At times there may be weakness in the structure, and here you will find the tools to solidify learning.
Enjoy the bi-weekly articles below.
These sections  are organized by age level, but the information is not confined that so consider looking at other ages ranges as well. Also, make sure to check out the Archives.

ROOTS AND WINGS FOR YOUR CHILDREN
          "Good parents give their children roots and wings: roots to know where home is and wings to fly off and practice                   what has been taught."  Hodding Carter
     If you are not sure your children have roots, check this list of skills. You give your children roots when you give them "executive functioning skills."  Amanda Morin in the website www.understood.org  explains these skills in the following way.
Skill 1:  Impulse control helps your child think before acting.
Skill 2: Emotional control helps your child keep his feelings in check
Skill 3.  Flexible thinking allows your child to adjust to the unexpected.
Skill 4: Working memory helps your child keep key information in mind.
Skill 5:  Self-monitoring allows your child to evaluate how he's doing.
Skill 6:  Planning and prioritizing help your child decide on a goal and a plan to meet it.
Skill 7:  Task initiation helps your child take action and get started.
Skill 8:  Organization lets your child keep track of things physically and mentally.   
      These skills are necessary, but they may develop at different times from pre-school through college.  However, most of them are taught in the home through life experiences and ordinary happenings. Once again, it is parents talking with their children and guiding their thinking that will further develop these skills.  Parents can help children develop a working memory--the ability to keep necessary facts in mind in order to use them later. 
     Helping your children think before acting and evaluating what they do comes from living on a daily basis.  Providing guidance through discussion of events or problems children may have helps them to evaluate their actions as good for themselves or others.  Helping children to know consequences before they do something activates their thinking and decision-making skills. Setting down to plan how they will handle their at-home time in order to get school and home chores done requires your time as parents, especially as school routine settles in. How to get to work in school may be a topic for discussion with their teacher.
     Providing the support that children need to build these skills...is one of society's most important responsibilities (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts). Environments that help children practice these necessary skills before they must practice them alone are especially valuable for developing children.  Adults can help by establishing routines, modeling social behavior and creating and maintaining supportive, reliable relationships. Children must be able to turn to you as their parents for the help and support they need as they make decisions and even mistakes. 
     Children are not born with these skills--they are born with the potential to develop them, according to the Harvard website cited above. It is the parents' responsibility to help their children utilize these skills

MAKE YOUR KIDS SMARTER THIS SUMMER
     Do you want to make your kids smarter this summer? Do you want them to remember the chores you gave them to do before you went to work?  Do you want them to use their brains, not lose their brain power over the summer by viewing TV and living in their digital devices?
     Then get them up in the morning when it is cool and send them racing and chasing each other around the block. You can fully engage your children for super-charged learning by combining their learning with fast exercises--exercises that optimize their brain functions as well as strengthen their body.   
    "Kids have the right idea with their enthusiastic zipping around, and the pleasure they take in feeling fully alive and aware of their own bodies. When kids go out to play, they run, sprint, laugh, chase, zigzag, climb, sweat and get totally exhausted."  Phil Campbell, MS
     Fast movement or sprinting decreases inflammation in the brain and improves hormone balance.  Brain plasticity and blood flow increase with exercise, especially in the hippocampus, which is part of the limbic system known for learning and memory in the brain. Not only memory, but the capacity to engage in critical thinking is strengthened by regular running--FAST.
   Speed workouts have four levels: 1) oxygen debit or feeling out of breath; 2) muscle burn 3) an increase in body temperature and 4) adrenal response--feeling out of breath and "slightly in pain." This is how you know when you join your children that you have moved fast enough for your moves to be effective in increasing your "brain power."
    On YouTube, Ed Mayhew has a series of movement exercises that he calls "brain sprints" in which he emphasizes using movement to memorize necessary math facts and cross-lateral movements that strengthen the brain hemispheres' connection.  (https: //google.com/mail/#inbox/i54c7f51581cla95)
     In his book, SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain 
(Little Brown, 2008), Dr. John Rahey shows how exercise becomes "Miracle-Gro for the brain." When one moves as fast as he can, a person sparks the master molecule of the learning process showing a direct biological connection between movement and cognitive function.  Exercise!!!

Write to Learn This Summer
      Writing is an important communication skill.  Many times, it is hard to tell our feelings and thoughts to other people.  Writing them out may help us express how we feel even if it is only read by ourselves.
     You may think writing is unimportant due to advancing technology, but the technology cannot think for us.  Writing enables us to think more clearly.  It helps us to find ways to express our feelings, our emotions, our affections, our strengths and weaknesses.  E-mail doesn’t keep; writing on paper does. Famous people—women and men—have written pages of their thoughts that lie dormant  for many years. Once discovered, these writings are valuable sharing of their lives and the time in which they lived.
     Writing also strengthens reading.  They are double-dipped to help us accumulate knowledge.  If you can read it, you can write it.  If you write it, you can read it.  It just takes stimulation that comes from an exciting teacher and an interested parent.  It is important to continue reading to your children, no matter what age they are.  You are helping them to have  knowledge about the world, how other children solve similar problems, and giving  them something to write about. See www.themeasuredmom.com for book suggestions.  A librarian can also help your selection.  For older children, your choice may be about something they are studying in school.
     Writing down information helps to remember, no matter what age, especially if talking to ourselves as we write.  Engaging the senses is a positive way to help memory, and memory helps students pass tests.
     There are sections of standardized tests that require students to write their thoughts about timely topics and even show their outline skills as they need to organize their thoughts before writing the required text. Although computers are increasingly used for state testing, putting thoughts on paper is still an important way to communicate one's preparation and organization in writing about a topic.
      Students often laugh when I tell them to keep their dictionaries or Ipod handy when writing, but even if they cannot spell the entire word, their attempts at “sounding out” the word will help them find it correctly spelled in the dictionary pages. Correct spelling is crucial for effective communication and precise understanding.  Students must care enough to spell correctly and use proper grammar.
     There are contests that encourage good writing.  Civic and veteran’s organizations (VFW,   Eagles, Rotary) often hold contests in which they invite young people to tell what good citizenship  means to them.  Contact their nearest units to find out what they are seeking for their contests, and  the timeline for them.