Tag: Help Kids Learn

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Parenting

11 Tips To Make Learning Fun For Kids

Let’s face it, learning isn’t always fun for kids. There are things that will be difficult for them, topics they won’t enjoy, and days they just aren’t into it. We all have bad days. It becomes a problem when kids are bored or in a bad mood when it comes to learning on a regular basis. 

So how can you make learning fun for kids? We have some great tips that we’ve found work with just about everyone:

Get More Involved In Their Education

As a parent, getting involved in your child’s education can make all the difference. When they know that you care about what they learn and how they learn, they will start to understand just how important education is. You can also work to make education fun – you can’t always control what teachers do.

One way you can do this is by investing in MindFinity. MindFinity helps to increase Inventive IQ and spark a love for learning through play. 

Use Tactile Materials

Math is one of those subjects that many students find “boring” and struggle with learning. Sometimes, getting out the tactile materials like shaving cream, beans, macaroni, building blocks, or even pizza can help to teach everything from fractions to greater than, less than. 

Even if it makes a little mess, it will be much more fun for your kids.

Play Music Quietly In The Background

Music is an important tool for learning, as it can help children remember everything from the 50 United States in Order to the alphabet. However, not everything can be taught with a song, and the things that can be are usually more “fun.” 

So, play music in the background whenever you can. It can be classical, Top 40, or even Disney favorites.

Use Movement Whenever Possible

Whether it is dancing, running, or just getting up and walking around, movement can help many kids pay attention to lessons and even get more out of them. If you have your child sitting down to read or learn something, and they can’t stay focused, consider having them sit on a swing or get a stationary pedaling machine.

Use “Real World” Examples

While you can’t control the field trips that your child takes, you can use your weekends or nights to help reinforce what your child learns. If they can have a practical example of how what they are learning will help them, they will take a different kind of joy from it.

Show That You Get Bored Too

When you show your child that you get bored sometimes, and you show productive ways to get around it, you can help your child understand that boredom is a part of life and that everything isn’t fun. Remember that your child will model your behavior.

Have Them Become The Teacher

Sometimes you need to switch it up a bit and have them teach you the topic that is boring for them. Even if they don’t completely understand it, they might benefit from talking it out and acting like the teacher for a turn.

Don’t Be Afraid To Bargain

Bargaining isn’t always a bad thing for kids. If you want your kid to learn something that is boring and isn’t always easy to make exciting, bargain with them. Give them five minutes of doing something fun in return for working on something they don’t like. Whether it is watching a short YouTube clip or going outside, bargaining can help you out.

MindFinity Helps Make Learning Fun For Kids

If your child isn’t doing well in school, doesn’t like school, or just seems bored, you can help them. You need to make learning fun for your kids, and that doesn’t have to be something lengthy or complicated. It can be as easy as logging onto MindFinity.

MindFinity can help you by introducing different activities each weekday that will have your child learning, and get your own creative gears moving. For a few minutes every day, you won’t have to plan out the lessons. Instead, they are delivered to your inbox and you can build from there.

For more information about MindFinity, please click here.

Categories
Parenting

So Your Kid Is A Visual Learner – Now What?

There are a few different types of learning styles, and some kids are what we call “visual learners.” This isn’t a good or a bad thing, it is just the way that our brains best process information and catalog it. The school system tries to teach to all of the different learning styles, and many lessons are visual, so your child is off to a good start there. 

Kids who are visual learners tend to be better served by the school system than others, but they may still need some extra support from you. As a parent, you may want to help them connect their natural learning style and strengthen some of their other learning styles. 

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.

For now, let’s talk more about your visual learner.

What Is Visual Learning?

For visual learners, they learn best when they see things. This can look like many different things, including watching videos, seeing demonstrations, or simply watching someone “do” a math problem. These are the students who can watch their teacher do something and they can mimic it back to them – whether it is playing the guitar, solving long division, or performing an experiment.

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

There are some pretty obvious cues that your child is a visual learner. These can include:

  • Drawing or mapping things out;
  • Taking notes using pictures or diagrams;
  • Learning better when they see a picture or a video;
  • Asking for someone to show them something;
  • Preferring assignments that involve coloring or something visual.

There are some other signs that might symbolize a visual learner:

  • They can draw pictures from memory;
  • They are usually very organized;
  • They have good spatial-awareness;
  • They enjoy drawing; 
  • They often use visual aids to help explain themselves;
  • They choose the more visual approach in projects.

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

If this all sounds like your child, there are a few different things that you can do to help them succeed – and help them when they are struggling to learn a new topic. The first thing is that you can always show them how to do something. Walk them through the steps visually. You can also buy them highlighters and pens in different colors and allow them to take notes how they like to – even if that includes doodling. Color coding is a big part of learning for these kids.

To keep your child on track, write out to do lists and write down instructions, as this will help them to keep everything they need to do straight. 

If they are struggling with topics, these are the students who do much better when they have flashcards to memorize the information. They also do well with learning from YouTube videos, watching other students work, and getting written feedback instead of verbal feedback on what went wrong.

MindFinity Helps Kids Learn Through Gameplay

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 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. For visual learners, the games can help to quickly spot patterns and increase their Inventive IQs, which will help them to learn better throughout their entire school career.

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

Categories
Schooling

How To Help Kids Do Better In School

Is your child struggling in school? There are many reasons why children fall behind, and very few of them actually have to do with their intelligence levels. The main problem with the education system today is that it teaches to the lowest common denominator in the classroom. Teachers simply cannot teach to the strengths and levels of every student, which means that some students get left behind whereas others don’t get pushed enough. Children who seem bored may not be struggling, they aren’t getting pushed.

Get More Involved

As a parent, you need to get involved in your child’s education. You can’t just trust that the school system is going to take care of them and get them to learn what they need to learn. Some parents will create their own curriculums for their children that is separate from what they are learning in school.

You can also just talk to your child’s teacher and find out what is really going on in school. You have every right to ask for a syllabus and work on your own with your child so that their education is supplemented.

One way you can do this is by investing in MindFinity. MindFinity helps to increase Inventive IQ and spark a love for learning through play. 

Reward Kids For Good Work

Some parents think that high performance in school is expected and they should only “punish” their child if they don’t achieve those levels. That doesn’t always work for all kids. If your child gets a good grade on a project, performs well in a certain subject (especially one they’ve struggled with), or even put in some extra effort and don’t perform as well, reward them for their hard work. 

It doesn’t have to be something big – take them out to eat, spend some time with them, get them a new toy, or just praise them. They will want to keep doing good work to get those rewards – even if they aren’t physical.

Let Them Make Mistakes

Sometimes, your child will fail a test. They will have to stay inside at recess. They won’t make the team or get the lead in the play. You have to allow your child to fail and make mistakes. This is when they will do the learning they need. When they go into the real world, they will make mistakes and have to learn how to not only own up to them, but move on from them. 

We all have a natural inclination to protect our children from failure, but usually it is best to let them fail and then show them how to pick up the pieces.

Show Them That Learning Never Stops

As children get older, they think that learning is only a temporary thing. They don’t understand that they will continue to learn things until they are old and gray. Talk to your child about what you are learning – whether it is learning something new at work, learning a new language in your spare time, or picking up a hobby. Once a child (or a teenager) understands that learning is lifelong, they will want to become better at it. 

This also means that you need to show yourself struggling to learn things. Even if it is just failing to work a new phone app or taking care of a new plant.

MindFinity Helps Your Kids Do Better In School

If your child isn’t doing well in school, doesn’t like school, or just seems bored, you can help them. Sometimes it isn’t about just getting through school, sometimes you can help your child by teaching them new things or more than they are learning in school.

MindFinity can help you by introducing different activities each weekday that will have your child learning, and get your own creative gears moving. For a few minutes every day, you won’t have to plan out the lessons. Instead, they are delivered to your inbox and you can build from there.

For more information about MindFinity, please click here.

Categories
Parenting Schooling

Develop Pattern Recognition Skills

Patterns are fundamental in nature. They surround us, whether in books, sports, games, music, or otherwise. That’s why developing strong pattern recognition skills at a young age is crucial in preparing the mind to be more active and more powerful.
MindFinity focuses on the development of four key components of polymath thinking; pattern recognition, pattern design, analogy, and real-time composition.

At its core, pattern recognition is the process of training ourselves to spot trends. As we age and gain critical thinking skills, pattern recognition skills can help us to make decisions, and eventually our brains naturally recognize patterns and learn from them. This allows us to sort objects and situations in the mind and determine the next steps we should take.

For example, we use pattern recognition when we drive. We are aware of traffic patterns and how they play into the rules of the road. We know (or at least we should know) the first person who goes at a four-way stop, that yellow lights will always turn red, and how to use a roundabout. Even if we drive on roads that we have never been on before, we can still safely navigate by relying on our knowledge of traffic patterns.

Without these abilities, it would be impossible for us to get from place to place. Patterns allow us to get through life and understand the things that we encounter. We are able to make educated choices.

In the same way, our understanding of patterns can help us navigate unfamiliar territory. MindFinity’s method of knowledge transfer trains your child to take the patterns they learn in one field into new subjects in order to accelerate learning. By placing an emphasis on play and exploration, MindFinity’s games speed learning through analogy. How can swimming be like painting? How can Karate translate into music? This sort of knowledge transfer is just one of the skills that MindFinity’s games will help your child learn. Go to our Getting Started Facebook member community to learn more.

What Are Pattern Recognition Skills?

Pattern recognition is the ability to recognize emotional, intellectual, and physical patterns, and articulate how they connect. Of course, this is helpful in many different subject areas, particularly as children are learning.

Pattern recognition can be used to classify data, predict the future, problem solve, and more. Nearly everything we do on a daily basis revolves around patterns in some way, from the things we do when we wake up in the morning, to the way we get work done, to the ways we settle down at night.

Types of Pattern Recognition Skills

Throughout everything we do, there are patterns. There are different types of pattern recognition skills.

Patterns in Art: The ability to explain differences and similarities is at the heart of any practice of pattern recognition. Children will likely have the easiest time spotting patterns in art. At MindFinity, one of our earliest games asks kids to notice and begin to articulate the difference between a triangle and a square. We then ask our kids to fill the shapes with two colors, then redraw the shapes and swap the colors. This helps children understand visually how to recognize and design their own patterns. You can spot this one easily as they grow, because you will see them drawing lines or circles on paper.

Patterns In Math: Of course, most people think about the patterns we approach from a mathematical perspective. Solving mathematical problems, spending money, and determining budgets all require a nuanced capacity to recognize and explain patterns.

Patterns in Music: Music is composed of repeated patterns and those who recognize these patterns tend to be better at playing and composing music. This is because once we learn the components of music we can imitate the patterns we hear and teach ourselves to play.

Patterns in Language: At developmental ages, children learn language largely through imitation. In this way, children learn manners and the means by which to behave. While English is a difficult language to learn, there are patterns in it. Every language bears traceable patterns that help us to remember when and how to formulate ideas. These things can seem obvious to those that know the rules – when to add a feminine ending in Spanish, when to add an -es to make something plural in English, or when to put an accent over a letter in German – but for children who are acquiring language, it can be difficult to articulate these patterns. However, by reinforcing the skill of imitation and by giving children the tools to recognize patterns of grammar, they can take on new languages faster..

Patterns in Emotion: Children need to be able to learn what types of statements make people upset, what happens when they do something wrong, and how to protect themselves against emotions. For example, they need to learn that if they misbehave in the classroom during the day, they may face a punishment (some might not get to eat dessert that night). Or they may learn that if they are mean to a child on the playground other children might not want to play with them. Once they begin to recognize these patterns, they can navigate life while instructing themselves and become successful.

MindFinity prepares your child to utilize the recognize the patterns in each of these domains and to utilize them as polymath thinkers, able to competently use the strength of their artistic talents in math and vice versa. As automation and AI forever alter the world’s job market, the acquired skill of polymath thinking will prepare your child to become an innovator. Click here to get started playing games.

Why Is Pattern Recognition Important?

Pattern recognition skills build on your child’s thinking process and strengthens their ability to understand shapes, sequences, and systems. Having these skills means that young students can grow and focus their imagination into the development of innovative ways of thinking.

Pattern design, analogy, and real-time composition are all essential skills needed for polymath thinking too – all of which your child will acquire through our program as they move patterns from one discipline to another.

One of the reasons that computers have started to take jobs away from people is because computers are about to use pattern recognition to automate simple repeated tasks. However, computers can only imitate existing patterns, it is difficult for them to discover new one.

When it comes to spotting patterns in emotional responses, unique situations, and in newer areas, computers haven’t had the time or ability to collect data that allows them to predict. The jobs of the future will be for those who are able to utilize polymath thinking to creatively design new patterns.

Pattern recognition is so important for children because it helps with:

  • Recognizing and classifying concepts
  • Identifying solutions to problems
  • Developing autonomy in the thinking process
  • Working with Other People to find creative solutions.

How Does MindFinity Help With Pattern Recognition?

To develop pattern recognition skills, it is crucial to introduce new concepts a little at a time and then expand on them. The micro-games on MindFinity start out very simple, but become increasingly more complex. We start with patterns of two, and then three. Once we master the various permutations, and learn to move them more rapidly across disciplines, we then begin to combine them in more challenging ways.

Being able to recognize patterns, redesign them, and apply them to new fields is at the heart of this practice. In as little as five minutes, your child will be able to translate an arrangement of shapes into a musical sequence. After a few weeks, they’ll know how to translate this same sequence into karate, cooking, dancing and more. The best part is that this is all achieved through play.

MindFinity’s games are designed to make learning a joy by giving parents a methodology that only requires 5 minutes of play every day. MindFinity asks you and your family to access polymath thinking on a daily basis in order to prepare your child to cultivate multi-talent acquisition. This skill prepares the mind to see similarities across disciplines and recognize how the mathematical possibilities can lead to creativity. As your child develops his or her Inventive IQ, the ability to recognize similar patterns across a variety of disciplines becomes second nature. This ability will be vital as tomorrow’s job market increasingly gives way to automation and AI. Instead of worrying if your child is being prepared for the future, give them the tools to become the innovator of tomorrow.

MindFinity also connects you with a community of like-minded parents who are giving their children an edge in the future. Our member community serves as an invaluable resource to see how other families have adopted this award-winning methodology. Eventually, you’ll be able to create your own games and share them, seeing how other families are playing.

With short practices every day, your child can expand their way of thinking and grow into the creative problem solver they were meant to be.

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Uncategorized

Encouraging Words For Kids Who Are Struggling In School

What are some encouraging words for kids who are struggling in school?

If your child is struggling in school, it can be hard to find the right thing to say to make it all seem okay. While we’ve all been there, it can feel like your child is alone in their struggles. Saying encouraging words can mean the difference between having a child who learns and a child who shuts down when they get to school. Even at a young age, the way a child learns to cope with difficulties will shape much of their personality and success.

Sometimes, it isn’t about being too tough or being too encouraging. You have to walk a fine line. 

Remember That It Sometimes Isn’t About Words – It Is About Actions

If your child is really struggling and you think that they aren’t being served by the modern school system, you may want to take their education into your own hands. While most parents cannot homeschool, there are some things that you can do at home to prove to your child that they are capable 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, 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.

Encouraging Words To Say To Kids Who Are Struggling Academically

Different positive affirmations will fit into different situations. If your child needs encouraging words because they are having trouble with a specific subject (like math or reading), then you may want to try some of these affirmations:

  1. I can see you are really trying!
  2. When I was your age I struggled with…
  3. You’re almost there – keep working!
  4. I can see you tried really hard.
  5. As long as you give it your best effort.
  6. You’re really improving.
  7. You’re getting better!

At the same time, you don’t want to only say positive affirmations. You want to actually work with your child to help them grasp whatever subject they are struggling to understand. You can do this by working with them through problems they get wrong, going on educational websites, or talking to their teacher.

Encouraging Words To Say To Kids Who Are Struggling Socially

Sometimes kids have trouble in school not with academics, but with fitting in and making friends. This is something they need to learn, but it can be difficult for some. If your child is struggling socially, try these positive affirmations:

  1. I believe in you.
  2. You’re a great kid.
  3. I trust you.
  4. You are so funny.
  5. I’m so happy for you.
  6. You’re fun to be around.
  7. Being with you is so much fun!

Social struggles are tough because kids won’t always open up about them to you. You may have to do a little digging and pay attention to how they act. Regardless, it is important to remind your child just how important and loved they are.

Encouraging Words To Say To Kids Who Are Struggling Emotionally

Emotional struggles may be the most obvious or they could be the least obvious, it all depends on the child. As a parent, you need to pay attention.

  1. It is okay to be sad sometimes.
  2. Today we can do something that will make you happy.
  3. Everyone gets mad.
  4. Your feelings are valid.

When you have a child who is struggling emotionally, it may be caused by one of the two reasons above. If that is the case, then you want to use those affirmations.

How To Work These Phrases Into Your Daily Life

Positive affirmations like those listed above only work if your child sees them and believes them. You can write them on sticky notes and put them on your child’s mirror in the morning, stick them inside their backpacks, or put them into their lunch box. Mix it up every day so that your child finds it at a random time.

If you know that there is an important presentation or a test, try to put it in a place where your child will see it beforehand.  Of course, children also need to hear those words, so be sure you say them. It can be hard, especially when you know your child is upset.You should also focus on reframing your child’s education. Let them know that this is only one subject, one test, one teacher, or one year. 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.