Education Archives - Painter Mommy

Homeschooling Hell – 5 Ways Parents Can Take The Stress Out Of Homeschooling Kids

December 10, 2020 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Some parents choose to educate their kids at home, but if you’ve been forced into homeschooling because of the pandemic, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and over-stressed. These feelings are completely normal, and it helps to know you’re not alone. Many parents have found themselves in the same situation in these chaotic times.

Whether you homeschool by choice or not, stress can still play a big role. Schooling your children at home can be unpredictable at times, but if you develop a routine and don’t put too much stress on yourself or your children, homeschooling can be fruitful and enjoyable for everyone. Here are a few ways you can take the stress out of educating your kids.

Get Support

If you feel like you weren’t cut out for teaching things like math, science, and English, that’s perfectly normal. Parents don’t need to know everything! When you come up against subject matter you don’t feel confident helping your child with, set them up with online tutoring from another parent, a teacher, or a professional tutor. If you have expertise in a certain field, you could offer to tutor another parent’s child in exchange for them helping your child with the subjects you’re not confident with.

Remember Why You’re Homeschooling Your Kids

Homeschooling children can be tough, so on the days that seem particularly rough, remind yourself why you’re doing it. Instead of thinking of it as a chore that has to be done, consider the fact that you’re safely continuing your child’s education during a global health crisis. It’s okay to struggle so long as you are keeping your family safe and healthy.

Adjust Your Expectations Daily

Don’t expect too much from yourself or your children because it only makes things more stressful when no-one lives up to those expectations. Some days will be less productive than others, and that’s alright. Approach each day with a fresh mindset and be flexible in your expectations as homeschooling can be tricky and unpredictable a lot of the time.

Get into a Routine

If you’re like most parents, you’re probably working your full-time job in addition to homeschooling your kids. And of course, there’s also the housework to think about. It’s a good idea to get everyone into a routine so each member of the household is on the same page at the same time.

Use a calendar to plan out events and appointments and to assign chores to each individual. Put it in an oft-visited spot in the house where everyone can see it and add to it as necessary. When each family member knows what the others are doing and when they are doing it, it makes for a much less stressful existence during a very unpredictable time.

Take Time to Unwind

At the end of the day, when work, school, and housework are done, make sure to take time for yourself. Read a book, take a bath, go for a walk, engage in some mood-boosting hobbies – whatever it takes to calm your mind and rejuvenate your soul. If you have a partner, this time can be spent talking about each other’s day and any thoughts on the homeschooling front. Conversations like this can really help you get rid of stress so you can do it all over again tomorrow.

Homeschooling is hard work. There never seems to be enough time in a day to get everything done, and the pressure of all that responsibility can be overwhelming. Though it will always be a challenge, the tips above should at least take the stress out of homeschooling your kids.

Photo: Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels

Keep Your Homework Organized with These 3 Fun Tools!

October 16, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

This is the time of year when the back to school frenzy starts to subside. Students and teachers alike are starting to ease into their school year routine. A daily dose of homework is the norm for many students when the school year is in full effect. It may come in the form of quick reading and math sheets for the little ones just starting out in elementary school.

But for everyone else, homework can be packed full of lessons and note taking. If this is the case for you or your student, make sure you’ve got the best tools to keep yourself or your children in maximum organization mode – and have a blast doing it too.

Here are three must-have tools from OOLY that will keep your homework on track and packed full of color that will stimulate the mind and keep the learning process fun!

Multi-Colored Gel Pens

One of the most creative ways to help words pop off a page is by using gel pens. If you’re spending considerable time outlining a chapter or organizing research for an essay, multicolored pens can help you organize your facts and your thoughts.

Use a different color for each category like dates, points you want to make, important people or periods to remember, etc.

OOLY has plenty of color packed gel pen sets to choose from. Gel pens glide on with smooth, rich strokes to leave your page in a rainbow of organization. Try the 6 Click Neon Multi-Color Gel Pen for bright eye-catching hues. Check out Mighty Mini Gel Pens for your notetaking needs in a neat, compact design. Or choose Petite Point Fine Tip Gel Pens for a nice variety of color in 12 elegant choices.

Highlighters

Whether you’re reviewing your notes or finding the important points of a reading assignment or research notes, highlighters always come in handy for helping you find the points worth remembering. The typical yellow highlighter seems to be the go-to choice for many dutiful students. But why not change it up a bit, and go for a fun highlighter option that will make your homework a wee bit more entertaining?

Take a look at OOLY’s Fresh Pick Scented Neon Gel Crayon Highlighters for a fun, friendly scented choice. These highlighters come in five fanciful colors that will keep your mind and your nose stimulated! Another option that gets an A+ for versatility is the Do-Overs Erasable Highlighters. Made a mistake? That’s okay! Just erase it and highlight again.

Sticky Notes

The perfect companion to multi-colored gel pens and helpful highlighters are sticky notes. Sticky notes are must-haves to keep you on point and efficient when studying or organizing notes. OOLY has a collection of whimsically entertaining, and totally effective sticky notes to keep you on track and have a little fun doing it.

Consider Note Pals Sticky Tabs for a quirky collection of colorfully cute critters to keep tabs on your pages. Or choose Notes On A Roll Decorative Sticky Tape to keep your homework happening with the happiest of vibes.

What are the benefits of using Montessori materials?

May 21, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Montessori education became very popular during the past few years. A child’s intellectual development will influence who he will become as an adult. It is highly important to promote high self-esteem, positive relationships with other people, value systems and so on. Today, traditional education does not cover such things because it is based on transmitting and recreating blocks of information. Traditional education tends to focus more on the theoretical part of learning rather than the practical one. Thus, personality and preferences are formed in the very same mold, which will later lead to transforming children in similar adults, with almost the same preferences and ideals. This is the main difference between Montessori and traditional education. In the case of Montessori, children are given more freedom. The journey to becoming an adult is complex and attention must be paid to the entire process of developing both mentally and spiritually.

Montessori education offers children ideal environments for each stage development they are in. Using specific Montessori supplies allows children to act according to their personality and choose what seems attractive for them only. Children are not forced to engage themselves in activities they do not enjoy. Montessori education encourages reaching the maximum potential of every child, letting them use each side of their personality with the sole purpose of intellectually developing themselves. When talking about traditional education, the activity is mostly directed by a teacher. As for Montessori, activity is not guided, but independent. This way, kids have the opportunity to discover everything all by themselves, by using Montessori toys.

Each aspect that’s included in the educational curriculum used in Montessori is somehow encouraging creativity and analytical thinking. Children will choose the activities they are attracted to because of the skills they possess. Compared to traditional education, Montessori allows forming groups of differently aged children. They can choose any activity available, regardless of their age and develop their skills at their own pace. The materials used in Montessori are colorful and eye-catching, making children want to try them. Puzzles, toys that include geometrical shapes, logic games – these are all Montessori materials that boost the independence of a child’s thinking. There is no need for a professor to correct the children, as they are learning by themselves, looking for solutions until they finally manage to find them.

Because kids are interacting with the surroundings, including both the materials used and the other participants, individually developing social and intellectual skills is natural, and not forced, as in the case of traditional learning. Through self-motivation and self-correction, children become more aware of their freedom, of their capabilities and their sensorial input-output. Breaking complicating learning into these small steps used in Montessori education helps the child gain confidence. There is no concept of right and wrong, being replaced by trial and error. The freedom of how much time kids choose to spend for one task, the attention they offer to certain details and the state of deep concentration they experience are results of the possibility to choose for themselves.

Author Bio:

Rana Tarakji is an entrepreneur and a contributing writer at One SEO, a digital marketing agency, who lives in Beirut, Lebanon. Rana Tarakji is passionate about digital marketing, startups, helping entrepreneurs grow, and empowering them to live their dreams. She has worked as a marketer, a technology co-founder and business developer, and a writer.

How to Instill the Love of Reading in Your Child

January 22, 2018 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

When does your child read? A) Every single day – he just loves learning and letting his imagination run free, B) Read? He uses his books to reach the TV dial or C) When I make him, come hell or Lambchops Play-along!

If your answer is ‘A,’ congratulations: Your child will grow pup with initiative, creativity, and knowledge needed in today’s competitive world. If your answer is ‘B,’ welcome to the club; many other mothers get the urge to throw the TV and computer games out the window. And if your answer is ‘C’ – well, it is a step in the right direction. Sort of.

Here are six ways on how to instill the love of reading in your child:

1. Get together with other mothers. Some kids, even if they grow to like books, might eventually abandon them because their friends want to play, or they cannot keep up with the neighborhood discussions on Barbie. Organize some reading group, or at least encourage other parents to fix their own children’s reading habits. Then you can throw back an argument your child has used for most of his life: “other kids are doing it.”

2. Don’t make reading a chore or a punishment. It is easy to tell a hyperactive or underachieving child to “Keep quiet for half an hour and just read a book.” Or “Your grades are low because you do not read enough…from now on I want you to keep books and not to play!” But this will give negative reading connotations that no amount of Brothers Grimm can erase. Separate the situation from the solution. If you do want your child to sit still, tell him to go his room, where books will be waiting for his quiet enjoyment. Or if his grades are low, limit his play, then at another time; gently explain to him how reading can help him in his studies. Books then become the friend, not the enemy, and friendship is the first step to love.

3. Do not criticize his reading. So what if he reads slowly, or if he reads the same books over and over again? The important thing is that he is reading, and if he needs correction, be sure to sandwich it with lots of his effort. “Son, I’m proud that you’re reading a lot, and writing stories of your own too! But don’t write on the books, okay?! Here, I bought you a nice notebook. If you want to write after reading, you can put it here so everyone can read your beautiful stories.”

4. Cultivate a general interest in learning. You have taught your child to love reading; now you have to teach him to take the initiative. Organize nature trips, collect bugs or flowers, or just place him in any situation that will expose him to new things. Now that his senses are stimulated, he will naturally turn to what suggestions number 1-9 have drilled into him day after day. “Hey, didn’t I read a book on that some time ago? I think I’ll look it up again when I get home.”

5. Make books available. Rarely does a child plan to read a book. It is spontaneous, like everything else he does, a hungriness that springs on a sleepy Saturday afternoon or after a wonderful discovery in the garden. So do not keep the encyclopedia set behind a locked glass case, or the fairy tale books on a shelf too high for him to reach. And most importantly, do not cripple him with the fear that he might “ruin the book.” Books are to be read, and if the pages get a little crumpled, then they are beautiful books indeed. Haven’t you read The Velveteen Rabbit?

6. Set him free. After you have instilled the love of reading in him, let him explore its realm for himself. You have given him the most beautiful gift possible, but he will never be able to know this until he discovers this on his adventuring own. If he likes Sherlock Holmes, well and good. If he prefers Ghosts and Goblins, then step back and let them be. After all, your child is A) reading every single day – he just loves to learn and allowing his imagination run free!

Author Bio: Sohail is a content marketer and a blogger, currently he is associated with Smiletutor.sg. His hobbies include writing, reading books, traveling and gardening.

The Pros and Cons of a Private College Consultant

March 19, 2015 by Painter Mommy Leave a Comment

Getting into college can be tough these days. According to IvyWise, college acceptance rates in 2014 fell to an all-time low of 5.07% meaning colleges are very selective in who they admit. The competition is fierce. So fierce, in fact, parents are flocking to private college consultants to help their children get admitted to their dream school. If your kids are in high school and college is becoming an ever-increasing household discussion, here are a few pros and cons to consider before hiring a private college counselor:

The Pros

Help Make the Best College Match for Your Child

Going to college is an investment that you want to ensure will provide a lifelong return. Sadly, many students fail to see that return. The National Student Clearinghouse found that of those who began college in 2008 planning to earn a degree in 6 years, only 55 percent succeeded. That could be a result of a myriad of issues including financial and academic struggles to depression and loneliness. A private college consultant can help fit your child’s personality, desires and passions to the best institution possible giving them a better chance of graduating. Whether your son or daughter is musically inclined, has interests in science or is tech savvy, a counselor can potentially find the perfect school for them.

Creating a Plan for Success

You can hire a private college consultant in your child’s junior year in high school to create a solid plan for success. They can offer tips on extracurricular activities to get involved in, how to seek out teacher recommendations and advice on general academics and standardized tests (they even can tutor your child for the ACT/SAT). As with many things in life, instead of just winging the college admissions process, having a well-organized and thought-out plan from a professional will give your child an advantage when it comes to highly selective schools.

Filling a Void

Because of tight budgets, high school counselors are often overwhelmed with astronomical student to counselor ratios. The American School Counselor Association sites Wyoming and Vermont as the only two states having the recommended 1:250 ratio. In order to give your child adequate help in the college admissions process, investing in a private college counselor can be a wise move. Instead of trying to squeeze an appointment with an overworked high school counselor, they’ll have a dedicated private counselor who can provide tips, offer resources and be your child’s guide till the day they enroll in college.

The Cons

It Can be Pricey

Hiring a dedicated counselor can put you back $40,000 on top of the actual expenses associated with college. Many urban high schools which lack a decent student to counselor ratio have families that simply cannot afford that price. If you haven’t built-up a 529 plan that covers a majority of college expenses, then finances can be a factor on whether or not your child finishes college in the first place. It might be better to put all your financial resources into their educational costs and focus on seeking all the federal financial aid they can receive.

You Might Not Need One

Before committing to a private counselor, evaluate whether or not you need one. You have many options when it comes to receiving aid for the college admissions process that include online resources, high school counselors (as long as the ratios are decent) and college websites themselves. Instead of digging yourself deeper financially into a service you might not need, taking advantage of the free help available might be all that’s necessary.

It’s Possible You’re being Lied Too

The private college consultant field is unregulated meaning there are no standards to abide by for those who wish to consult. Anyone can claim to have the best experience in college admissions and charge an exorbitant fee for their services and not exactly be telling the truth. No matter how convincing they may be, it’s a good idea to research an individual consultant before writing the check.

Some Helpful Resources

If you do decide to take the plunge and hire a consultant, some organizations to look into include the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) and the American Institute of Certified Educational Planners (AICEP). Otherwise, do your due diligence with researching and asking important questions before hiring a counselor.

Lance Mann is a blogger and owner of the site EasyScholarshipsNow.com which offers lists of scholarships by category, all easy, in addition to other helpful frugal tips for students in college.