Categories
Parenting

Fun Family Activities You Will All Actually Enjoy

Do you wish you spent more time doing fun family activities? It can be really difficult to get everyone in your family together to do something that everyone enjoys. Often, what we do caters to one or two members of the family and the rest just tolerate it. It doesn’t have to be that way! 

If you need ideas for fun, project-based learning activities, consider investing in MindFinity. We will have you and your child learning through different activities and projects. With MindFinity, you won’t have to plan out quite so many activities, as we do that work for you! Even better, you’ll be able to expand on them and raise smarter kids

If this sounds interesting to you, click here to learn more. 

If you want to learn about more fun family activities, keep reading:

Go Geocaching!

Geocaching is a great way to learn about directions, talk about coordinates, and get some physical activity into your day. Geocaching requires at least one smartphone and a good pair of sneakers. Your family can download a geocaching app, where you will be able to pick “geos” based on your location, the difficulty, and the time.

Some geos are hidden in plain sight and others require climbing trees, figuring out puzzles, or even looking for names in cemeteries. If you have playgrounds or parkland around your neighborhood, you will probably find a few options. Bring something with you to put into the capsule and be sure not to disturb any wildlife or vegetation.

Once your family has done some geos, you can even buy your own and hide it somewhere!

Learn A New Board Game

Board games are fun because everyone in the family can get into the action. They are old-fashioned, sure, but they are proven winners. You can play them on vacation, holidays, or just when you need something to do. Don’t feel limited to board games, you can learn card games too!

If your family does like video games (and there is nothing wrong with that!), consider getting multiplayer games that you can change the levels on, something like Mario Party.

Plant A Garden

Gardens are a really cool way to get everyone in the family together and working towards a common goal. Whether you want to plant flowers or an herb garden, you can use this as a learning experience. Teach your children how to survive off the land, take care of something, and do something good for their mental and physical health all at the same time.

Gardens can help you to teach fractions, photosynthesis, and many “life lessons” that they will need in the future. Even better, an herb or vegetable garden can lead to cooking healthy meals together where you can teach about nutrition.

Explore A New Culture

As your child gets older, becoming a global citizen is going to be important. If you have more time to spend together as a family, consider making an entire day or weekend of exploring a specific culture. You can watch documentaries, go to museums, eat meals, listen to music, and just explore cultures that maybe they haven’t been exposed to before. This is a great way to teach your children about people who don’t look like them or sound like them. Even better, there is probably a ton of information that you will learn too.

Make Artwork

Art is a great way to do something individually while still coming together. Collect different arts and crafts supplies and then have a day where everyone just makes something new and interesting. Maybe someone will use watercolors while another person makes a collage. Someone may go outside and color with chalk while another person uses only a pencil to make a sketch.

When everyone is done, come together and explain your artwork. Maybe even make a display area!

MindFinity Provides Projects The Whole Family Will Love

Our award-winning program helps your children expand their brains and learn polymath thinking skills while dancing, singing, doing martial arts, and moving around! 

You get a new game for each day of the week, which takes just a few minutes a day. And you can expand on the games and have your child put their imagination to use and expand other projects that they are already doing. You’ll get some fun ideas as well!

Interested in learning more? To learn more about MindFinity and sign up for a free trial, click here.

Categories
Parenting Schooling

So Your Kid Is An Kinesthetic Learner – Now What?

If your child is a kinesthetic learner, they have a few things going for them and a few things that you need to be on the lookout for, especially in schools. Kinesthetic learners are the types of people who learn by getting up and doing things instead of sitting there and hearing about doing them. Often, they are the kids who succeed in science or math because it involves movement. They may struggle with more introverted subjects like English or history.

MindFinity helps you to teach your children and increase their Inventive IQs through various activities that strengthen all of their learning styles. Our games will have your children learning while dancing, singing, cooking, and more. They only take a few minutes every day, but they will quickly become your favorite time with your kids. To learn more, click here.

What Is Kinesthetic Learning?

Kinesthetic learners are the types of kids who move around a lot, and they do better when they are active. Whether they remember things better when singing a song that has movements, or they are gifted in some type of movement, they will always remember things better when they can use their bodies as well as their minds.

How Do I Know If My Child Is A Kinesthetic Learner?

 Children who are kinesthetic learners aren’t just the kids who can’t sit still, and kids who can’t sit still aren’t always kinesthetic learners. To spot a kinesthetic learner, look for these signs:

  • Your child excels in sports or physical activities
  • They move their hands or bodies when working on a problem
  • Your kid has a good sense of body awareness
  • Kinesthetic learners often grow bored of assignments quickly
  • They don’t like “step by step” projects

There are some negatives to having a kinesthetic learner as a child as well. Some of these signs include a general disinterest in things like reading or studying. These learners are easily distracted by what is going on around them, if only because it allows them to move their heads. 

How Can I Use This Information To Help My Child Succeed?

Kinesthetic learners are some of the most easily spotted learners in a class, but they are also some of the most underserved students. With class sizes swelling to 30+ in almost every public school, teachers can’t incorporate learning into their lesson plans. There simply isn’t enough room! Unfortunately, kinesthetic learners also tend to be very bad at auditory learning, which is what the modern school system uses the most often.

To help your child succeed, you need to figure out a way to get them moving. This could be by using manipulatives while doing something like math or science, building out labs or projects that require them to physically move around. For English class, buying an audiobook and having them walk on the treadmill while listening can be helpful. 

With younger children it is a bit harder, but if you can find dances, plays, or activities that require them to at least stand, which can be helpful.

Consider the environment as well. Kinesthetic learners benefit from standing desks, peddlers, yoga balls, and even fidget toys. Teach your child how to calm themselves down when they get the urge to move around the room. If you can control the classroom or the schedule, make sure your child has breaks to get in movement. If you don’t, talk to the teacher to see if he or she can schedule some movement. Teachers often need a student to run errands for them, and kinesthetic learners are great for that.

MindFinity Helps Kids Learn Through Play

Our award-winning program helps your children expand their brains and learn polymath thinking skills while dancing, playing music, doing martial arts, and moving around! You get a new game each weekday, which takes about five minutes a day. And you can expand on the games and have your child put their imagination to use. For auditory learners, many of the basic skills are taught through music and patterns, which they then learn to transfer into visual and kinesthetic disciplines, helping them to develop the skills that they need to thrive.

Interested in learning more? To learn more about MindFinity and sign up for a free trial, click here.

Categories
Parenting Schooling

What Is Meaningful Learning In Today’s School System?

Meaningful learning is a bit of a buzz word these days, and there are some pretty clear reasons why. In a world where children are leaving school not prepared for life, it has become clear that we need to get better at teaching kids.

Meaningful learning is a way to solve that problem, at least in part.

One of the basic foundations of meaningful learning is pattern recognition. Without it, children will struggle to see the connections between their material. MindFinity can help to teach your child how to recognize patterns in the world around them, including in real-life situations. For more information on MindFinity, please click here

What Is Meaningful Learning?

Meaningful learning takes what children have already learned and allows them to apply it to new situations. It helps them to understand how all of the pieces of a concept fit together and make a whole. This is the type of learning that helps children once they become adults.

Mindful learning isn’t sitting there, getting lectured at. It is playing, moving, active learning that is constructive and allows children to be fully engaged in their lessons. 

What Are The Goals Of Meaningful Learning?

Meaningful learning has two major goals and many, many small goals depending on the lesson. These two main goals are:

  1. Retention – students need to be able to remember the material at a later date.
  2. Transfer – students need to be able to use the knowledge that they’ve already learned to solve new problems.

This is different from the type of learning most students are exposed to now, which is basically “remember this until the test and then forget it,” except in rare instances.

Pros and Cons Of Meaningful Learning

Like any type of schooling or learning, there are some distinct advantages and disadvantages of meaningful learning. Meaningful learning helps to foster learning in kids of all levels by:

  • Encouraging them to be an active part of their schooling process;
  • Enabling them to understand a topic, not just remember test answers;
  • Connecting the dots between previous topics and new information;
  • Focusing on how the world fits together with pattern recognition and cause and effect.

Of course, there are some disadvantages to be aware of as well:

  • Children are often hesitant to change to this type of learning;
  • Teachers need to tailor their lessons to different types of learners;
  • It can take a while to achieve meaningful instruction

It helps to start your child with meaningful learning at a young age. This will give them more of a foundation to build upon. It isn’t impossible with older learners, but it is a more difficult transition to make.

Can Meaningful Learning Serve All Children?

It can be very difficult to serve every single child in a classroom with every lesson, but this is something we have to try to do. Meaningful learning isn’t necessarily a way to structure a lesson, but rather an end goal of that lesson. It can be tailored to fit many different learning styles. The execution can look like a lecture with a slideshow presentation or it can look like an educational video game

What you need to pay attention to is whether or not the topics your child learns build on each other or they can simply forget what they learned and move onto the next topic.

Interested In Learning More About MindFinity?

Join Mindfinity today, and see how playing daily games will transform your child’s mind into that of a multi-talented polymath thinker. Your membership includes unlimited access to the videos from Opher’s Toronto Parent Workshop where he teaches you the award-winning methodology, new games to play with your child released over time in the Games of Genius Program, live online events, (membership to the private MindFinity Member Community on Facebook where you can share ideas, get help from certified trainers, and get inspiration from other super parents like you, and new levels of the MindFinity program as they come out.

Categories
Schooling

How To Avoid Holiday & Summer Learning Loss In Your Kids

Avoiding learning loss is a big problem for many schools, teachers, and students. It is a very real thing that happens to people of all ages. You probably notice it at work: something that came easily to you when you were going to work on a daily basis is hard after a few days off. 

But can you avoid it when children have longer breaks for summer or the holidays? Yes! It isn’t going to be easy to do, but it should come as second nature once you’ve established some good habits in your child.

What Is Summer Learning Loss?

Summer learning loss is the term we use to describe what children “forget” when they aren’t in school for an extended period of time. Summer is the worst time for this, but holiday breaks can also lead to learning loss.  Some people estimate that students lose months of what they learned in school, particularly in subjects like math and science.

It isn’t just the fact that students forget specific topics like math or science, part of the problem is also a loss of schedule and routine. When children are allowed to create their own schedules, they tend to lose the discipline that makes school easier for them. While you cannot really take over the role of teacher, you can help to create a routine that will discipline them and make the transition easier. For example, encourage kids to sleep well, but maybe prevent them from waking up at noon.

Consider Investing In A Daily Learning Activity

Making it a point to do some learning on a daily basis can just keep information at the forefront of your child’s mind. It doesn’t have to be hours of instruction, but keeping them in the habit of learning can make all the difference.

If you need ideas for fun, project-based learning activities, consider investing in MindFinity. We will have your child learning through different activities and projects that don’t feel like homework. Click here to learn more.

Consider Enrichment On What Children Have Already Learned

You aren’t a teacher, so do you have to become one for your kids? No! Think about what your child has learned in school and just reinforce it. It can be as simple as taking a trip to a museum, reading a book, watching a short documentary, or playing a game. This doesn’t have to be about reinventing the wheel or taking on the job of a teacher for a few months. 

Throughout the school year, make notes about what your child learns and then plan a few activities around their favorite things.

Make Sure They Aren’t Always On Screens

Screen time is great (especially if you need to get things done) but sometimes spending too much time on screens can lead to learning loss. If you think that your kids are spending too much time texting, watching TikToks, or just doing things that don’t really have any positive effects, find ways to break up that time with different types of activities.

Let Your Kids Be Kids

Remember that childhood is really short and adulthood is long. You want to give your kids time to actually be kids and have fun too. If you try to push your kids too much, especially when they should be on a break, it can lead to burnout and trouble in school – even for gifted kids!

MindFinity Helps Kids Learn Through Games & Projects

Our award-winning program helps your children expand their brains and learn polymath thinking skills while dancing, singing, doing martial arts, and moving around! You get a new game each day of the week, which takes a few minutes a day. And you can expand on the games and have your child put their imagination to use and expand on projects that they are already doing. You’ll get some fun ideas as well!

Interested in learning more? To learn more about MindFinity and sign up for a free trial, click here.

Categories
Parenting

How To Increase The Potential In Your Kid

As a parent, it is normal to want to increase the potential in your child. We all want the most for our children and hope that they will become the person who cures cancer, becomes President of the United States, or just goes on to live a successful, happy life – whatever that will mean. Still, it can be easy to sit back and watch other children and think that your child doesn’t have as much potential. These are the conversations we are afraid to have, but we think about them late at night.

So what can you do to increase the potential in your kid? There are a few steps you can take now to increase their potential in the future. Let’s break them down:

Start Teaching Them A New Language

Almost everywhere in the world, children learn a second language other than their native language. Most often, it is English if they don’t speak English already. Other schooling systems start them early because they know that younger children learn languages better than teens or adults. Any language will help them to succeed, but Spanish or Mandarin are the most important languages for employment.

Introduce Them To New Things

The more exposure your child has to new, exciting things, the better they will be prepared for life in general. Introduce your child to different cultures, events, activities, and world. This could mean signing them up for a square dancing class, taking them to an Indian restaurant, or going to a museum. It could also mean buying them books that teach about different cultures that maybe aren’t as accessible.

Your child won’t always like or take interest in these new things, but even if they only do something once, they at least have that knowledge to pull from moving forward.

Make Them Work Hard

As parents, we often want to make our children’s lives easier, but that doesn’t always help them in the long run. Your child has to know how to struggle and then how to come out the other side with the knowledge to tackle similar problems.

Of course, you don’t want your child to go hungry or stress out over things they shouldn’t, but it is okay for a kid to struggle through learning how to ride a bike or have a hard time mastering a skill.

Encourage Emotional Intelligence

The more emotional intelligence your child has, the better off he or she will be in life. You want to teach your child to know about their own emotions and how that translates into other people. For example, if your child is sad about something, allow them to cry. Don’t encourage them to hold it inside. If your child has an opinion, allow them to share it.

The better at explaining their emotions your child is, the more likely it will be that they are successful in working with other people into the future.

Think About How School Serves Your Child

Often, we think that the only way to really determine whether or not a child will be a success is through schooling and grades. To be honest, it is a huge indication if only because good grades can open doors that bad grades cannot. Unfortunately, not all students are served by the modern schooling system. While most parents cannot homeschool their children or even afford private tutors to help them, there are some things that you can do at home to prove to your child that they are capable and foster a love of learning.

One of the ways you can do that is through MindFinity. Instead of rote memorization and boring lessons, MindFinity will have your child moving around,drawing, making music, dancing, and yes, learning. 

For more information about MindFinity, visit this page to discover how we help you to nurture your child’s love of learning.

Focus On Building Up Your Child

It is essential to build up your child and help them to believe in themselves. You can’t do that if you continually compare them to other students and children, as we all grow and bloom at our own speeds.

If your child struggles, find ways to help them.

MindFinity is one way to do that. MindFinity provides parents, grandparents, and caregivers a great tool for younger children and their families to connect with one another, and have fun learning together. It takes just a few minutes every day. For more information, reach out to our team today to get started