Question: Why was 6 afraid of 9 on New Year’s Eve? (Answer at the end)
If 2020 taught us anything, it taught us that we ALL must constantly learn, grow, and adapt to change. Parents learned this more than most. To celebrate the New Year, beginning January of 2021 The Education Game will focus its blogs, podcasts, and social media releases on 8 ESSENTIAL SKILLS to help parents help their kids become smarter and stronger. Those skills are:
- Week 1 – How to learn any time, anywhere
- Week 2 – How to execute on interest-based learning
- Week 3 – How to build an effective and engaging reading program
- Week 4 – How to create a skilled problem-solver
- Week 5 – How to build a strong communicator
- Week 6 – How to instill character skills inside your young learner
- Week 7 – How to create strong relationships to build a smarter and stronger learner
- Week 8 – Connecting these skills to your child’s overall learning plan
Weeks 1 & 2
Whether your child is in school or not, it’s important to realize that learning happens everywhere, and the most impactful learning takes advantage of individual interests and passions. School takes up around 180 days a year. That leaves 185 days of non-school time, which leaves over 50% of annual learning time for community-based learning. Community-based learning ranges from spending time with family and friends, exploring personal interests and passions, taking learning journeys, reaching out to experts, or accessing thousands of online resources like museums, historical, fine art, or foreign language sites, and the list goes on and on. Keeping in mind COVID-19 restrictions, parents should be aware of acceptable safety practices to keep everyone healthy, which will probably limit some in-person community activities. But let’s not use COVID-19 as an excuse for why we aren’t designing a great community-based learning plan for our kids!
Weeks 3, 4, 5, & 6
There is no bargaining away expectations when it comes to building strong readers, communicators, and problem-solvers. Having solid academic character by exhibiting habits of mind (think perseverance, metacognition, self-regulation, listening) is a must. Parents will receive tutorials on defining, planning, executing, and evaluating reading, communication (both oral and written), problem-solving (math, science, and social studies) and academic character skills too! Ideas about learning resources parents can access to help them develop a strong learning plan will be shared. Evaluation ideas beyond the test will be offered.
Week 7
All learning starts with powerful relationships between learners and their adult learning leaders, and between adult learning leaders (think head coaches) and their support system (think assistant coaches). This week, parents will receive coaching on important relationship topics like protocols, co-learning activity, the power of negotiation, and change management. Remember, relationships matter. They matter a lot. Don’t underestimate their power.
Week 8
The Education Game’s primary goal is to help parents develop learning plans for their children, whether they are in school or not. The plan helps the learning leader and the young learner keep track of progress and needed assistance in the areas of reading, communication (oral and written), problem-solving (math, science, social studies), and character. Plans help families keep track of their most important responsibility – high levels of learning for their children.
For more information on learning plans, check out The Promise and The Plan, or reach out to Matt or Dr. Scott by calling 832-210-1200 (ext 1200).
Answer: Because 9, 8, 7.