The winter holiday break is a fun-filled time for you and your family to unwind and spend quality time together, but it will be over before you know it! Children’s school success begins at home, and even the simplest steps can mean a big difference for your child’s future. To keep your child’s skills sharp and ensure a smooth transition to going back to school, Scholastic offers tips to keep kids learning:
- Read for pleasure. Whether your child is in the mood for holiday favorites like The Night Before Christmas or their favorite series, winter break is the perfect chance to stash the schoolbooks and have fun reading.
- Cook up a lesson. Ask your child for help in the kitchen to whip up some treats. Using measurements is good math practice, especially in fractions!
- Write thank-you notes. Whether your child is writing notes to gift-givers, teachers or neighbors, this is a great way to practice penmanship, spelling and grammar – plus, it teaches gratitude.
- Let kids help with online shopping. Need a last minute gift? Help your child shop online with you to help them work on computer and research skills.
- Maintain reasonable bedtimes. With no school to wake up early for, it’s tempting to let your child become a night owl. A few days before school starts again, ease back into the regular schedule.
- Have a family game night. Chances are many of your family’s favorite card and board games reinforce skills like reading, counting and drawing. Gather your family to play games you don’t have time for on school nights.
- Make the most of car rides. Turn the drive to or from holiday gatherings into a fun opportunity to learn. You can look for license plates from different states, count the number of red or green cars you see or play license plate bingo!
Read more ways to keep skills sharp during winter break at www.scholastic.com, and learn how to support learning at home at www.capta.org/supporting-learning-at-home.
December 6, 2017
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SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Education (CDE) released a new online school accountability resource that shows how local schools are performing based on different indicators at the state and local level. California State PTA Vice President for Education, Mary Perry, released the following statement:
“The School Dashboard will let parents and educators dig deeper into how their school is doing in a variety of different areas and at multiple levels. This is a great asset for California families to further invest in their children’s education.
“California State PTA has long supported the use of multiple measures for state accountability. We are in agreement with the concept underlying California’s new system – that educating students is complex work and that many different things affect their success. A single number ranking can be deceptive in its simplicity.
“The new Dashboard, by contrast, should open up conversations about the progress and performance of our students, our schools and our school districts. It can help parents, community members and school employees identify the important questions to ask and compel district leaders to address those questions honestly and openly.
“In the spirit of continuous improvement, California State PTA will continue to work with other organizations, the California Department of Education and the State Board to make the Dashboard an increasingly effective tool for measuring school success.”
Visit the California School Dashboard at www.caschooldashboard.org.
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Stephen Foster Elementary PTA in Lakewood, CA (Thirty-Third District PTA) gives back to the students in the community who need it the most. The PTA realized their school had a large population of foster youth and decided to research ways to help these more vulnerable students. They found an organization called Together We Rise – a non-profit dedicated to transforming the way kids experience foster care in America – and decided to work together to better the lives of all students.
“Our school wanted to figure out how we could give back and help kids who are in the foster system,” said Sandee Trowbridge, president of Stephen Foster Elementary PTA at the time.
Together We Rise provided PTA with duffel bags and a few items to include in them through their Sweet Cases program, and then the responsibility of filling the bags and delivering them to a foster home or agency was up to the PTA. When foster youth move from home to home, they often have to stuff their belongings in trash bags. PTA wanted the children in their community to have a better way of moving their things and something they could be happy to carry around.
Stephen Foster Elementary PTA hosted a family night, which attracted more than 400 people, and asked for community participation in changing the lives of foster children. The families filled the duffel bags with donated items such as pajamas, night lights, coloring books, socks, gloves, toiletry items and more, and the children who attended decorated the bags to make them fun and appealing.
“We received so many donations! Because of the amount, we were able to individualize the bags by age,” said Trowbridge.
Some of the duffel bags were geared towards younger children, with lots of crayons and coloring books, while others were for older children, with Harry Potter books and trendy pajamas. Sandee Trowbridge and a fellow PTA volunteer delivered the filled and decorated bags to Aspiranet Child & Family Services in Long Beach, CA just before the winter holidays.
“It was a great experience and we were very excited to give back!” said Trowbridge.
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Social-emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which people learn to manage their emotions, interact with