Hi. Welcome to this week's Mindset session. Congratulations on coming this far. You have covered so much.
- We've already gone from A to the letter O.
- You've worked together on science, art, history, and nature projects.
- You've incorporated so much language and vocabulary with your child.
- They're doing advanced grips in fine motor skills.
- You've focused on various social and emotional objectives, from self-soothing to conflict resolution.
- They're counting to 100 and working on basic addition and subtraction skills.
You've covered so many things so far.
I want you to think back to the very beginning of the course and brainstorm. Make a little list for yourself real quick, grab a receipt or an envelope near you and note down all the things that you can think of in the next 30 seconds that are new to your child.
Ways your child has grown, acquired new knowledge, and developed new skills.
It's good to do that occasionally, just as a pat on the back, as a reminder of the progress you and your child are making. It's really encouraging.
Using a journal to track learning milestones and growth
If you have been keeping some kind of journal or record of the different things you've been doing and the new skills your child is acquiring, now is a perfect time to look back on that journal and notice all of those things from the beginning of the course, up until now.
Remember the more intangible things your child may be expressing, such as showing interest in a new topic or simply being open to trying something new. Those are also things that result from the learning process.
Take stock of all of them; all are important. Then, take a little break and celebrate with your child.
Celebrate your child’s success: Acknowledging their learning milestones
Acknowledge them for how far they've come. It's a big job, and it's very important to acknowledge our progress forward for the remainder of the course; we have about ten weeks left in the course, and just to forecast for you a little bit, we will be continuing to work on these foundational skills that we've already laid down, but we'll also be incorporating some more, for instance:
- Math, time, and money objectives.
- We'll be finishing out the alphabet, and we have a lot more fun stuff coming up for you in literacy.
- We'll continue to work on more advanced fine motor grasps to prepare for writing, holding crayons, holding pencils, and being able to write with a little more stamina. (Still, don't expect much writing stamina at this age, but continue to work on that skill as well).
What to do if your child is struggling: Practical solutions to stay on track
If you are not exactly aligned with the objectives, some of you may feel that your child is struggling to maintain the pace of these objectives. For instance, they're not counting to 100 right now, or maybe they're having a lot of difficulties still recognizing letters, and you feel like new letters are being added too quickly for your child to keep up with.
Now is a good time to step back and figure out how to address that because you don't want to keep adding onto your child at a rate they're not keeping pace with.
Your child doesn't need to follow along exactly week by week with all the objectives we throw at you. That's just not realistic. Some children will progress more quickly with that, and some will progress more slowly, and both are perfectly fine.
So if in a particular area like counting or letter recognition, you notice that there seems to be either frustration or you feel like they could benefit from further practice, feel free to take a step back. Nothing bad is going to happen.
For instance, with counting, go back as far as you feel your child needs to, to the point where you feel they've mastered it: if that's counting from one to 10, or from one to 20, or one to 30, wherever it is, take it back to that point and slowly start adding incrementally from there. You don't have to keep forcing counting to 100 every single week; instead, meet your child where they are.
The power of taking breaks: How pausing can boost learning progress
One of the great things you can do to help them progress is to take a break from it entirely.
Sometimes, a break is really what they need to make the next step. I cannot tell you how often I have noticed that when I give my child a break from a particular subject, they seem to come back almost knowing more than when we left off with it. I don’t know if it's just the time that gives them a chance to sink it in, or if it provides a mental break that we all need sometimes, allowing them to not worry about it for a while, and then come back prepared to tackle it.
Or if they come back a little bit more mature and ready to absorb that subject and engage with it in a way that they weren't previously. But sometimes, a break is truly all you need. So, if your child is frustrated with a particular subject or objective, that is another excellent option.
Handling advanced learners: How to keep your child challenged and engaged
If, on the flip side, your child is zooming ahead, that can also be a problem because you don't want to bore them. If your child has long ago mastered counting to 100, don't feel you need to repetitively drill this every time we bring it up as an objective.
If they enjoy doing that, that's great; feel free to do so. However, if they're bored with it, you can skip that in favor of a different objective that they could use more practice on. Or you can make it more advanced and either help them count past 100, or for instance, if it's a different type of objective, for example, adding, they may already be good at adding numbers, so go ahead and give them some basic subtraction facts to do, or maybe a worksheet, adjust to their level of things so that they're not getting bored.
We don't want them to feel like they're just repetitively drilling information they've already mastered. That can be just as frustrating to your child as asking them to do objectives they're not ready for.
So, again, the bottom line is that no child will perfectly match up with any curriculum that has a scope, sequence, or objectives laid out perfectly. There will always be a subject where students need a little more time to meet the objectives than the course offers, or where they need less time.
So please just focus on your individual child, meeting them where they're at. Don't be beholden to that schedule as much as you are focused on meeting your child on each objective where they are and helping them progress from that point.
So that's my advice to you for this week. I hope you have fun with your objectives for this week, and we look forward to seeing you again next time.