Parents who after school - how do you get it all done?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chess is a great game as it combines so many of these skills. Critical thinking, predictive reasoning, patterns, strategizing, trade off etc. I wish chess was taught in all schools

Where in this area is chess offered privately? Or is it offered in school system after school activities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's my lazy-mom's guide for those of you so inclined -

School year - We get home around 5:45 and walk the dog. Mondays, I spend two minutes looking at the homework assignment while I prep dinner, and we have a brief discussion about what DC should work on for the week (most of it is unnecessary busy work, so I just pick a few things that look useful or that DC may need to work on). Sometimes I remember to check it later in the week and sometimes I don't - in my view, it's DC's responsibility, and the earlier that's learned, the better. I do a 1 minute quiz of the spelling words, and if DC misses any I'll usually remember to repeat 1-2 more times that week.

Summers - We get new books from the library every few weeks.

We learn geography while looking at maps and researching our vacations. We learn about the environment and biology when going for hikes on the weekend. We learn about the world and foreign affairs by hearing about and discussing something we've heard during the 10 minutes of morning news that I usually watch. We learn about economics and budgeting by talking about things to buy (or not buy) at the store.

This. This is the only sane answer. I didn't worry about supplementing. My kids did their homework, most of the time. We spent our summers playing. Somehow our older kids have managed to graduate from high school and get into good colleges, despite my clearly negligent parenting style. All got academic scholarships at varying levels. Two of them were in gifted programs. One is a National Merit Scholar. The youngest is in middle school, so I guess the jury is still out on him. But he is an A student in advanced placement classes.

No test prep. No supplemental homework. No Kumon or any of that nonesense. Like the PP, we just encouraged learning for the sake of learning. And I do not check or help with homework. If they have specific questions, I'll point them in the right direction. Honestly, I was more focused on ensuring they got the chance to be involved in extracurricular activities, and that they had plenty of time to just play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chess is a great game as it combines so many of these skills. Critical thinking, predictive reasoning, patterns, strategizing, trade off etc. I wish chess was taught in all schools

Where in this area is chess offered privately? Or is it offered in school system after school activities?

Several public schools have after school chess class and clubs and some of the public libraries have drop in chess class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chess is a great game as it combines so many of these skills. Critical thinking, predictive reasoning, patterns, strategizing, trade off etc. I wish chess was taught in all schools

Where in this area is chess offered privately? Or is it offered in school system after school activities?

Several public schools have after school chess class and clubs and some of the public libraries have drop in chess class.

Thanks, I am in FCPS and will check if they offer this afterschool

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:22:02 - is Lollipop Logic any good, or does your DD find it too easy? I've heard conflicting things about it but I was thinking of getting it for my first grader.

Not 22:02, but I think you might find it a bit easy. It was definitely good for a gentle introduction but I used it with a 5 year old just starting kindergarten and before the end of the year she was finding it really easy. Maybe get it and another slightly more difficult book to move to once your child "outgrows" lollipop logic.

[Anonymous]

My dd attends a private school where she has a minimum of 4-5 hours of homework a night, weekends included. I wouldn't dream of burdening her with more.

When she was little, I avoided like the plague anything even remotely resembling a worksheet. If they were working on measurements or chemistry, we'd be in the kitchen baking. It also works to teach proportions/ratios. If she was working on classifications and patterns, we'd clean out her toybox and rearrange her stuffed animals. We'd use donating as a way to practice pre-algebraic concepts. "There are six stuffed animals in the bag, but we want to donate ten. How many more should we put in?" is much more interesting and relatable than a page full of 6 + x = 10, solve for x. To work on vocab building foreign languages, we watched kids shows/cartoons/movies in foreign languages with subtitles, then I used a couple of the really frequently used words or expressions in conversations with her throughout the week. "It's time to feed el gato." I used the same technique for English vocabulary. It really seemed to work and she never felt burdened or overburdened. It was very natural and gave her a practical understanding of the concepts she was learning in school.