Printable Homework Charts Keep Mom From Pulling Her Hair Out

November 22nd, 2008 No Comments   Posted in Parenting

If you are battling with your kids over doing homework, there is a simple tool that can really help. Printable homework charts have made a difference in many homes and they can work in your home, too.

This premise is amazingly straightforward. Kids, like most adults, need structure. However, most kids do not understand their need for structure and will not institute any on their own. That’s normal and where you, as a parent, can really shine.

Helping your student get organized using homework charts is easy. Realize you may have to make tweaks in your system over the first few weeks. Many parents are frustrated with a new system that doesn’t work perfectly the first time. Don’t fall for that! Making changes over time is called progress and should be celebrated.

Start by sitting down with your child and going over his homework needs with him.

- How many classes or subjects does he have?

- What are the daily assignments that never change; such as daily reading or memorizing math facts.

- Are there days of the week he never has homework?

Use this information to get a feel for your child’s homework needs and then head to your computer to get some printable homework charts. There are a wide variety of charts available online; some simple and some quite sophisticated. Take a look at your choices and print some charts out to get started. You can always get different ones later on.

Fill out the homework chart for the first week or month. Consider that this is a new habit for your child and some motivation to stick with the program will probably be needed. This is not so much about grades as about becoming responsible for doing the homework with minimal prodding from you.

Let the homework chart be the ‘heavy’ or authority on this issue. Explain to your child about this new system designed to help make her life easier (which it will absolutely do if she gets on board with it). Tell her there will be frustrations at first, that’s fine, but grown-ups push through frustrations with a decent attitude.

Then get started. Each day point to the homework chart and ask if she has completed it for the day or how far she has gotten. Keep pointing out the natural consequences for not keeping on top of homework and establish your own family consequences for not keeping school a priority.

If you begin this system when your children are young and just starting out with their educational careers, you will find that you don’t have any difficulties nagging about homework as they grow. If your kids are older and have already established non-productive homework patterns, then your work will take longer, but you can still get the job done. Let’s face it. Adults complain loud and strong when they have to make changes they don’t like, so why should we expect our half-grown children to be any different? That’s human nature and as parents, we can be patient and show our kids the great skill of changing ourselves willingly and intentionally.

Use printable homework charts in your home to develop strong self-discipline habits and a healthy appreciation for education. Good homework habits are worth their weight in gold over the lifetime of your family.

Colleen Langenfeld has been parenting for over 27 years and helps other moms enjoy mothering more at http://www.paintedgold.com . Visit her website and grab your own printable homework charts today.

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Preschool Printable Calendars - An Easy Way to Preserve Your Child’s Memories

November 19th, 2008 No Comments   Posted in Parenting

If you have a little guy or gal at home you know how valuable simple tools like preschool printable calendars can be. You can use these convenient and widely available resources to help your preschooler learn about the passage of time, the flow of the seasons, numbers, the alphabet and so much more. A decorated preschool calendar is a very fun and easy teaching device for a parent to incorporate into every day life.

However, with a little creativity, you can use these calendars to do so much more. One excellent idea is to use your preschool calendars to develop a written log of your child’s life. By simply being intentional with the usage of your calendars, you can have a long term written and visual record of your child’s preschool years.

Here’s how it works.

1. Keep track of the basics.

Every parent loves to remember the milestones in their child’s life and rightly so. Growth patterns such as height, weight, etc., doctor’s appointments, and that first dental visit all can be documented on the preschool calendar. Why keep track of these things twice - once on your personal calendar and then rewritten in a baby book? Print out a preschool calendar each month, fill it out and decorate it together with your child according to the month or season and keep track of all monthly events concerning your preschooler in one place.

2. Developmental growth.

Hang your preschool calendar in a convenient place where you can use it everyday, first of all to teach your child about the date and days of the week, secondly to jot down developmental notes in real time.

Who are your preschooler’s friends at this stage of life? What parties did your child attend (or give)? Make notes on outings, weather, favorite toys, new vocabulary; all of those precious, sweet moments that will tug at your heart forever. This is the official written record of your child’s life. Use it everyday and be generous with your notes. These will be your memory joggers in future years. Your words are priceless!

3. Assemble and enjoy.

As the months roll along, keep each of your preschool printable calendars in a scrapbook. Add scrap booking pages for additional material and pictures, if you like. Setting aside just one morning or afternoon a month to assemble pictures and pop them onto pages for your book is all it will take to keep your child’s life book current, accurate and satisfying. The key to this whole idea is that you are going to do most of this ‘work’ anyway, as a course of daily life, so simply do it in such a way as to preserve it easily.

Believe me, your preschooler will be delighted as she watches ‘her’ book grow and grow. This will also help her understand difficult concepts such as time passage and help her put her seasonal experiences into a context she can muse over again and again.

This method is an easy and fun way to record all the details in your young child’s life with very little hassle. You can do a search on the web for preschool printable calendars or see my resource box below for free ones. Get started today preserving your preschooler’s daily fun!

Colleen Langenfeld has been parenting for over 27 years and helps other moms enjoy mothering more at http://www.paintedgold.com . Visit her website now and get your preschool printable calendars today.

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Toy Kitchens - Making Your Child Independent

November 18th, 2008 No Comments   Posted in Parenting

In one point of every person’s life, he will soon leave the comforts of home and live on his own. He studies in reputable schools to get into good companies after graduation. Nevertheless, there are still some individuals who would rather live a life as a bum and rely on their parents. This is not advisable because people need to feed and work for themselves because you cannot rely and live with your parents forever. One way to teach them to be comfortable on their own is using toy kitchens.

If you notice, when people are in the kitchen, they have their own style of getting things done. Even some individuals do not want company when they are cooking because they say that they can work faster alone. When you teach your child to cook or be accustomed in the kitchen, he will get that feel or working alone eventually. When he gets hungry, he can whip up something to eat using the ingredients available. Food is something enjoyed by everyone and more and more individuals are trying their skill when it comes to making delectable gastronomic foodies.

Children can start their creations in their toy kitchens since it is not yet the right time for them to cook over the flame. They can start making finger foods like tacos and burritos. They just need to mix the ingredients together although the parents are in charge of slicing, mincing or dicing the ingredients before giving them to the kids. Make them enjoy their food even though they seem to play with them. Just make sure to draw the line when things get out of hand. Parents believe that it is okay for the children to play with their food as long as they see them eating it.

When the kids see that their parents trust them in eating or preparing their food alone, they feel proud of themselves. This boosts up their self-confidence thus making them feel more independent. Now, they need not to whine to their parents when they want something to eat because they can just grab something in the refrigerator or prepare their snack themselves. However, parents must also teach their children the importance of cleaning the dishes after. It is unhealthy and unsanitary to leave unwashed dishes in the sink for several days.

It all starts with toy kitchens and then the real thing. When children get older, they can now enjoy cooking over the flame and concocting food that soothes the palate of everyone who tastes it. However, tell the kids that it is normal when the food does not turn out how they want it to be. Trial and error is part of everything in the world and that these mistakes enable people and things to be better because correction of flaws take place. If ever during the first, try it turned out to be not bad, two thumbs up to you. This is perhaps what they say beginners luck.

For more tips and information about toy kitchens, check out http://www.thekidstoystore.com/kidkraftprairiekitchen.html.

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