Helping Kids Exceed At Home

Thanks to the makers of Pine-Sol® for sponsoring my writing. A study shows a clean smelling home can help children succeed, so Pine-Sol® is supporting Reading is Fundamental (RIF) this year. Click “Like” on Pine-Sol®’s Facebook page here and they will donate books to RIF!

I thought a lot about the subject of this post.  What I do to help my children exceed at home? Wow, if you think about it, that is a really great question.  I like to think that I do a lot. My children are very intelligent. They are always thriving in school. The teachers compliment them all.  My girls have already been voted students of the month in their respective classes several times since Kindergarten. They are at the top of their games. Why? Good genes. LOL!!  🙂 Well, I’m sure that has a little something to do with it. But without nurturing those genes, they won’t really go anywhere.

So, what do I do? I like to give my children room to explore and figure out things for themselves. Of course I help with homework, but I don’t provide the answers. If they are struggling, we work through 1 or 2 problems together, and I leave them to complete the rest.  I used to read to my kids a lot.  Now my girls love reading to me. I like to find household items that can assist them in their learning journey. For example, my huge pretzel jar full of change often comes into play at math time. The girls are learning a lot about counting money. So, instead of my keeping it all on paper we use visual aids. I tell them to go and get some change from the jar and work out the problem. It has worked out very well.

I also think that learning other things besides just school work creates a good balance. You don’t want to have a bunch of book smarts without common sense! I try to talk to them like they are people when explaining things, not just little kids. They are very, very observant and pick up on a lot. I always say that my girls are 7 going on 35. 🙂 And, at only 4 my boys know how to navigate the Wii and Xbox to play their favorite games and even pull up a movie on Netflix. Those are my babies for sure!! 🙂 My kids also have a computer that they share. Of course it is well protected and locked down. But they use it when they have to look up information for school projects. They have researched animals and people. I love listening to them tell me all that they learned about Crocodiles from Google.

I am really hoping that they all keep up the momentum that they are on now. I am very proud of them. They have started to take on extracurricular activities like dance and the glee club already, and they absolutely love school.

How do you help your children exceed at home?

Don’t forget to click over to Pine-Sol®’s Facebook page to support our children’s success. I was selected for this Pine-Sol® sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.