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Ten Boredom Busters and Brain Boosters

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Here’s an article I wrote for Mercatornet years ago:

Ahhh… the lazy days of summer are here.  School is over, and it’s time for a more relaxing and peaceful – “Moooommmmm!!!!” screamed my daughter. All-Star is bugging me!!!”  “Well, she won’t let me play with her,” complained All-Star. “He keeps knocking over my dolls!” exclaimed Big-Sis. I could tell that All-Star was bored and looking for trouble. “Big-Sis, come here” I said firmly. He reluctantly came. And I handed my six year old a knife.

  The summer time is often peak time for boredom among children.  They have too much time on their hands and they often don’t know what to do with it.  Boredom in children precedes trouble, such as nagging for new toys, self-pity, loneliness, bickering, and irate parents. So, aside from summer camps and field trips, how can we keep our kids happily busy and productive? Here’s my top-ten list:

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What to do About Reading Comprehension

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When I look  at the major Catholic homeschooling curriculum providers to see what they recommend for reading comprehension during the elementary years, I find a lot of variance.  On one end of the spectrum, Mother of Divine Grace simply encourages narrations and discussions of books read, and on the other end, Kolbe Academy requires that their students answer in-depth chapter-by-chapter reading comprehension questions for classic novels. In the middle, Catholic Heritage Curricula and Seton offer reading comprehension workbooks. Seton also requires their registered students to write book reports.

With so much discrepancy, it is hard to know what is the best approach to reading comprehension. But here are some thoughts:

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The Chicken Scratch Solution: How to get Your Kids to Write Neatly

Published on by Mary Cooney4 Comments

This year has been a struggle getting one of my sons to write neatly. Sometimes his handwriting is so atrocious I go cross-eyed trying to decipher his hieroglyphics. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But he does like to produce chicken scratch.

In the beginning of the year, we had some real battles… Feisty and I. He would give me a scribbly assignment and I would make him rewrite it. (That’s what tiger moms do, even lame ones.) You can imagine the griping and fuming that ensued. But I would hold my ground and he would have no choice but to rewrite that assignment in a legible manner. And then he would hold his ground: the next day his handwriting would be as messy as ever.

I needed to find a way to end the daily struggle. And little by little I did. Now Feisty’s handwriting is legible about 70% of the time. More importantly, he’s sincerely trying to write neatly… when I remind him. But here’s what helped:

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Beyond the Readers

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Once your child is reading fluently, you’ll want to introduce him/her to books that will whet their appetite for independent reading. Here are some of our favorite books my children have enjoyed.

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The Three Keys to Teaching Your Child to Read – Part 3

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Once your child is ready and willing (at least most of the time!) to learn how to read, the third key to the door of literacy is easy to obtain.

Back in the days when I was a piano teacher, I had to teach children as young as five to read music. For most children, learning to read music is even more challenging than learning to read words. A single note has pitch, duration, volume, and articulation. When you give a child a string of notes to read in the treble clef and a completely different set of notes to read in the bass clef, you are asking the child to process several things at once. A lot of mental exertion is needed, so much so that the only way to learn the music is by repetition, repetition, repetition.

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Lesson Plans that Simplify Singapore Math

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My husband and I love Singapore Math. It is a fantastic way to teach math, resulting in mastery of mathematical concepts and strong mental math and problem solving skills. It is one of the reasons why students in Singapore are among the top performers in international math exams, why private schools around the U.S. are adopting Singapore Math as their primary math curriculum (see this article) , and why homeschool curriculum providers such as Sonlight and Kolbe promote it. It is also one of Cathy Duffy’s Top 102 Picks.

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Our Favorite Books to Read Aloud

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Reading Aloud. It’s one of the best things you can do to bond with your children, develop their imagination and moral sense, and sharpen their listening and comprehension skills.

I’m always on the lookout for wonderful books to read with my children, and I’ve been keeping a list of our favorites. Here it is for you to enjoy:

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The Three Keys to Teaching Your Child to Read – Part 2

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Key Number Two: Willingness. 

When Feisty was just about five, he was ready to learn reading. My precocious whipper-snapper had shown all the signs of readiness. But he was far from willing. He had done all the readiness activities happily enough. To him, it had all been a game. However, when we started with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, he balked. Perhaps the book looked too much like an adult’s book, with all those little letters for the parents to read. Perhaps all those oral exercises were too boring. I’m not sure. (By the way, I know many people who swear by this book. It really does work if you can get your child to co-operate.) But when Feisty decides he doesn’t want to do something, you’d better give up… unless you’re as headstrong as he is.

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