Start this School Year off Right
Here at Connections Academics, we love back to school season! A fresh start and new beginning is exciting, and we are here to help your family start this year off right. Our team of educators has you covered with these back to school tips:
Bring your student along to pick out supplies. This will create excitement and ownership. Certainly we’re not the only ones who remember their purple Trapper Keeper?
Plan for the planners! Many schools provide planners for elementary and middle school. Spend time looking at this with your student, modeling and incentivizing how to use the planner. For age-appropriate students, encourage them to use a digital calendar and electronic to-do list if that is more motivating.
Involve your child in creating home routines for both before and after school. Decide together when the alarm will go off each morning, where the backpack will be stored, where communication from school will be delivered, when and where homework will get done, and when the bag will get packed up. Give these new routines time and anticipate the need for extra time and extra reminders as everyone adjusts back to a new school year.
The first few weeks of school will be filled with new apps to download, new accounts to create, and newsletters filling your inbox. Because teacher communication is so important, jump in right away by familiarizing yourself with the different communication tools. Download the apps, create the accounts, set the notifications, and be sure you know how your child's teacher will be communicating throughout the year.
Hire a tutor! Deciding to bring a tutor into your child’s life is a big decision and an investment. Tutoring will have a significant impact on a student’s life by increasing knowledge, boosting confidence, and developing pride in the hard work of education. We believe that most students would benefit from 1:1 support. This could come in the form of enrichment, intervention, test prep, review, or simply having a caring adult talk through learning in a new way. A tutor provides academic engagement for a student and cheers him or her on as they strive together to make personal academic gains.
And lastly, plan to sit on the couch and eat pizza the Friday night after the first week back. Everyone will be exhausted. Don’t make big plans. Just sit. Eat. Trust us. You will be glad you did.
