Hello Book Bums families!
We hope you're getting in the swing of the new school year. Our newsletter this week is full of family activities from growing executive function skills through games to starting a family newspaper to getting outside with some poetry. As always, we aim to give you the tools to support your kids and make learning fun.
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Word of the Week
banter (ban-ter) noun/person, place, or thing - friendly teasing
When Mike's fun-loving family gets together, the kitchen is filled with the sound of happy banter.
Literary Calendar
• September 10 is the birthday of American poet Mary Oliver. Tap on the link to find her books on Amazon.
• She was born in Ohio, but spent most of her life in New England.
• Oliver's writing won her a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize and often focuses on nature and wonderment in the world.
The World I Live In
by Mary Oliver
I have refused to live
locked in the orderly house of
reasons and proofs.
The world I live in and believe in
is wider than that. And anyway,
what’s wrong with Maybe?
You wouldn’t believe what once or
twice I have seen. I’ll just
tell you this:
only if there are angels in your head will you
ever, possibly, see one.
From our Bookshelves
Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension: A Guide for Educators by Kelly B. Cartwright IS a book for educators, but I’m sharing it in the newsletter because I’ve found it to be a tremendous resource. Though the book is dense (chock full of cited literature), it offers lots of practical information for anyone serving children struggling with executive functions - the mental tools we use to manage tasks and achieve goals (Anderson, 2002; Dawson & Guare, 2018; Goldstein & Naglieri, 2014; Meltzer, 2010).
Examples of executive skills include 1) planning, 2) organization, 3) cognitive flexibility, 4) working memory, 5) inhibition, and 6) social understanding. Though children aren’t born with these skills, they are born with the ability to develop them—and you can help!
In Executive Skills and Reading Comprehension, Cartwright shares some games that promote behaviors related to executive skills that you can play at home. It turns out the games you play together can equip your kids with the skills they need to plan tasks, focus their attention, remember provided instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.
Consider some of these games for upcoming family game nights:
Planning (requires multistep reasoning)- Checkers, Chess, Connect Four, Pick Up Stix, Rubik’s Cube, Jenga
Organization (requires organization of materials and/or ideas)- Twenty Questions, I Spy, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, Rummy
Cognitive Flexibility (requires attending to and switching between multiple features) - Set, Uno, Phase 10, Riddles
Working Memory (requires holding information in the mind)- Memory, Go Fish, Simon
Inhibition (requires ignoring distracters)- Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, Bingo song, Taboo, Mad Gab
Social Understanding (requires awareness of others’ thoughts)- Old Maid, Hide and Seek, Poker
If a particular kind of game is difficult for your child, you should know that their skills will improve with practice—and it can be fun!
Tips for Families
Grandparents Day is on September 8th this year. Always the first Sunday after Labor Day, Grandparents Day is a day set aside to honor grandparents and to provide grandparents opportunity to show love to their grandchildren. Jimmy Carter signed the proclamation in 1978 to help children become aware of the strength, information, and guidance older people can offer. The month of September was chosen to signify the "autumn" years of life.
While Mother's Day and Father's Day have apostrophes, Grandparents Day does not. It may have been an oversight, but it’s been maintained with the idea that the holiday doesn’t “belong” to grandparents. Instead it’s a day to connect the generations.
By the year 2030, it is estimated that one of every five Americans will be over 65. For the first time in history, people 65 and older will outnumber children under the age of five. This means multigenerational connections can flourish, perhaps, like they haven’t before.
Tips for Readers and Writers
To encourage and build a connection between all generations in your family, a parent or grandparent can take the lead in maintaining a family newsletter that keeps everyone up to date on family news. In the newsletter you can:
• Share happy events in your lives. Use headlines that proudly proclaim young children's achievements: "Ben Hits Home Run" or "Sarah Loses First Tooth!"
• Encourage young children to take photos, write stories, make puzzles, and draw pictures. Older children can write articles, perhaps surveying family members for their opinions on a topic or interviewing parents and grandparents to collect family stories.
• You can have an "I remember when..." column.
• You can have an advice column. "Ask Grandma" or “Ask Grandpa.”
• You can include contests, jokes, riddles, and a "quote of the month."
• Also include tidbits about family history or important dates in the family (e.g., September 20 is Janice's 4th birthday; June 25 would have been your great-grandparent's wedding anniversary).
• Keep the newsletter in a notebook for a treasure of a keepsake.
Pause for Poetry
We’re including a poem you can enjoy with your kids. Reading it will provide opportunities to learn and ask questions together.
• Learning new words (What’s a gentian?—Can you figure out which picture is showing the gentian?)
• Inferring meaning (Why is the fruit bending down?— it’s heavy, ripe fruit; What does it mean when it says, “Asters by the brookside, make asters in the brook?”— there’s a reflection in water)
• Identifying fall plants (What’s milkweed? Have you seen the dusty pods?) and more.
Just print the poem, read it together, and then explore the outdoors to find lots of items indicating that September has arrived.
Practical Grammar
Whoops!
This is not quite right . . .
I’m confident that this is a misspelling.
Confidant /con-fid-awnt/ is a noun. It’s a person you can trust with information you don’t want others to know.
Confident /con-fid-ent/ is an adjective. It means a person is self-assured; believes in him- or herself.
News from Book Bums
We’re training some new tutors to work with students at Book Bums! If you know a teacher who might like to invest in some beginning and/or struggling readers, please invite them to join us at Book Bums (the West Chester location) on Sunday 9/8/24 from 5-7 p.m. We’re always looking for outstanding teachers to join our team!
Just for Fun
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