Ready or Not?

Ready? Or not?

Gina is all ready for school. She has her “Frozen” book bag and her “Spiderman” sneakers. She’s picked out her first-day-of-school outfit and decided which friend she will sit next to on the bus. She can recite her ABCs and write her name. Her parents have the camera ready and they are all set for the big day.

Gina may not be as ready as she and her parents think. There’s more to school than lunch boxes and ABCs. Children need adequate preparation for the high-stakes world education has become. Concerned parents are the first and best asset a child can have. Teach your child about the world of school. Add some fun to your lessons; make getting ready for school a pleasure for you and your child. Here are some suggestions for making school an exciting adventure for you both.

·       Don’t just sing the alphabet song:

     We all know it; “A,B,C,D … next time won’t you sing with me.” Children need letter awareness but this traditional little ditty teaches children a string of sounds they may not comprehend. How many of us thought “LMONP” was the name of one letter? Language begins with thoughts, concepts, words, sentences, and lastly, letters. Help your child feel language.

     “RRRRufffff,” says the dog.

     “MMMMMoooooooo!” says the cow.

     Make connections between sounds and letters:

“Top starts with the same sound as Tommy.”

“Marshmallows make Molly mumble.”

“Milk and moo both come from cows.

     So when singing the song, help your child learn the language of the letters.

·       Sing, sing, sing!

Music involves rhythm, rhyme, melody, timing, and more. Teach your child many types of songs. Dance with the rhythm. Bang wooden spoons in time to the beat. Play games with songs. Leave out the last word to practice rhyming: “This Old Man he plays two, he plays knick, knack on his shoe” or glue, or gnu, or stew!

     What funny images will your child envision by changing just one word?  Illustrate your silly song.  Pass out rhythm instruments and play along. “What rhythm instruments?” you ask? Plastic jars filled with beans make great maracas. Pot-lid cymbals and stew-pot drums sound lovely in a pots and pans symphony.

Listen to many versions of the same song. What’s different? What’s the same? Listen carefully; try something new. Music hath charms to teach the savvy child.

·       Jump up! Jump down! Turn all around!

Help your child follow two- and three-step directions. Often a teacher will say something like, “Find your orange crayon and color the pumpkin.” This may not seem complicated but many children have trouble going more than one step.

     Make it a game. Add one more step each time. “Pick up your sweater, carry it to the hook, and hang it up.” “Wash your face first, your belly next, then your elbow.”  Let your child give you directions. Make mistakes.  Laugh a lot.

·       Math is life!

Math is not some subject in school that we all dread. Math is everywhere. Math is the great puzzle of life. If Aunt Joan comes over with your three cousins, how many plates will we need on the table?” Even if your child can’t count, he can lay out one plate for Aunt Joan, one for Erica, one for Joanna, and one for Caleb. One-to-one correspondence is a basic concept of math.

Make up riddles: If there are 12 legs at a party, how many children are there? How many horses? Draw pictures and figure it out. Make a giant paper doll by tracing your child and then compare it to toys, furniture, and appliances.

Play math games in the car, in the store, at the zoo – everywhere you go. If it takes three “Wiggles” CDs to get to Granny’s, is the two CD trip to Uncle Jim’s closer or farther? How can we split six cookies among three children?  Make math fun and it will be E-Z for your child in school.

·       Practice focusing.

This is a tough one. Sitting still is boring. Yet lots of time in school is spent using this skill. It must be learned like any other. Sit together and share a book.  Assemble a puzzle. Build a tower of blocks or draw a picture. Do not sit in front of the TV. Television is a passive medium. School is a participatory event. Children must be focused and actively engaged in learning.  Keep the body still, but your mind moving. 

·       Learn to listen.

Listening skills are paramount in most learning situations. Your child needs to be an active listener, sorting, categorizing, rearranging, and digesting a huge amount of verbal material each day. Listening to children’s radio or recordings helps your child to develop this skill. Listen with your child and then discuss what you have heard. Again, turn off the television. The scattered visual images television offers impair the concentration skills necessary for active learning.  Sit still and let music wash over you like waves from the ocean.  Listen to the still small voice of your child as he learns to listen to the world.

·       Write Your Child’s Name in Many Different Ways.

It’s great when a child can recognize and write his/her name. Every school today seems to have its own system of handwriting. If you know which school your child will be attending, take the time to check this out. Make sure that your child sees his name written in many different styles, upper and lower case. Use that font feature of your computer: Writing my name can be lots of fun!

·       Use proper English at home.

Now is the time for all good parents to come to the aid of their children. Baby babble sounds sweet coming from a toddler but sour coming from a big school boy. Be a good model. Use good grammar. Make this a habit for your child.

It is much harder to give up “brang” than to grow up saying brought. Reading and writing will be much less of a chore for a child who naturally uses correct grammar. Enunciate distinctly. Clear pronunciation helps tremendously with spelling. Sure English is a crazy language with more exceptions than rules, but don’t make it a “second language” for your child by allowing lazy grammar and pronunciation to trip them up.

·       Practice small motor skills.

Use those little fingers and toes. Spread cereal “O’s on the table and let little Robby pick them up with a lollipop stick. Roll small pieces of clay into balls and make a pile of peas. Grab the washcloth with your toes in the tub. Put olives on all of your fingertips and eat them one at a time. Jiggle them around to make an olive puppet theater. Wink, blink, and wiggle your nose. Primary students are expected to use pencils, crayons, and scissors. Exercising the small muscles in hands with fun activities like these develops the dexterity needed to write, color, and cut.

·       Build BK.

Background knowledge that is. Give your child a multitude of experiences from which to draw in order to make those all-important learning connections. Get out and explore the world. Start in your own back yard and enter the world of science.  Follow bees and butterflies. Study the geography of the park. Explore the wonders of the forest. Learn about other cultures in specialty stores or ethnic restaurants or just by visiting your neighbors. Visit a farm, a fire station, or a police barracks. Open up your child’s eyes and ears to the great big world.

·       Curiouser and Curiouser.

Why, why, why? It’s a three-year-old’s favorite question. But in today’s hurry-up world, we don’t often enough take the time to encourage a child’s natural curiosity. A good student needs to ask why – and what, when, where, and how.

Encourage questions. You don’t have to know the answers.  Let your child experiment. What happens if we don’t put the gelatin in the refrigerator? Will it gel on the counter? How long will it take a little piece of soap to dissolve in the tub? Guide your child in using the many resources available today in the library and on the Web. Let them ask! Then, let them seek and find – or wonder some more.

·       Read! Read! Read!

     Never were three more important words written about preparing a child for school. Reading to your child creates an explosion of learning. Reading involves all the skills listed above: listen to the letters, feel the rhythm, hear the rhyme, follow the direction of the story, sequence the events, sit still and concentrate, build background knowledge, ask questions, comprehend and evaluate, hear the flow of the language, note the different print in each book, and follow the left-to-right progression of the sentences with your fingers and eyes.  

Make reading with your child a priority.  Do it first, not after all else is done. Studies show that reading to a child just twenty minutes a day from the age of six months can raise a student’s high school achievement scores up to 150 points.

Enjoy yourself! Do the funny voices. Daddy does a great Big Bad Wolf, but listen to the scary one little Jimmy can do. Stop and ask questions. Wonder why aloud. Record yourself reading your child’s favorites and make wonderful keepsakes. Keep the computer in the kitchen to look things up. Treat books like treasures and your child’s life will be full of golden memories and silver dreams.

Now your child is ready for the exciting adventure awaiting her in school. Propel your child into the world of learning by preparing him/her at home with the necessary skills. No teaching degree is necessary, just a sense of fun and a joy in learning. Watch out world, ready or not, here they come!

         

George Washington: First in Freedom?

George Washington: First in Freedom?

What images pop into your mind when you hear the name of George Washington -- Father of our Nation, First President, Commanding General in the Revolutionary War, Slave-owner? Many people forget that Washington, a Virginian land-owner and farmer, owned more than two hundred slaves while he was fighting for American freedom and while shepherding our new nation based on the principle that “all men are created equal.”

As noted in Joseph Ellis’s brilliant biography, His Excellency, George Washington, Washington suffered from a moral dilemma. As the symbol of American democracy and freedom, he confronted an ethical oxymoron: Americans must be allowed to live in the “natural” state of freedom, but slaves (who were considered to be property) must not. America was not a “free” nation.

During the Revolution, Washington had reluctantly accepted free blacks into the Continental army. When soldiers were needed, John Laurens, statesman from South Carolina, suggested arming slaves and offering emancipation to those who survived the war. Washington politely declined, stating that emancipating some would make “Slavery more irksome to those who remain in it.” 

After his retirement, Washington returned to Mount Vernon to find his plantation operating in the red. He realized that slave labor was less economically sound than hiring workers. He pondered selling, but decided against this measure because of what he felt were his “moral obligations.” First, many of the slaves were part of his wife Martha’s dowry and were legally bound to be inherited by her descendants. Second, many of the slaves were elderly and could not be sold profitably. Third, he did not want to break up families by selling some members and maintaining others. Selling his slaves was economically unsound, and, to Washington, unethical.

While admitting to his most trusted advisers and friends, the Marquis de Lafayette and financier Robert Morris, that “there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery],” Washington never took any public steps to act on his convictions, In fact, he actively pursued two of his slaves who escaped while he was in residence in Philadelphia as President. Despite his understanding that slave labor was less efficient and more costly than hired workers, he maintained the ownership of slaves until his death. 

Washington recognized that slavery was repugnant, but economic and cultural realities trumped his moral obligations. Urged by friends and Quaker abolitionists to champion the cause of emancipation, he remained silent. Since he could not sell or free his slaves, Washington decided that maintaining the slave families at Mount Vernon was the most honorable course. Washington felt that supporting general emancipation would lead to the dissolution of the infant nation because slaveholders would rebel if this “peculiar institution” was challenged.  Unable to take a stand for emancipation during his lifetime, Washington left instructions in his will that all slaves he personally owned should be freed. 

George Washington led our nation during troubled times. He provided a model for the presidency. He held the nation together during its first turbulent years. Looking though the cultural lens of today, more than two hundred years later, many condemn Washington for his “moral” decisions. Yet Washington must be judged by the mores of his time. He struggled to reconcile his personal principles with the realities of the times. Even Thomas Jefferson, the Author of American Liberty, never freed his slaves -- he couldn’t –- he had mortgaged them and was deeply in debt. Washington’s concerns, (to preserve the unity of the nation which rested on the economic standards of both North and South), overrode the pricking of his conscience.

No dogma supports slavery. No amount of rationalization can make the enslavement of any peoples correct. Yet, even today, economics remains the foundation for many of the decisions made by individuals and nations. Are we any more honorable than Washington? When making decisions about how to treat our fellow beings, do our personal economies and cultural traditions take precedence over our moral obligations? 

“First in war, first in peace, and first the hearts of his countrymen;” Washington’s moral struggles never left him. Until his final days he continued to consider the question of slavery. Washington’s legacy is one of integrity and struggle. We all struggle with moral dilemmas. What will our legacy be? 

(Quotations taken from His Excellency, George Washington by Joseph Ellis, 2004. First published in SENIORS! Page1Publishing)

George Washington Who?

George Washington Who?

I was once again standing in Independence Square expressing my outrage—yes, I said outrage – that there is no monument, not even a plaque, to honor John Adams there. While my daughter shushed me, and my husband and son quietly walked away from this nut shouting into the air, a thought struck me; how many of those standing in line to enter that hallowed hall even know about Mr. Adams and his invaluable contributions to this country? Could they even name such luminaries as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or Thomas Jefferson? Would they know why we honor them?

Now before you blame our public school system for once again failing to educate our young, let me assure you that this history is taught. Kindergarten students learn about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In fact, portraits of these founding fathers adorn nearly every school in our nation. American patriots pop up every year in class. Fifth graders do reports on them. Middle-schoolers study the government they designed. High school students analyze the problems of democracy. Students study them -- but do they engage the minds of our youth to express admiration or outrage?

Let me make a wager here. I bet that even though these illustrious Americans are remembered every year in school, your child knows more about Miley Cyrus and Frozen than Aaron Burr or Eleanor Roosevelt.  I’d win that bet, wouldn’t I? 

Why? Because these characters are somehow made more exciting than those tired old figures of history. And whose fault is that?

Well, I, for one, refuse to take the rap. I find them very exciting! And when I teach them, I show this enthusiasm. I relate amazing facts. Did you know that Andrew Johnson was accused of bigamy? I show pictures and tell stories. Abe Lincoln took the advice of a young girl who wrote to tell him that he would look better with a beard. Abigail Adams wrote to her son John Quincy, who at the age of 14 was secretary to the ambassador to Russia, telling him not to be such a "blockhead." Wouldn't it be fun to find out why?

Sometimes, my enthusiasm catches some of my students and they light up! But teachers can’t keep that light lit alone. To keep the flame going, parents and families need to fuel the fire. 

My siblings are history nuts --not “buffs” mind you -- nuts. We discuss and argue historical facts and figures as if they were contemporary. My brothers can quote long passages from the speeches and writings of John Adams. We love the guy – but don’t bring up Alexander Hamilton unless you are itching for a fight!

So should every family discuss famous Americans at the dinner table? Not in the least. You pick the subject you can be passionate about. My cousins spent hours devising perpetual motion machines with their father. My sister-in-law and her children discuss the Old Testament. My father recited epic poems for us. My nephew collected bugs and classified them with the help of his mom and dad. It doesn’t matter what subject you pick, but make it a legitimate, worthy study. Don’t let the popular media choose for you.

Now I know we can all name the nerds on The Big Bang Theory and know just who took Marcia Brady to the prom, but wouldn’t it be just as interesting to know who comprised the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence or what names the Greeks gave the ancient constellations and how they correspond to the names given them by the Native Americans? There is a world of worthy information to explore.

Catch the spirit! Know something and pass it along to your kids with a huge dose of enthusiasm. Embarrass them by expressing an opinion and knowing what you are talking about. 

My children know all about John Adams. They also have enthusiasms of their own.

And I am excited about them.

Read It Again, Mommy

Read It Again, Mommy

I read to my daughter in the womb.  Well, I wasn’t actually in there with her, but when I was reading on the outside, she was listening on the inside. After she was born it was much more interesting -- now she could see the pictures.

         

At first, we mostly read things I was interested in, but as she grew, we concentrated on books that would interest her. We read and reread all of her favorites. She never tired of saying, “Read it again, Mommy.”

         

We started out with picture books. My husband could recite all of the Dr. Seuss books by heart. When our little girl’s demand outgrew our supply, we hit on a brilliant idea. We invested in a child’s tape recorder and some 30 minute tapes. We recorded each story as we read them. This way, she could have Mommy or Daddy read to her whenever she wanted. She could follow along with the book and look at the pictures or put us “on” and play while she listened. Even better, she could listen to us at bedtime after lights out, and in the car on long trips. 

         

As our little reader grew older, we started to read chapter books into the recorder. Every day we read a chapter “live” and record it. She would listen to the previous day’s recording to review events and then to the current tape. We enjoyed many books that were too involved for one reading, but when reviewed each night became clear and exciting. We looked forward to the tapings and “reruns.”

         

Eventually, our daughter began to read herself and one of the first things she did was to make her own recordings. She played them to our family’s cats and listened to herself improve with each reading. She learned to add expression and to create tension in a reading. The cats loved it; so did Mommy and Daddy.

Now she is a voracious reader. Sometimes, she gets out those old tapes to listen to at night. She hears not only a story, but “her-story” for, as we read, a little girl asked questions and reacted to the drama being read. All of this is on those old tapes, just waiting for our grandchildren. 

And I’ll be ready when they say, “Nonna, read us a story.”