10 ways to make homework productive

        Home work can be viewed in two different ways: a useful tool, or a waste of time. No matter how wonderful homework is, the benefits will only be realized if information is properly digested. To prevent wasted time, there are several things you can do to make homework useful. Here are 10 ways in which homework time can be made productive.


Homework overview


Immediately before beginning homework, it is wise to confirm what is expected and begin work once expectations are perfectly clear.


Work in Pairs

Many people learn better in small groups. By completing homework with someone who has the same aptitude for a particular subject, joint learning takes place. The saying, "Two heads work better than one" comes to mind.


Make homework at the specified time each day


Homework should be done at the specified time each and every day. This gets the mind and body into a routine. Once a routine is established, the brain will automatically be ready to soak up information. If there are no assignments for the day, take the time to review material.


Provide a Snack


The brain needs food to thrive. Feeding your body before you do homework ensures an alert brain that is not preoccupied by a hungry stomach. Of course healthy snacks are better than sugar filled treats.


Positive Homework Feedback


The best way to help a child improve is to give stimulating feedback. For example, if he or she answers a worksheet question incorrectly, dont just tell him/ her is wrong. Let him/ her know what he/ she did was right, and why and how he/ she came to the wrong conclusion.


Recreational Time Before Homework


School is 6 or 7 strsight hours of learning. Children need to give their brains a break after school hours. Homework should not being immediately after the last class of the day. Instead, let your child play or relax before really digging into study meterial.


Take Periodic Homework Breaks


As students older, homework tends to take up more and more time. The brain functions best when it is given 10 or 15 minutes break every hour. This ensures retention of information which is not forgotten once the head hits the pillow at night.


Homework Help Availability


When a child has a homework question, give an answer immediately. More information is stored if problems are answered and corrected as soos as they arise. Make sure your child or student has some available questions during homework hours. Be it a parent, teacher, sibling, or a tutor.


Review Homework


After completion of homework, it is important to review the finished product. Check the answers, review essays, make sure all questions have a response. Success lies in the details.


In many households, homework is a dreaded word. Instead of being looked upon as a helpful tool, it is viewed as an immense waste of time. These 10 tips will transform homework form haphazard busywork, into necessary learning tool.


-Deepa

Nutrition for children

                         
     Children are always on the move. they are usually hyperactive and extremely busy discovering new things all the time. It is parents duty to see to it that the children eat well, on time and most importantly, healthy food. Healthy food makes the child's body and mind healthier, so they have more energy to learning and playing.


     It is very important for the parents to plan a well balanced diet for the child which includes right amount of nutrients. The child needs to be give fresh fruits, raw vegetables and milk along with the regular food. We all know how difficult it is to get a child to the dining table and have the everything that is served.


      Here are a few tips to make the child eat well without the parents running behind them with the food in hand:

• Children always love colours, textures, shapes and taste. Try to make the food look attractive, colourful and in different shapes. For example if you are making rotis, parathas and chapatis, cut them in different shapes with the help of a cookie cutter. You can also make them colourful by stuffing the parathas with different vegetables. Or you can also make some design on the rotis with sauce or cheese.
• Serve them raw vegetables cut in different shapes, along with some nice homemade dips made of cheese or cream.
• Boiled vegetables with different colours and textures mixed with dried herbs gives a different aroma and attracts the child. You can add a few drops of lemon juice to the vegetables while boiling. It retains the fresh and natural colour of the vegetables.
• Milk should be given at least twice a day. But not every child likes to drink milk. You can serve the milk with homemade almond mix, which gives a good flavour and taste to the milk. It also adds up to the child's nutritional intake. Take couple of almonds, some sugar, and a little bit of kesar or saffron churned in a blender to a fine powder. This mix can be stored in an airtight container for a couple of days.
• Whenever a child asks for noodles or soups, add some fresh vegetables to the canned or dried foods.
• Make attractive pulavs\or rice items with lots of vegetables.
• Prepare fruit salads with custard and keep it in the fridge. This comes handy when the child asks for something to eat.
• Whenever the child asks for between the meal snacks, heat some butter and frozen corn and add a bit of salt and chat masala. Children will love this.
• Indulge your child in cooking and shopping for the vegetables. Buy the vegetables that they prefer and they will love to eat them.

• Prepare fresh soups at home which proves to be healthier than ready or dried soups.
• Avoid giving them junk food, colas, sweetened juices and street food. Instead try preparing them at home. With a little efforts, creativity and time, even home made food can also turn out to be tasty and appealing to the children
• Above all make sure your child drinks lots water. This helps the digestive system in good condition and keeps the body cool and hydrated.

Try these out and I am sure your child will eat well and comes back for a second helping.


-Deepa

Children and money

            In today's world, working parents can hardly take out enough time for their children. With such little time, the parents feel like pampering their children with gifts, toys, clothes, chocolates and ice-creams weekend visits to the shopping malls adds to the pampering. parents want to give their kids more than what they got growing up. But do the kids take these things with a right attitude? How do we balance between giving our kids the moon and the stars and at the same time make them appreciate the value of money? Here are some effective ways to make your child money wise:


Give them limited choice. do not shower your child with gifts, toys and books. Ration them out. Let them play with the new toy to their heart's content. Only then they can be given a new one.

Pocket money: Fix a reasonable amount of pocket money for your children. Do not merely hand over few notes to the child. If you show respect for the money, the child will also do that. Also keep a tab on the child's spending habits. Ask them for an account of the money that is spent. 

Encourage the habit of saving in your child. Tell them that if they save money this month, they can get double the money saved, for the next month. 

Whenever you are going out for shopping with you kids, you can fix a sum of money for their shopping and hand it over to them. Let them buy anything that fits into that amount. This method develops appreciation for money in your child and also saves you from arguing with your child about what to buy and what not to.

Above all, parents themselves must be a role model to their children. Practise what you preach.

Money makes the world go round, and your children should know at an early age that a lot of hard work goes into the monthly pay cheque. The next time you hasten to pull out your wallet to appease your child, think again.

-Deepa

Does every child has to be perfect ??

Inspired by a Chinese Story:

                                                                 
        Is your child less than an achiever at school? Is your son less talented than your daughter? if you've sometimes found yourself despairing that your child just doesnt seem to measure up to the others here's a short inspirational tale by an unknown author.


     A water bearer in china had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pile, which he carried across his neck.


    one of the pits had a crack in it, while the other port was perfect and always dilivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the from to the house, the cracked pot arrived on half full.


     For a full two years, this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of water to his house. of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accompliashments, for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imprefection and misreabale that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.


    After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream "i am ashamed of myself, beacuse ths crack in my side causes my water to leak out all the way back to your house".


      The bearer said to the pot "Did you notice that there are flowers of your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?. Thats beacause i have always known about your flaw, Iso i planted flower seeds on your side of the path and every day while we walk back you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.
Without you being just the way you are we would not have such beauty".


     Each of us has our own unique flaw but its the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very intresting and rewarding.


    You have just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.


-- Deepa

Developing Kids effective listening skills:

One of the most important and much essential parts of our day to day life is to communicate and for that we must be a good listener. We all know this fact … but we need to help our children cultivate the habit of effective listening & communicating as early as possible so that they naturally develop the skill.  It also makes our own lives as parents easier in the long run.

If courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Listening more provides us great opportunities of learning new things and knowledge about the world around us.

There are many ways in which we can motivate our kids to learn ‘the art of active listening’.

-       Motivate the kid and make them feel special, they love it the most when they are cared a lot.

-       Get them involved in a play and demonstrate to them the art of active listening & explain to them how it will help them, so that they are clear with the concept.

-       Show them videos containing effective discussions & exchange of dialogues. Bournvita quiz contest is a best example of this.  This quiz contest is at present one of the longest running shows in Indian television and is immensely popular among the school kids of India as well as quiz enthusiasts of all ages.

-       Maintain a good eye contact.

-       Show your kid how when you are listening actively to her you wait until she pauses, then will prompt her to tell you more by asking a brief question. Get your child to practice this on you. You can pick any topic of the kid’s choice for this discussion as it will help them come out with lots of questions at you & vice-versa.

-       Demonstrate them the polite way of listening properly and help them learn the natural pauses in conversation before speaking.

-       Be a good role model so that it becomes easy for kids to follow the parents.

-       Most of the successful people are the ones who do more listening than talking.

-Deepa

Communication

Communicating with children

Children always need attention and care, no matter of whatever age group they belong to. One of the most important experiences adults can provide for children is to talk with and listen to them. Adults who care for children have a responsibility to create and maintain positive and healthy relationships with them. The thumb rule to better communication with the children is to listen twice as much as you talk.

The below points can be of some help:

1.       Avoid labeling the child good or bad. A bad label provokes them act them in that manner, whereas a good label pressurizes them to keep up the expectations attached with it.

2.       Make them teach you something. Asking them about their interests and try to learn about them. For example, the latest video game, latest music or a new game and play with them. This will boost their self esteem.

3.       Don’t criticize. Criticism shuts the door to communication as it lowers the child’s self esteem.

4.       Make them feel that they can always come and talk to you, at any time and about anything. This creates an open environment for communication.

5.       Spend some quality time with them. Go on outing often so that they feel relaxed and get opportunity to play with you and talk to you openly.

Wishing the very best to all …

-Deepa

How to Teach Kids to Do Math

Not so very long ago, it was thought that children were not capable of the dealing with the abstraction of mathematics until the upper elementary grades. Consequently, parents did little with their pre-school children related to math other than counting. We know now, thanks to new discoveries about how the brain learns, that not only are babies born with an innate number sense, but ages 1 to 4 are the critical years for establishing a solid logic and math foundation. This fact often frightens parents because they fear they can't teach their children to do math. The good news--you don't have to!


What I mean by the statement above is that no one expects you to have your child doing addition, subtraction, etc. when your child enters school. In fact, pushing your child too hard to do math before he/she is ready can be very harmful. What we do need parents to do during the pre-school years is the math equivalent of what parents do for language. Children enter school eager and excited to learn to read and write and they never doubt their own ability to learn because their entire family unit has prepared them for success. Parents have given them the foundation they need for reading/writing and they have given them the self-confidence they need.


There are several things you can be doing to give your pre-schooler this same foundation and confidence for math:


1. Give your child lots of exposure to numbers and math. As with language development, most of this early exposure comes from reading to your child. To help build that math foundation, make half of the books you read to your child involve numbers in some way. I saw a Baby Einstein early reader book that was really wonderful. Check out your public library to see what things they have available. You may have some difficulty finding good number related books. I will admit that this is an area that needs attention. There aren't as many resources out there as there should be. But, you can use almost any picture book to talk about numbers. You can count teddy bears or yellow socks or clouds in the sky. As you work with colors and letters and vocabulary, you can also work with numbers.


Numbers are everywhere, so as you are out and about, be looking for numbers on signs, on license plates, addresses, etc. You can also make counting a natural part of these outings--count red cars, green houses, dogs, etc. This kind of counting starts establishing the meaning behind numbers. Your child will begin to learn that "five" isn't just the number after "four" but will begin to associate "five" with a certain number of objects. This is very important!


2. Involve the entire family structure. Just as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins get involved with speech/language development with your child, they can do the same with numbers. Discuss this with them and ask for their help. They are a powerful resource! They can be helping your child understand what numbers mean just as well as you can, but everything with grandpa is just more fun! Your relatives can also be helping with #3 below.


3. Most important of all--give encouragement and reinforcement. Parents are the epitome of patience and encouragement as children learn to walk and talk. This same patience and reinforcement gives children that "I can learn to read" attitude. Parents also give their child the understanding that "this is really important." Children never question WHY they need to learn to read and they just know they are capable. This same sense of importance about math needs to be conveyed as well. Children need to know math is important to their futures and they need that same confidence in their ability to learn. Families are such an integral part of this!


If you give your child a strong foundation in both language and math before your child enters school, your child will have the skills needed to be successful. Your role won't need to be "teaching math." Your role will be reinforcing the things your child does well and giving encouragement whenever necessary.


Article Source: [ http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Teach-Kids-to-Do-Math&id=6186687 ] How to Teach Kids to Do Math

What Ayurveda says about Kids Care

Preethirbalam sukham vritthirvisthaaro viphulam kulam ||
Yasho lokaaha sukhodarkaasthushtishchaapathy --asamshritaaha ||


This means "We get love, happiness, success and fame from our offspring. Our offspring help in continuing our family and occupation."


Children are our proud possessions. We have to guard them,give them good education and guide them carefully,  until they are independent enough to take care of themselves in right way. We welcome parents to discuss the health problems their children are facing.

Creativity in kids

As soon as a child is born, parents start making plans for him or her. It’s the basic tendency every parent feel, which is genuine too. Later as the child grows, they get into the job of              implementing the plan that they have been making for it since its birth. But most of the parents never think of the child’s own creative instinct. Every child has his or her own form of creative visualization, like singing, dancing, drawing, or any other forms of arts for that matter. Young children perceive the world in their own unique way and need the freedom to express these perceptions creatively. The parents must allow the children to explore and independently discover their world.

                Unfortunately the children are under so much pressure to conform to the expected standards, that the individual talents are totally ignored. They are driven with a set of expectations irrespective of their likings. The tremendous pressure on the kids perplexes them from bringing out their hidden talents and hence it stays unexplored.

So, do we finally just let the situation take over the lives of our children or do we let the child explore its hidden talents?

Parents can go thru few points jotted below to nurture the child’s creative flash or sporting talent.

·         Believe in the fact that the academic excellence is not the only source of existence.

·         A basic level of knowledge is must, but there should also be a line driven in between to identify the child’s abilities and interests it has in mind.

·         Realizing the real potential of the kid in a chosen level of the likings directly leads to happiness and high self esteem.

·         Expose the child to wide-ranging environments, activities & creative shops at an early age.

·         Allow the child the freedom to play and explore without any constraints.

·         Have the child attend various workshops and summer camps so that they get more involved in extracurricular activities.

·         Activities like gardening, painting, crafts,swimming etc. creates interest in the kids and get them involved as well.

Finally, Parents can educate creativity to children by emphasizing Out-of-the-box ideas in a non-evaluative framework. Parents can also motivate the children to have the opportunity and confidence to take the ride on a rollercoaster risks, challenges and see things in a new way.

Remember that - every child is special in its own way and not equally intelligent or creative as other.

-   Deepa

Importance of Education

!! SHRI MOOLA RAMO VIJAYATHE!!           !! OM SRI RAGHAVENDRAYA NAMAHA  OM !!          !! SHRI GURURAJO VIJAYATHE !!


By the blessings of Hari Vayu Gurugalu .... we will here forth discuss the importance of Education in modern times  ...

"Learning is a treasure which accompanies its owner everywhere" ... Its your passport to the world.

Education is important because it prepares us with all that is needed to make our dreams come true. It opens doors to brilliant career opportunities. It fetches better prospects in career and growth. Every employer today, be it in the IT sector or any other government offices, wants their prospective employees to be  well qualified for the roles they are going to play. They require resources well equipped with modern technology so as to suit his wants. So, education becomes a basic criterion for employment in any sector of the industry. We are weighed in the market on the basis of our fundamental skills and how well we can apply them through proper communication. Education is very important for an individuals success in life. 

Not only career wise but education makes one live a respected life in the society. It gives us knowledge of the world around us as mentioned earlier, its the passport to the world. It develops in us a new perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on things in life. It makes us capable of interpreting things rightly. Education is not just about reading books and writing exams, but also reading through the lines of the books and applying them in real life.

Education is generally seen as the foundation of society which brings economic wealth, social prosperity and political stability. Higher education helps in maintaining a healthy society which prepares health care professionals, educated health care consumers and maintaining healthy population. As they say " A good tree always bears good fruits".

Parents in rural areas are taking up the challenge of educating their children for a better tomorrow, in their tough times too. They are now getting to know the importance of education and how it will help them overcome their poverty. The recent show of KBC proves to be the best example - History was made when Sushil Kumar, a computer operator from Bihar with a monthly income of Rs 6000/-, became the first ever contestant to win five crore rupees on 'Kaun Banega Crorepati 5'.

Education in overall plays a very vital role in life of each and every individual. This blog is initiated in order to touch the lives of as many people & kids especially as possible to impart the great treasure of knowledge. As the thirst of knowledge never ends ... we learn till we die.

- Deepa