Most students juggle a full course load in addition to extracurricular activities. Often, this mix of textbooks, athletic wear, and club fundraiser materials can be jumbled together. We have compiled eight fantastic organization solutions guaranteed to make Marie Kondo proud. 1. Label all of your files and folders With digital note-taking, online textbooks and virtual classrooms increasing in popularity, it can be to overlook your laptop’s organization. Create files for each course, and store all related materials accordingly. 2. Assign every item a place Within each folder, be sure to label all of your assignments and to keep track of draft numbers. There’s no panic like submitting your essay at the last-minute, only to realize you cannot locate the file. 3. Consolidate your binders into one Instead of lugging around multiple binders per class, consolidate your materials into one. Then, choose dividers with labels in order to differentiate classes. You can also use folders to store loose paper, just be sure to make each folder class-specific. 4. Maximize storage space. Use zip files to compartmentalize large pdf files. Take advantage of Sunday evenings to clean out superfluous paper and trash. Utilize double sided printing and take notes using the front and back sides of your paper. By making the most of every item and space, you will increase your sense of order and cleanliness. 5.Use a calendar or planner Write down all upcoming deadlines, events, and appointments in a planner. Make sure to include times, addresses and relevant notes to help jog your memory. If hard copy calendars aren’t your style, try Google calendar and sync the data with our email and smart devices. You’ll never be late or miss a due date again!
Ample emphasis is placed on the SAT and ACT for high school seniors. These are touted as the “biggest” exams of a student’s life. However, for the private school pupil, the High School Placement Test (HSPT) proves a major undertaking. What is the HSPT? The HSPT has existed for five decades. It is used to assess an eighth grade student’s preparedness for the ninth grade. High schools nationwide interpret HSPT scores in order to make admissions decisions as well as to award scholarships and assign curriculum. What is a good score? The number of correct responses generate a raw score that is then converted into a composite result. Students receive a composite score in three areas: Total Cognitive Skills, Total Basic Skills, and Battery Composite. Although the scoring is standardized, competitive criteria differs from institution to institution. Note that scores at the 50th percentile reflect the national average performance. Is there an official prep guide? Many parents fret over how to prepare their young ones for the HSPT. According to the Scholastic Testing Service, Inc (STS), there is no formal prep guide for the exam. Completion of academic work through the first semester of eighth grade should adequately prepare your child for the test. Still, many guidebooks exist to help preview the types of questions featured on the exam. Shopping for an HSPT preparation guide can be tricky. Always search for the most recent edition of the guide to ensure the most up-to-date material. Read reviews from previous buyers and prioritize copies that feature full-length practice exams. Finishing Touches As with all standardized exams, the preparatory measures can make a major difference. Ensure your student gets a full night of rest and eats a complete breakfast. Send them to their exam with two number two pencils and a wristwatch so they can track their pace. Most of all, once they complete the exam, celebrate! The most challenging aspect of the high school application process is behind them and all that is left to do is await the results. Good luck!
There are a few things that we feel absolutely every high school student in America should cross off of their bucket list before graduation. While we recognize that there are different strokes for different folks, these five items are universally beneficial. Regardless of whether the post-high school plan consists of college, trade school or full-time employment, this list will definitely help. 1. Take an advanced level course. Enrolling in rigorous coursework can seem daunting, or even risky. There are fears of failing or of getting lost in the curriculum. However, overcoming these fears and taking a higher level course can bring numerous benefits. For example, AP courses mimic college courses in their structure, rigor and assessments. Taking just one AP course might provide useful insight into whether or not college is a good fit. Also, Honors or Gifted level courses can open up opportunities that would not be available otherwise. Many Honors course utilize field trips, research grants and extracurricular experiences to supplement the coursework. Why not take on a challenge that could guarantee growth? 2. Introduce yourself to your academic counselors and advisors. Many public high schools in the U.S. have a high ratio of students per counselor. Often, students never cultivate a direct relationship with their advisors and counselors, beyond college planning and course scheduling. States nationwide require high school counselors to stay informed about relevant scholarships, vocational opportunities and learning resources. Even if college is not a future goal, high school counselors can provide crucial information and tips for other post-graduation paths like trade school, military enlistment, nonprofit programs and more. It all starts with, “hello.” 3. Join an extracurricular activity. It is common for high schools across the country to offer sports, clubs, volunteering and technological opportunities to their student body. Participating in an extracurricular activity serves as a great method for making friends and furthering interests in a variety of areas. Not to mention, making a commitment to an extracurricular activity requires time management. Developing a strong sense of punctuality and scheduling will prove essential to adulthood. Why not start now? 4. Complete a class on public speaking. The number of occasions in life where one speaks publicly is unlimited. Wedding toasts, graduation speeches, eulogies, presentations for work and school–the list goes on! Knowing how to confidently and clearly communicate can be the deciding factor in job interview situations or financial opportunities. Get a head start on building confidence in public speaking ASAP. 5. Learn money management. No matter what path high schoolers follow once they graduate, money will be a constant presence. Understanding the basic mechanisms of taxes, interest, and savings is important. But the buck does not stop there. Having confidence making long-term investments, understanding how to assess the better buy from a slew of products or even learning the common trappings of hidden fees can be instrumental. Some schools offer formal money management classes or economics classes. Having a low-stress part-time job can also be a great way to build these skills.
Regardless of whether your child attends elementary school or university, studying remains an essential part of academic life. Often, the month of October ushers in a period of midterm assessments. Students might juggle oral exams, written tests and essays. Take advantage of a few study tips we have compiled to make midterms go more smoothly. Restrict Notes to One Page per Chapter – This prevents students from compiling pages upon pages of notes that they will never have the time to review. By restricting the available space, students distill notes to only the most pertinent information. Color Code Common Themes – Particularly for history and literature courses, identifying recurring themes is crucial. Assign colors to majors ideas the teacher explores in class, and continue this colorful annotation in the reading and notes. When it comes time to study, similar themes will be grouped in advance, making for associative learning. Don’t Go Crazy with Highlighters – Many students go overboard with highlighting. Efficient studying focuses only on the key information, and uses notes to help with details. If your student has a tendency to highlight everywhere, suggest that highlighter only be used for a specific type of detail, i.e. historic dates or vocabulary words. Mark Deadlines – Write down upcoming deadlines for every major assignment. Then, plot out which will require the most time to complete. Next, identify what assignments prove most challenging. Prioritize based on deadlines and difficulty and write out a plan of execution. Tiny, Daily Chunks of Study Time – Cramming can be effective for passing a test, but it is not good for retention. This means that when final exams roll around, knowledge may be forgotten. Instead, commit 20 minutes of study time to each subject, everyday. So, if your child has 6 classes, their total study time would be 2 hours. Break up these 2 hours into study chunks. Perhaps try an hour directly after school and an hour before bed. You decide what is more manageable. Talk It Out – True mastery means being able to teach the material. Have your student teach you the concepts that they are learning. And remember to set a time limit. Ideally, they feel confident enough about their material to recite the lessons at a conversational pace. Take note of concepts on which they flounder, those need more study time. Studying is a very personal activity, and no single solution suits everyone equally. If you find that one of these tips works better than another, embrace that! With the multitude of learning styles, variety equals healthy study habits. As long as your child can master their information in an efficient amount of time, midterms season should be a cinch.
What do all parents have in common? They want success for their children. It is no secret that a large part of success stems from playing to one’s individual strengths. In the world of education, not all classes are created equal when it comes to student aptitudes. But parents are in luck because most public and private schools offer a variety of academic rigor levels for every core class. Typically, rigor is classified from the General Education Level to the Advanced Level to the Gifted/Honors Level. There are also Advanced Placement (AP) courses and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses which are nationally and internationally standardized curricula, respectively. Before a child can truly benefit from the differing levels of rigor, he or she must know their strengths in the classroom. One way to do so is by reviewing all of your child’s progress reports and report cards. The classes in which they scored highest are potential rigor areas, particularly if they are earning in the 94-100 percentiles. Another area is pre-test benchmark scores. If your child earns top marks on pre-tests (which measure subject knowledge prior to instruction), this may be an indicator that they are ready to be exposed to more challenging material. Finally, we recommend that you have a discussion with your young one about what school subjects interest them most, and why. Often people work harder on things that fascinate them. The same logic rings true for growth areas. If your child is demonstrating lags or struggles in a given subject area, perhaps they need to drop a rigor level in order to continue to learn without harming their confidence in that area. Once you have identified your child’s strength and growth areas, contact their school to discuss the corresponding levels of rigor they offer. Be sure to ask about how each rigor level will impact classwork, pacing and homework assignments. Often there will be an adjustment period, so anticipate and allow time for that transition. Ideally, your child is able to construct a class schedule that allows them to remain challenged and engaged. Taking the time to coordinate rigor with aptitudes is something colleges take note of during the admissions process. They seek out candidates who are self-aware of their abilities and who are committed to growing academically. This does not necessarily mean that colleges only want students who enroll in AP or Honors across the board. In fact, many institutions would rather a pupil who has earned high B’s and A’s in a mix of varied rigor courses than to see a transcript of all C’s in high-rigor courses or all A’s in General Level courses. So as the school year revs into full swing, make sure to build a schedule for your child that will hone their abilities and make them an attractive candidate to universities.
Once the school year gets into full swing, it can feel like a nonstop train. It goes until the winter semester. This relentless schedule can make it hard to set goals for your family and children. So why not do it ahead of time? Here are 7 tips for ways to effectively set goals and to monitor them. Establish a bedtime. It’s a well-known fact that sleep is essential to productivity and wellness. While many assume smaller children need the most sleep, studies show that teens need anywhere from 8-10 hours of sleep each night to perform at full capacity. Sit down with your child and establish a bedtime for school nights, and a bedtime for weekdays to ensure that they are firing on all cylinders in the classroom. Review past grades and set custom progress report and report card goals. In an ideal world, all children earn A’s in every class. But in reality, the grading system allows us to measure aptitudes and growth areas. Make a plan for what grades you want to see on your child’s report card, and then a plan to achieve them. Refresh study skills. One of the biggest conundrums in education is the fact that many students have never been taught how to study. One way to address this is to review a few study skills before the year begins. Many teachers assign summer reading, which is a great way to address annotating, note taking, speed-reading, color-coding and other study habits. Sometimes having a study skill memory jog can make all the difference. Practice time management. Success in school is largely tied to time management. Help to build these sorts of skills in your child by showing them how to budget their time. Perhaps buy a written planner or agenda for them to log their assignments and due dates. Or, utilize the calendars apps offered on many smart devices and emails accounts to set reminders and note appointments. By encouraging your child to take an active role in their schedule before the year begins, they will have a better chance of maintaining the habit during the semester. Ask your child to discuss their own personal goals. Your children may have an idea of what interests them academically, extracurricularly, and recreationally. Have a 30-minute sit-down where you both brainstorm activities, grades, events and goals that you want to achieve over the school year. Then build a calendar together in order to pace out your combined efforts to get there. Having your listening ear and support will do wonders for your little one. Set rewards. For each and every goal that you propose, set a reward that corresponds to it. Children respond to positive reinforcement, and having them work actively toward achieving them. This makes your expectations clear, and sets the stakes for success in a straightforward with your child. Check-In. Touch base with your student after the first week of school. The influx of class schedules friends and orientation days may have shifted their goals or put new ones on their radars. Be encouraging and open to pivoting as necessary.
It’s quick. Most trade licenses require less than two years of training or schooling to acquire. Compare that to the average time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree: 5 to 6 years! It’s preprofessional. The skills trade schools teach are designed for the workplace. That means you will graduate with a marketable certification and career ready. Compare this to liberal arts fields of study, where majoring in visual art or literature may mean that the pathway to a career is less defined. It’s more affordable. According to Vocational Training HG, “the overall average cost of vocational school in the United States is about $33,000” and “the average cost of a Bachelor’s degree is $127,000.” Less cost means less debt. This means there will be fewer debilitating loans to repay post-graduation, and greater financial freedom. It’s accessible. College is not for everyone, and the risks of starting, but not completing school are high. The Institute of Education Statistics estimates that “40% of attendees at a four-year college drop out before completing their degree” and “64% take longer than four years to graduate.” This means that those who decide not to complete college still have to pay the cost of a degree they didn’t obtain. There’s demand. With more and more millennials and Gen-Y’ers getting bachelors degrees, there is a hole in the supply of young tradespeople. As current trades workers age in the industry, the demand for you talent will skyrocket.
A music streaming gift subscription. Pandora Radio and Spotify offer one-year subscriptions of their ad-free streaming services, which means 365 days of virtually unlimited tunes! Every time your graduate turns on their sound system, they’ll have you to thank. A Movie Pass. This service allows users to view one movie per day in theaters. It’s a $9.99 monthly fee, for endless cinematic bliss. With summer on thehorizon, make their post-grad lives kick off with moviegoing bliss. Amazon Prime. Think about it: graduating from school means embarking on adulthood. Recent grads will head across globe to jobs, internships, fellowships and service missions. Having free shipping on Amazon’s entire inventory is the gift that will keep on giving. A Lyft gift card. Most of us cannot gift a car for graduation. But a Lyft gift card might be the next best thing. Purchasing a ride-sharegift card increases mobility for recent grads, relieving high school grads of the need to beg for parental carpools and eliminating the risks of drunk-driving with older grads. You won’t miss the mark with this one! Portable Smartphone Battery. It is no secret that millennials love their gadgets. Spare them the horror of a dead phone battery by gifting them a portable phone battery. No matter if their post-grad plans take them abroad, to the beach or to the office, knowing they have a battery backup brings ample peace of mind. Nice headphones or earphones. With the omniscient presence of technology in most recent graduates’ lives, having access to quality headphones is a no-brainer. The best part is that with bluetooth headphones, wireless sets and the classic earphones, the options are plentiful, yet equally valuable.
With college graduation season just a short six weeks away, most recent graduates focus on surviving final exams, crossing off the last remaining items on their bucket lists, and securing new job or fellowship opportunities. While the Commence Day ceremony marks the conclusion of undergraduate life, it also signifies the beginning of paying back student loans. Even those who deferred their first student loan payment will need to begin planning. We compiled five easy-to-implement ways to plan for student loan payback that will not break your budget. 1. Make a lump sum payment After May graduation, many students will be receiving graduation gift money, job signing bonuses and tax refunds. Applying this lump sum to your student loans can save you thousands in accrued interest and decreases the repayment time. Use Make Lemonade’s Lump Sum Calculator to gauge how much you could save in time and interest by applying a lump sum at the beginning of repayment. 2. Make more than the minimum payment This tip is quite straightforward. The more you pay, the less interest is added to your remaining balance and the quicker the loan is paid off. No need to put pressure on yourself to double the payment. Even $50 more each month will make an impact. Still on the fence? Incorporate this added amount to your automatic loan payments so that you stay consistent and hesitation-free in your payments. 3. Refinance Your Loans Regardless of whether you have one loan or multiple, refinancing creates an opportunity to lower your interest rate. Before diving into refinancing, first consult a lender to verify that your interest rate will decrease. Here is a list of awesome banks that help refinance loans. 4. Avoid Repayment Programs It is true that many of these programs aim for lower monthly loan payments. But they do so by extending the length of the payback term. This means that it will take you longer to pay back your balance and your principal will continue to accrue interest during that extended period. 5. Start a Side-Hustle Spend a few hours each week on a side-hustle that you contribute 100% of the income into loans repayment. Ideally, choose something easy and enjoyable that does not restrict your schedule. Do you enjoy shopping? Apply to work part-time at a retail store. Get a discount off of apparel, and direct that cash toward your loan. In California, working one 5-hour shift per week at $11.00 minimum wage means you could earn $220 toward your loans every month. Not a bad trade-off, eh? Regardless of how you tackle the loan behemoth, be proactive about making a plan. Loans can be a challenge to navigate, but with the proper strategy, you’ll find your balance at $0.00 in no time.
It is nearly time for college admissions decisions to start being delivered to mailboxes all around the nation. Prospective college freshman wait with a health mixture of nerves and excitement. Along with admission comes Move-in Day, arguably the most exciting aspect of a freshman’s preparation. Here are ten things we recommend you bring to outfit your child’s freshman dorm. Mattress Protector – Adding a mattress cover/pad is a cost-effective way to make those twin XL sized beds feel brand new. Ease any worries about bed bugs, previous mattress users and other contaminants by investing in a protective zip-up cover for less than $15. An added bonus: keeping your mattress in pristine condition means the dorm deposit will be returned in full.Mattress Cover/Pad – College dorm life does not mean that comfort must be sacrificed. Memory foam mattress toppers add much-needed comfort and support, without putting a major dent in your pocketbook. After a long night of studying, there is nothing better than crashing in comfort. Portable Shower Caddy – Dorm living often necessitates communal bathrooms. Keep your toiletries in a shower caddy to maximize organization. Best part? You can carry the shower caddy to and from your room, so that you know you’re the only one using your products.Eye Mask – College living often means roommates. Even the most compatible of suite mates might have misaligned schedules. Don’t lose a minute of shut-eye, instead use an eye mask to block light.Extra set of laptop and cell phone chargers – A day in the life of a college student means ubiquitous electronic usage.Nonstop tech time means ample opportunities to leave a charger in the lecture hall, library, dining hall etc. Keep one set of chargers that stays home, and the second set for on-the-go.Surge Protector – Need extra outlets to plug up your gadgets and gizmos? Get a surge protector that will maximize available outlets without overloading the circuits or fuses in your dorm room.Under-the-bed Movable Storage – Dorm rooms necessitate taking full advantage of smaller living spaces. Ikea has a few great options for wheeled bins and chest of drawers to transform the space beneath your bed into an organized storage space.Bed risers – A critical part of utilizing storage below your bed is ensuring that it’s high enough off of the ground. There are no guarantees that bunk beds will be able to be debunked, but if you can split the bunks into two separate beds, we highly recommend doing so. Then, use bed risers to elevate your bed anywhere from 6-12’ from the floor. You’ll marvel at the increased storage space!
You might believe that identifying when a child is struggling in school is a cinch. Surely, all a parent needs to do is review their child’s progress report or report card for scores below a “B” average, right? If that’s not enough, then obviously any attentive teacher worth his or her salt will promptly notify the parents of academic missteps from their little one. This is not a tried-and-true rule. While using grades as performance markers may seem self-explanatory in evaluating a child’s learning abilities, sometimes the challenges a student encounters in school do not always manifest via test scores or classroom conduct. Often, parents and educators must use additional indicators to take a closer look into lags of academic achievement. Consider your child’s pace when approaching their schoolwork. Does he or she complete all tasks within the recommended time allotted by teachers, or do they spend far longer on homework that should only take thirty minutes? Consider that when a concept is not well-solidified mentally, it takes longer to apply this concept to assignments. The inverse is also worth examining. Students who claim to finish a weeklong project in just shy of an hour might be avoiding academic struggles. Note that when a child misunderstands an assignment, it can cause frustration that breeds an attitude of dismissal and/or resignation. Instead of tackling the obstacle of confusion directly, some children may opt to ignore it. This leads to overwhelming amounts of late assignments, stressful cram sessions and lower scores. In either case of pacing, hiring a tutor might be useful for pinpointing specific areas for academic growth, and to create a more measured study regimen to complete homework and assignments. Aside from issues of time management and pace, students who are struggling in school may demonstrate this through changes in attitude. For instance, some children may lose confidence in class. Whereas they may have initially been raising their hands and openly participating, feeling confused about concepts can cause them to withdraw. Unsure of whether this pattern applies to your young pupil? Reach out to their instructors to discuss in-class performance. Kids may also lose enthusiasm for learning due to frustration or boredom. It is not uncommon to hear students profess to “hate school,” typically starting around the second or third grade. This is likely because the core curriculum for most public and private schools noticeably increases in difficulty when a child turns seven or eight-years-old, making some students may feel like they cannot keep up with the demand of their classes. A tutor who can transform learning into a fun and engaging experience stand to impact students who feel undermotivated or discouraged in a constructive way. Isolating the cause for your student’s underperformance in school could prove pivotal to their feelings towards school in general. Catch lags and missteps early, invite a tutor to help hone your child’s abilities, and watch them soar!
Finding the right tutor for your child can be a frustrating process. You may wonder what to look for in the right tutor or what questions to ask a tutor to find out if they are a good fit. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to tutoring. A lot of it depends on your child’s needs, setting, convenience and cost. You can choose a private tutor, tutoring center, or an online service. You will have to determine what is the best fit for your child. It’s often a good idea to look for a tutor that has a college degree and has completed a tutoring program. Make sure that the tutor that you choose has experience in the subject that your child is having issues with. This will ensure that the tutor has been trained in different approaches to help your child with the way that they learn. Find out if the tutor has helped children that are around the same age and has the same learning style that your child has. Also look at what kind of attitude and personality the tutor has. Are they patient, upbeat, and encouraging? How do they interact with children? Make sure you ask for references and check those references. Ask the parents questions and see how the tutor helped their children. Did the kid’s grades improve and were they able to do their homework better? Make sure you meet with multiple tutors and compare the pros and cons of each tutor. Make goals with the teacher, tutor, child, and you. Parents and tutors are aware of what the goals should be, but you know your child better than anyone. Make sure that your tutor is willing to work with your child’s teacher. This will be beneficial in the long run because your tutor can give your teacher updates and your child’s teacher can update the tutor on how your child is doing in the classroom and what your child is needing help with. Make sure that the tutor gives progress reports and find out how often they give them. Ask for a sample of the progress report and see if it gives the kind of info that you would like to see on your reports. What kind of policies does the tutor have? Will you get charged for a session if your child is sick and you did not give them a 24 hour notice that the session will be canceled? Also it will be a good idea to find out their policies on make up sessions and substitute tutors if your child’s tutor can’t make it. Will you have any say in who is teaching your child if there is a replacement? Be involved in the process. At the end of each session, find out what your child is supposed to do before the next meeting. Remember that you play an important part in your child’s education. There is a lot involved in finding the right tutor for your child. Just remember that it will be worth it in the end.
Being a teenager has its pitfalls, which can include overwhelming pressure and stress with school and grades. Classes become more difficult and teachers often demand a tremendous amount of general homework, projects, and reports to be completed. As a parent, it is imperative that you be there for your high school student to make sure your child performs well to help with college and beyond, even if extra help may be needed. High school is a common time for tutoring to be needed. Here are 7 strong signs that your high school student needs a tutor… Different methods: Times have changed and so have the teaching methods they use in schools. You may know how to get the answer yourself, but do you know how your child is being taught to get the answer? Your child may be learning how to do things differently than you did them. This will make it harder for you to help them when you don’t know the current methods being taught. It Has Been Too Long Or You Do Not Remember Enough To Help: If your child is studying long division or fractions and those aren’t something that you deal with on a daily basis, then it may just have been too long since you’ve done some of these things for you to be the best tutor for your child. Could you look at a book and remind yourself. Maybe math wasn’t your thing or you don’t remember how to do signs and cosigns. You can look over the worksheet your child brings home, but you weren’t in class with them. Even if you were getting the concept across to your child, if you don’t really understand how they are trying to do it, then it may not work. Tutors will have several different ways to approach a subject in order to help your child. Need A Someone To Help Who Has More Patience: Let’s face it, our children know how to push our buttons and make us mad. Often we do not have as much patience with our children as we would like. I know there are times when I have more patience with other people’s children than I do with my own. This is where a professional tutor come is. This is what they do. Your child will learn better if they have someone that is more patient with them. Plus, maybe it is just me, but there are times when it seems like your child will listen to everyone else except you, especially teenagers. Time Commitment: How much of a time commitment can you make to help your child? Sometimes it can be hard to find the time needed to help your child. Fitting a solid hour with no distractions, 3 times a week may not be something that you can do. If you get your child a tutor, they can often meet at the school either before or after classes. Your Child Is Trying Not To Disappoint You: Our children don’t want to disappoint us, so they may say that they understand something when really they don’t. They may also feel stupid asking a question for the third time if they still don’t understand the answer. Tutors are used to this kind of thing so they can try to rephrase an answer in order to explain it differently. This way it may click with your child so the finally understand it. More Convenient: Work can be exhausting, so there are pros to having your child meet with a tutor. Having your child meet with a tutor before or after school would be a lot more convenient than having to try to find a time after you get home from work. Since your child is already in the learning mode at those times and more awake it should be easier for them to learn it during those times. Let’s say you get home from work at 6, eat at 7, and finally get around to helping them at 8, chances are your child is already out of school mode and not pick it up as easy. Specialization: Your child could have a learning issue like dyslexia. Finding a tutor that specializes in teaching children like yours will help your child way more than you can. Sometimes it is hard to admit that you can’t do it all as a parent, especially once your child reaches high school. Deciding if your high school student needs a tutor may be a difficult one, but the end result may be worth it.
Congratulations on your decision to go to college! It is an exciting time in your life, that may also a stressful one. There are many important areas to consider when you begin to think of the best way to be ready for college, as a student. Preparing For College Means Two Things: Be Prepare To Work Hard Be Prepares To Take Time Inside & Outside of School To Explore Your Career Interests A strong academic foundation in high school improves your odds of getting into a good college. During high school, focus on completing the following: 1 year of High School Physics 1 year of High School Chemistry 1 year of High School Biology Math (up to Calculus) 2-4 years of a Foreign Language 4 years of English 2 years of History and/or Social Sciences To create this foundation, take at least five solid academic classes every semester. Start with the basics, and then move on to challenging yourself in advanced courses. Most colleges require students to meet certain college prep curriculum standards, so just meeting the minimum is not necessarily the best way to prepare for college. Make sure you check to see what your college of choice requires. Strong preparation means going beyond the minimum. Colleges also expect students to have interests outside of academics. Sports and other extracurricular activities show admission officers that students are well-rounded and can contribute to life on campus. Volunteering or working part-time also indicates a sense of duty and commitment, further proof that students are ready for the responsibilities college entails. It takes a lot of work to prepare for college admission. With a little effort and time, you will do great. Remember to choose extra curricular activities that you enjoy to show how unique you are.
Creative Ways To Improve Your Elementry Math Skills When it comes to math, almost everyone has problems at some point! When you are trying to help yourself, or someone else, some pointers are always nice. Here a creative ways to help you improve your Elementry math skills. Remember when it comes to kids, help them first conquer the basic math skills. Have them practice on paper as well as flash cards. Writing it down helps the brain as well as verbally saying the answers. If they are having a hard time with the cards, put the one down and go back to it later. This will help with the frustration that may come with it! Games are always a great way to help your kids learn math! Games such as Uno, Crazy Eights, Memory and Concentration are games that require memory and the use of numbers, sets, and mathematical concepts. To get the most benefit from this, make sure you point out the memory strategies that lead to the success of the game. You can also try and find online games for Math. These work great to build that “fun” behind the learning. Most of the time, kid’s don’t even realize that they are learning! Another fun way to help with math is playing with a pretend cash register. Have them “buy” things and have you buy things. Have them figure out how much things are and how much is owed at the end! This is a great way to continue using math as well as learning money. You can even have them help you with the “price tags”. Using real money is a great way to learn too! Take out a few dollars and some loose change and give your child a number. Have them figure out how many ways they can come up with that number using the money. There should always be more than 1 way! They can use the loose change as well as the dollars! You can also have them subtract and multiply using the money too! You can also “go for a walk” and look for different shapes in the trees and leaves. You can look at signs. Try to name as shapes as you can and figure out if they are symmetric! Great way to spend time together while learning! You can also learn math when you are cooking or baking. Have your child help you with the measuring cup’s. Have them help you by using a smaller size and figuring out what fraction is needed to make the whole! You could also bake a pie or a cake and as each slice or piece is eaten, have them figure out what fraction is left! Always remember to try to make learning fun! Try using these suggestions or try to make some new ones up on your own! Once your child starts catching on and having fun, you should see a rise in their grades!!
