving cream on a cookie tray and have her trace different letters and numbers using her finger for added tactile reinforcement. For basic math skills, have her count out a quantity of jelly beans or buttons, then ask her questions like, “If my friend gives me 2 j‎elly beans and another friend gives me 2 more jelly beans, how many jelly beans would I have all together?” or “If I had 5 jelly beans but I ate 2 of them, how many would I have left?” These types of exercises will help your child learn to solve basic addition and subtraction problems.

Electronic learning

Most kids love playing games on an iPad, so why not try integrating some learning-based apps? Try some of the following ones:

Starfall Learn to Read

Ages 4 and up

This is a great app for reinforcing basic reading skills. It includes 15 short books for kids to read that each emphasize a different sound pattern and contain animated videos, songs, and engaging characters. Each book also includes activities related to the story, including matching and fill-in-the-blank exercises.

Hungry Fish
Ages 4-8

This app is a helpful tool for building addition, subtraction, and mental math skills. To play, kids drag and combine numbers in bubbles, then “feed” them to a floating fish. When the fish is fed correct answers, it expands, and it shrinks when it does not receive correct answers. As players complete each level, they move on to more challenging ones, always receiving immediate feedback along the way.

Sentence Builder

Ages 6 and up

Your child can develop important grammar, sentence structure, and overall writing skills with this fun and engaging app. To play, students use slot machine-style wheels to select words, then create sentences describing various pictures. The app begins with basic sentences and later moves onto more complex ones. The images are bright and colorful, and students build critical sentence formation and writing skills.

Summer is a time when many kids lose key academic skills. Try these activities to help your child prevent “summer slide” and jump-start the new school year on a positive note.

The post 5 Tips For Preventing Summer Slide appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Summer is a time for playing outside, splashing in the pool, and ‎making sand castles at the beach. Yet during this fun-filled season, many students lose one to three months’ worth of learning without continued academic instruction. Help your child prevent summer brain drain while still having fun with the ideas detailed below.

Read Daily!

Encourage your child to spend some time each day reading; a book, newspaper, comic, magazine, or internet article will all do the trick. You might try taking him to a book store or library at the start of summer and encourage him to find a book series or set of topics he’s interested in reading. Perhaps have him select a summer theme, like animals, presidents, or natural disasters, and choose books that follow that theme. For instance, your 6-9 year old who loves animals might select titles including My Father’s Dragon, Frog and Toad are Friends, or Diary of a Fly – all of which should capture his interest with engaging prose relating to animals.

You might also try creating a “book-a-thon” within your family where you chart how many books each family member reads (yes, including you!). The winner can earn a pre-determined prize, like a toy, movie, or special meal. The idea is to keep your child reading all summer, while making it as fun and engaging as possible.

Keep Up the Writing

In addition to reading, writing regularly throughout the summer can help prevent summer skills loss. Your child can write letters or emails to her friends, jot down summaries of her daily activities, or even write grocery lists or ideas for summer activities. If she needs more guided support, try giving her a daily or weekly writing prompt, and have ‎ her keep a summer journal. For instance, you might give her prompts like “Describe your favorite outdoor game,” “If you could be any animal, which would it be and why?” or ” Describe your dream dessert.” Additionally, ‎as she reads and complete books over the summer, have her write a summary in her own words describing each book (model one first so she knows what to do), and remind her to always self-check her writing for capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure. Perhaps add in an incentive once she completes a certain number of books and writes a summary for each one. The more writing, the better!

Highlights Magazine

For young kids, Highlights magazine is an engaging and fun tool that helps continue building skills over the summer. This magazine, designed for kids ages 6-12, covers many important skills, including finding hidden pictures (great for developing visual spatial skills), riddles, jokes, What’s Wrong with this picture? activities, puzzles, short stories, poems, and so much more! It’s also a great way to help your child practice independent work – encourage him to only ask you questions when he is stuck. Your preschooler or Kindergartener might like the “younger” version of Highlights called High Five‎, which contains stories, puzzles, and engaging activities that are great for summer skills building.

Apps

Most kids love swiping and playing on a tablet, so why make “tech” time “learning” time? ‎ There are many great apps your child can use to keep her learning flowing throughout the summer and prevent academic skills loss. Some great ones are as follows:

Sentence Builder – Ages 6+

With this app, players have fun developing their grammar and sentence-writing abilities, a key skill for academic success. To play, they create sentences describing various pictures using slot machine-style wheels for choosing words. The game format is simple, beginning with basic sentences and later moving into more complex ones. The images and animations are colorful, and students build key written expression and sentence-structure skills.

Starfall Learn to Read – Ages 4+

This multi-sensory app helps students develop their reading and spelling skills as they listen, read, and touch letters and words, while having fun with the songs and colorful animations. The app includes 15 short books for kids to read, each covering a different sound pattern, along with animated videos, tunes, and funny characters. At the end of each book, students can complete activities related to the reading, including interactive matching and fill-in-the-blank exercises.

Hungry Fish – Ages 4-8
‎
This app is a great one for developing math skills over the summer. Its focus is reinforcing basic addition and subtraction as well as mental math in a fun and engaging manner. To play, kids drag and combine numbers in bubbles and then feed them to a floating fish. The fish expands when it is given “food” (otherwise known as correct answer combinations) and shrinks down when it does not receive food. As players complete and “win” each level, they move on to more advanced levels, while receiving immediate feedback along the way. It’s a useful and learning tool that can easily be disguised as simply a fun video game.

Summer is a time when many students regress academically. Prevent the infamous summer slide with these learning-focused activities, and your child will be well on his way to jump-starting the new school year on a positive note.

The post Help Prevent the Summer Brain Drain appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Educational apps to help your child start Kindergarten on a positive, confident note

With summer in full swing, most kids enjoy spending their time running, swimming, and playing outdoors. Yet summer is a long period of time without consistent learning, and if your child is getting ready to start Kindergarten in the fall, you won’t want to miss this opportunity to reinforce early learning.

Help your child prepare for Kindergarten while still having fun‎ with the apps detailed below!

ABC Letter Tracing
Learning to form letters properly when writing can be challenging for many students. This app helps children learn to form letters correctly and gives them ample practice tracing them. Players are presented with both upper- and lower-case letters and work on tracing these letters with proper top-to-bottom formations using their finger (great tactile reinforcement!). A colorful picture corresponds to each letter, giving students a visual aid for remembering the sound each letter makes. This app is useful for both early learning and fine motor skills development. Free on iTunes

Montessori Rhymetime Learning Games for Kids
Learning to rhyme is a key component of reading success. In this app, students learn to identify different sounds in words and match words that rhyme using bright, colorful pictures. ‎ The app contains six hands-on activities, starting with basic rhyme games and progressing to more challenging ones. The games can be played independently, or parents can engage with their children by having them articulate their reasoning for why they selected certain pictures. This multi-sensory app is one students love playing, and helps solidify phonemic awareness, a precursor to reading. Free on iTunes 

Moose Math by Duck Duck Moose
This app helps build several important Kindergarten math skills, including ‎addition, subtraction, counting, and sorting. The app contains five different activities, including Moose Juice where kids make “smoothies” (and practice addition, subtraction, and counting skills); Paint Pet, where players count dots to match pets; Pet Bingo, where kids answer counting, addition, and subtraction problems; Lost and Found, where players sort colors and shapes; and Dot to Dot, where players connect dots. $1.99 on iTunes

Starfall Learn to Read
This app is a great tool for building and reinforcing basic phonics concepts, including sound/letter recognition and blending. Similar to the Starfall website, the app presents fifteen “mini books” that each focus on a certain vowel pattern, including short sounds, long sounds, vowel teams, and r-controlled sounds. The app also includes whimsical, fun-filled videos to reinforce reading  (like “The Amazing Silent e” and “Y can be a Vowel!”) and other engaging phonics-based activities. $2.99 on iTunes

Stumpy’s Alphabet Dinner
This is a great app for teaching kids to recognize letters and shapes, while they “feed” colorful characters.  To play the letter segment, a word pops up and kids must “feed” ‎Stumpy the monster by identifying and dragging specific letters. Likewise, they feed Stumpy’s friend Lexie shapes in a similar manner, while building key early academic skills. Free on iTunes

The post 5 Apps for Preparing Your Child for Kindergarten appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Integrating technology can help your child master these basic math facts

You’ve tried flash cards, lists, and straight-up memorization, but your child still can’t seem to remember the addition and subtraction facts. Integrating technology, particularly with addition and subtraction specific apps, can help her finally learn and retain these facts, while enjoying the process. Try the math apps below:

Hungry Fish
Ages 4 and up
Hungry Fish helps children develop basic addition and subtraction skills while boosting their mental ‎math abilities. In one of the games, a fish swims into the “ocean” with a number displayed on its belly. Bubbles pop up, each containing a different number. Players must combine the numbers to meet the sum displayed on the fish, thereby practicing basic addition. The same type of game is played with subtraction and negative numbers, and the difficulty level of each game can be adjusted.

Addition & Subtraction for Kids
Ages 4 and up
Kids age 4 and up love this animated app that integrates pictures to help them master their math facts. ‎At the most basic level, students are presented with simple math fact problems, such as 3+2, and are simultaneously presented with underwater objects to represent the numbers (i.e., three fish plus two starfish). They must choose the correct answer from one of three bubbles presented at the bottom of the screen. Practicing facts using this app helps children fundamentally understand addition and subtraction concepts while becoming more automatic with their facts.

Squeebles Maths Race
Ages 5-11
In this colorful app, players choose a fish type and race in a blue body of water either against the “computer” or another player. ‎Players select an operation–addition, subtraction, addition/subtraction combo, multiplication, or division–and must correctly answer various problems in order to move forward in the race. Winning players earn squabbles and flipfish thay help them with future races.

Math Doodles
Ages 4 and up
This app integrates beautiful illustrations ‎and engages students in activities that make math fun. Games such as Sums Stacker, Connect Sums, Unknown Square, and SplatGoRound teach students basic addition and subtraction concepts, such as merging objects to form sums and identifying missing values. The options for choosing numeric values are unique and interesting, including choices such as fingers, coins, Roman numerals, and even Hebrew and Chinese letters! The whimsical artwork is stellar.‎ This app is a great one for building fluency with math facts and for giving students repetition with basic math concepts.

Let’s Do Mental Maths
Ages 5-11
These apps, which are grouped by age (5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 9-10, and 10-11), help students practice simple math skills and improve their mental math abilities. Basic math concepts are covered in the form of quizzes, including addition and subtraction, but also addressing multiplication, division, fractions, time, and measurement at higher levels.  Students can select quizzes to take on a given topic and can take progress tests along the way. For students who need repetition and extra reinforcement of their math facts, this app is a great one!

Learning math facts doesn’t need to feel like a chore. With these colorful and engaging math apps, students will learn their math facts in no time!

The post The 5 Best Apps For Learning Addition & Subtraction Facts appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Math Doodles

This app integrates beautiful illustrations ‎and engages students in activities that make math fun. Games such as Sums Stacker, Connect Sums, Unknown Square, and SplatGoRound teach students basic math concepts such as merging objects to form sums, identifying missing values, and choosing the correct time. The options for choosing numeric values are unique and interesting, including choices such as fingers, coins, Roman numerals, and even Hebrew and Chinese letters! The whimsical artwork is stellar.‎ This app is a great one for building fluency with math facts and for giving students repetition with basic math concepts.

*designed for ages 7 and up

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Let’s Do Mental Maths

These apps, which are grouped by age (5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 9-10, and 10-11), help students practice basic math skills and improve their mental math abilities. Basic math concepts are covered in the form of quizzes, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, time, measurement, and shapes. Students can select quizzes to take on a given topic and can take progress tests along the way. For students who need repetition and extra reinforcement of their math facts, this app is a great one!

*designed for ages 5-11, depending on the level

This app is $2.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Hungry Fish

This is a useful app for helping children develop basic addition and subtraction skills and boost their mental ‎math abilities. In one of the games, a fish swims into the “ocean” with a number displayed on its belly. Bubbles pop out, each containing different numbers. Players must combine the numbers to meet the sum on the fish. The same type of game is played with subtraction and negative numbers, and the difficulty level of each game can be adjusted.

*designed for ages 4-8, depending on the level

This app is $1.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Keep the Change Kids

This is a great app for teaching students how to identify and count coins. Lessons on individual coin names and values are included, followed by games where students learn to count change to add up to a given value. It helps students develop fluency with money and a fundamental understanding of how coins work.  It’s simple but effective!

*‎great for students ages 5-10

This app is $1.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

Tick Tock

Learning to tell time is much more fun with a colorful app than with old fashion plastic yellow clocks. ‎This app contains four components: Learn, Explore, Practice, and Take a Test. In the “Learn” segment, students learn about the different hands on a clock and how they each function. In the “Explore” section, students practice moving the hour and minute hands to learn how the hands of a clock function. In the “Practice” section students can convert digital time to analog or words, or vice versa. Finally, students can “Take a Test” to practice their skills.

*great for students ages 6-10

This app is $0.99 and available on iTunes –> Click Here

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