Chemistry Set For Kids - Science Ideas For Kids

Chemistry Set For Kids - Science Ideas For KidsAre you interested in getting a chemistry set for your kids? There are many reasons why you would want to have a set for your kids, but also, you will want to make sure that you get the best set for your child that is going to stand out. Having a science set for your child can be exciting, and you can do some research online to find out what kinds of science sets are available for kids, and how you can go about getting one.The wonderful thing about having a chemistry set for your kids is that you will be able to give them something fun to do when they are young. There are a variety of different experiments that you can give them. You will be able to teach them how to be creative and how to think critically.One of the fun things to do with your children is making something. Whether it is a balloon or whatever they are making, you can set up a science lab that allows them to experiment with that thing. They will be able to learn about diff erent materials and how they are used. With the right set, you will be able to tell them stories about different materials, which will help them understand things better.If your child is interested in the sciences, there are programs and clubs that they can sign up for that will help them get into the scientific study of it. You can even make the homework a science project for them. Doing some experiments together is great for learning how to do something.Some children who are interested in science can go on to become great scientists. You can take a look at their projects and see if they like to make things or if they have a flair for the scientific world. With a set of chemistry for kids, you will be able to get more involved in their life, because they will be able to learn more.Having a science set for your children can allow them to have fun science activities. They will be able to get to see what is inside of things. And most importantly, they will be able to learn a lot about it as well.When it comes to science, it is a great hobby for kids to get into. And when you buy a chemistry set for kids, you are buying into a hobby that can be taken seriously as well.

A Personal Trainers Advice on Nutrition

A Personal Trainers Advice on Nutrition Improve your Nutritional intake with our Fitness Instructor and Sports Coach Guide ChaptersHow to Calculate Your Base Metabolic RateHow to Gauge Health and FitnessCalculating Your Optimal Calorie IntakeCalculating Your Body Mass IndexHow to Know if You are Eating HealthyOur grandmothers always said: “as long as we have good  health, we'll manage!”Did your Gran have some sort of secret weapon stay in shape? Did she instinctively know her metabolic rate and how many calories the human body needs to function at peak efficiency?Did Grandmothers everywhere know to calculate body mass index and, to combat obesity, start an exercise program or take up some sport â€" all without any direction from a fitness specialist?Too fatty! Too salty! Too sweet!These constant comments describe our food supply today. Those characteristics have somehow sneaked past the extravagant indulgences normally had only while on holiday, to lodge themselves into our kitchen cupboards and our lunch boxes.In government pamphlets, in the grocer's aisles, in all of the controls placed on the food industry: the expressed concern is balanced nutrition.Oatmeal for breakfast, quinoa salad for lunch and a bowl of light broth for dinner: a staple diet to fight obesity, diabetes and other diseases linked to a diet rich in fat.Such a diet is not what our grandmothers interpreted as good eating habits.Until the next set of food guidelines are issued, let us discover how we can get fit with a nutritionally sound meal plan â€" without feeling like a horse in the process.Charcuterie and canteloupe: an odd combination for a healthy diet! Source: Pixabay Credit: Erbs 55standard formula for measuring your base metabolic rate, but such a calculation may not apply to everyone, of every body type, in every situation.That just goes to show that every human is unique.Genetic factors play a role in how your body burns calories, and so do these other characteristics:age-related weight loss (or weight gain)what you eatand when you eat it!adolescent growth spurtspregnancythe healing of injured tis sueyour level of physical activityenvironmental factorsambient temperature, altitude, your stress levels, and thyroid functionEach stage of human growth â€" infancy, adolescence, young adulthood and maturing adults has a basic formula ascribed to its particular circumstance, used to calculate metabolic rate.Take some nutrition advice from an online personal trainer.How to Gauge Health and FitnessNationally, there is an estimated  that 7 million people living with cardiovascular disease in the UK. Of them, approximately 2.3 million struggle with high blood pressure.The resumption of fitness training is perhaps the most dangerous: that is when the most cardiovascular incidents strike.Prevention rather than correction is the solution provided by fitness professionals.That is why your personal trainer would conduct a fitness assessment: to evaluate your overall health, including your metabolism, before starting you on an exercise program.It stands to reason that, during the course of yo ur workout, should you feel heart palpitations and/or pressure on your chest, experience profuse sweating, have trouble catching your breath, you should run to the doctor.On second thought, please don't run. Get yourself there quickly, though.To avoid a cardiovascular episode altogether, your fitness instructor will take your physiology into consideration when designing an exercise program tailored to you.Your health assessment (and subsequent exercise regimen) will include various cardio activities, either as warm ups, or as part of your individualized program design: riding a bike, running on a treadmill, and low impact aerobics.During such a stress test, your health professional will scrutinise the your heart rate and vascular system function as intently as a cat follows a laser pointer, to detect your overall strength and fitness, as well as your sports conditioning.S/he may also apply the Ruffier-Dickson test results to your total fitness score.For healthier living, limit your intake of fatty foods Source: Pixabayreprinted their menus, listing the caloric value of their meals.That doesn't mean your favorite fish'n'chips outlet is keeping your informed.The standard portion of UK's iconic food rings in at a whopping six hundred calories!If you are a moderately active middle-aged woman, that number represents one third of your recommended daily caloric intake.Calculating Your Body Mass IndexAccording to the National Health Service, more than half of the UK's population is overweight.The obesity epidemic is considered the greatest non-contagious health threat to the modern world â€" World Health Organisation.The WHO adopted the Body Mass Index as a standard calculation of obesity just as 'overweight' became a critical problem in developed nations.The calculation is targeted to adults, and permits a rapid evaluation of health risks associated with weight gain.If your body mass index falls between 18.5 and 25, you have a healthy ratio of fat and muscle.Your fit ness trainer will most certainly take your body composition into consideration when formulating your nutrition plan and fitness program.Healthy meals, such as prawn salads, would go a long way to help you slim down Source: Pixabay Credit: Wow_PhoHow to Know if You are Eating HealthyRather than constantly an obsessing  over food, health clubs and fitness centers espouse sound overall alimentary habits.Fatigue, diabetes, cardiorespiratory disease; elevated cholesterol: all of these result in part because of eating foods high in fats and sugars.It has long been established that what you eat has a direct impact on your well-being as well as your waistline.If your lifestyle is such that meals on the run are all that you have time for, it may be well-advised for you to review your schedule and reduce your calorie intake â€" and what form of calories you ingest come in.Would you know a healthy meal if you ate one?Therein lies the challenge. Plenty of supposedly healthy foods, such as yogur t, are actually loaded with sugar.You can refer to apps that break down food content and give you not only its caloric value per serving, but its list of additives that are not necessarily featured on the label.You can also take a quiz to test your knowledge of healthy eating.Fitness and exercise go hand in hand.If you want to  work  toward a stronger, healthier you, consulting with a health fitness specialist is a good place to start.Engaging a personal fitness trainer is a good way to reach your fitness goals: lose unwanted pounds, tone your body, strengthen muscles and, most of all, develop good eating habits.A certified personal trainer will take into account your lifestyle, past athletic activity, and sports you currently play.He would adjust his training techniques to reflect your muscular strength and sports ability.During your personal training sessions, your fitness management professional may even assign you corrective exercises to do on your own.If you are a beginner athl ete â€" and a tad on the fluffy side, your in-home personal trainer will probably recommend weight management techniques along with entry-level exercise activities.If you prefer group fitness, your local gym most likely offers Pilates and aerobics classes, and group training for other workouts such as: weight lifting and yoga.An added benefit to working out in the gym or in fitness clubs is that there are personal training programs available for special populations: disabled, obese and senior fitness activities.They also have youth fitness programs.You should know that any training program, coupled with sound nutritional habits will inevitably lead to a healthy lifestyle.Such a fitness goal is in reach of everyone, provided s/he has the motivation and endurance to see a training program through: working out every day, eating balanced meals and maintaining an appropriate body weight.Bear in mind that personal fitness training places accountability of sound nutritional practices squar ely on you.Your in-home exercise physiologist has personal trainer certification, meaning s/he can give counsel not just on what exercise programs are right for your body type, but also what to eat to support your fitness efforts.That would be good advice to follow!  Find a personal trainer near me.

Report Card Review Turning the Year Around

Report Card Review Turning the Year Around Report Card Review: Turning the Year Around Though hard to believe, the school year is nearly halfway over. As the holiday season quickly approaches, your elementary student will soon receive his or her second report card, which serves as an even more revealing indication of academic performance than the first. Why? Unlike the first report, which includes assessment of a substantial amount of review material, the second report card demonstrates how well a student is handling new, more challenging concepts. While a less-than-stellar midyear report card can be disheartening, with proper remediation a students next report card can show significant signs of improvement. So when that second report card arrives with grades that cause concern, turn to a tutoring program. Whether your child needs a math, spelling or reading tutor, a tutoring program with individualized instruction can make a world of difference. While parents know that tutoring is a highly effective measure to boost academic success, many are often interested in ways they can complement a tutoring program and continue to help turn their students academic year around. There are many helpful measures parents can take; consider the following: Foster Open Dialogue. As you and your elementary student prepare for a tutoring program, ask your student how he or she feels about school. Open dialogue is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about why your child received a certain grade or what skills and concepts he or she struggles with the most. A conversation with your childs teacher can also provide helpful insight to all parties invested in a childs academic success. Continue to invite input and reflection from your child after each tutoring session as well. Embrace Goals. While learning goals will be established as part of your childs tutoring program, it helps when parents continue to embrace and discuss these goals outside of a session. Talk with your child about the ways he or she is working to achieve a goal and why the goal is important. Perhaps write out goals to post on the refrigerator or in your childs room, or make plans to celebrate after each goal is reached. Parents may even write out learning goals of their own to demonstrate that learning is an ongoing process. Pursue Positivity. As your student engages in a tutoring program, cultivate an atmosphere of positivity. Ensure your child understands that tutoring is not a punishment, nor should it carry any negative connotation. Explain that tutoring is simply an extra measure to help him or her advance even farther in school. To sustain a students confidence and self-esteem, be sure to praise other successes in both academics and beyond. Be Engaged at Home. Ask your childs reading tutor about ways you can continue to work on certain skills at home, or integrate math into daily conversation. Spell out signs you encounter while in the car or create fun games with math flashcards. Set aside time each day for reading, and ask questions about the stories your child reads. Efforts to keep your child positively engaged in academics at home can benefit both skill and motivation. Visit Huntington Learning Center for more information about our proven tutoring solutions for elementary students struggling in various subjects.

Dos and Donts for Teaching with Technology

Do's and Don'ts for Teaching with Technology As you know already, technology can enhance your lessons and empower your students. But there are effective and less effective uses of technology in the classroom. Here are a few dos and donts: Do embrace technology that furthers student learning. Use tools that are relevant to what you teach and have a clear purpose. Talk with other teachers to learn what they use and how they find it beneficial. Dont abandon successful traditional teaching methods. Technology use for the sake of technology use isnt the goal. Find ways to amplify your teaching with technology, not completely upend an approach that works. Do use technology to make your administrative tasks easier. Many tech tools and apps allow you to be more efficient at what you do every day: grading, answering questions, offering research resources, tracking student progress, and more. Take advantage. Do make sure any apps used do not replace deeper thinking. There are so many different learning apps available that can help students quiz themselves, reinforce concepts, and much more. But be sure these apps are used appropriately and not in place of other activities that facilitate deeper analysis. Do use technology to engage students. Technology allows you to infuse exciting, dynamic content into your daily lessons. Digital storytelling, interactive lessons, live surveys the list of options to transform your classroom is long. Dont consider technology an add-on. Its easy to stick with what works, but be careful not to just do what youve always done plus add in some technology. Ultimately, technology should help you achieve learning outcomes and improve your instruction. Technology can strengthen your teaching and your students learning. Take the time to ensure any tools you use will help you to achieve your objectives and to be the most effective teacher possible.

4 Online Course Struggles To Be Aware Of

4 Online Course Struggles To Be Aware Of Image via Pexels.com Time management Having a flexible schedule is definitely a benefit of taking an online course, but this requires much more  time management skills  than some people may realize. You need to give yourself enough time to complete short-term coursework like textbook practice pages on top of long-term assignments like term papers. Rememberâ€"in a traditional course, your professor sets class meeting times two or three days a week. You’ll probably get some work done during class time. In an online setting, this is not always the case. You must designate appropriate times for “classwork” and “homework.” Procrastination is your worst enemy! Avoiding the struggle:  Your planner is your best friend. It’s a good idea to invest in a planner with monthly calendars as well as daily to-do logs. Write down important due dates in the monthly calendars, and then divide work into your daily logs. While you should plan out your week ahead instead of taking it day-by-day, it can get a bit overwhelming. To avoid this, only plan out one week at a time if you can. Keep a schedule and stick to it. You should pick one, two, or three days a weekâ€"however many days the coursework will demandâ€"and a timeframe to complete lessons. This will act as your “class time.” Show up to your online course as you would an actual class! Communication via technology In an online course, it’s possible you may never see your professor or classmates in person. This can make communication a bit difficult. You may need to rely on e-mail or online course forums to ask your professor questions, which doesn’t always guarantee a quick response. You should keep this in mind when doing assignmentsâ€"if you have a question, ask it as soon as possible for a better chance that you’ll have an answer before the work is due. If you feel that your professor is being unreasonable with their response times, be clear about your concerns so that it doesn’t have a negative impact on your grade. Likewise, however, you need to be prompt with your responses, too. A conversation will only go smoothly if both sides are efficient. If you work better with face-to-face communication, you may be better off in a traditional course. Avoiding the struggle: Use virtual communication to your advantage! If you know any of your classmates, see if they would be interested in studying on a Skype call, or even meeting up in person if everyone is nearby. You should also try to download an email app on your phone if you don’t have one already. This way, you can read emails as soon as you receive them and reply on-the-go. If you really need to see your professor in person, you can always ask if they have on-campus office hours. Self-discipline You are responsible for how well you do in an online course. It can sometimes be difficult to find the motivation to sit through lessons and participate in classwork when there’s no professor watching over you. Catching up in an online course may seem easy enough when you’re swamped with traditional coursework, but you’ll regret procrastinating later. Don’t fall into the habit of putting your online course last! It is just as valuable as any traditional course you’re enrolled in and should be treated as such. Image via Pexels.com Avoiding the struggle: An online course will require you to  stay organized in  every  sense of the word. Keep your notes in order, stay on top of due dates, and keep up with the textbook readings. If you primarily use your laptop for these things, you should have a neat folder for your online course. It may help to have subfolders as well for homework, notes, term papers, and anything else you can think of. Stay in contact with your professors and classmates. Knowing that you aren’t alone in the course may help you maintain your motivation. If your professor has time limits for completing lessons, stick to them and set reminders for yourself to do the work. Computer issues You’ll need to know your way around a computer if you want to succeed in an online course. Contrary to popular belief, not every student is technologically savvy. The class may simply entail logging into a course website like Moodle or Blackboard, but you might come across some technical difficulties. Wi-Fi is another common problem. If your laptop is holding on for dear life, you may want to have a back-up plan, such as using a library desktop for coursework. Avoiding the struggle: Don’t get frustrated if you do run into problems. Contact your school I.T. department or the support team for your class website as soon as possible to get the issue resolved. You can also look at some troubleshooting guides online for quick fixes. Sometimes, solving the problem is not as hard as it seems! Now, taking an online course isn’t all badâ€"here is the value of taking an online course.

Dual Subtitles How Language Learning Can Be Twice as Nice

Dual Subtitles How Language Learning Can Be Twice as Nice Dual Subtitles: How Language Learning Can Be Twice as Nice Give me a foreign language video and subtitles to match and I will learn that language. Archimedes, probablySubtitles are the unsung heroes of language learning.But youre not here to hear about plain old ordinary subtitles.Because as helpful as those can be, it gets much better.Youre here to make use of what seems like it should be such a simple, effective language learning hack but is surprisingly rarely used: dual language subtitles for authentic video content.Maybe you thought of this concept yourself.Maybe it just popped into your mind while  you were watching a vlog in the language youre learning and for the umpteenth time found yourself in the position of switching back and forth between two sets of subtitles that werent even necessarily accurate.Or maybe you snuck a glance at a video on someone elses phone that was running dual subtitles and thought to yourself, What is this wizardry?Well, good news: Having the option of not just one, but two sets of subtitles working for you â€"one in a language you know and another in the language youre learningâ€"as you watch the kind of content thats intended for native speakers of your target language is not an impossible dream.In this post, well show you how its possible.And we wont just show you how to have instant translations for all the content in movies or videos you watch, but also how to use this tool to fully grasp the structure, grammar and writing of your target language.Without further ado, lets dive in. Dual Subtitles: How Language Learning Can Be Twice as NiceHow to Set Up Your Own Dual Subtitles Home TheaterNow that you know dual subtitles are possible, you may be champing at the bit to get started. However, using dual subtitles is a little tricky, and requires a little bit of technical literacy and patience to get right. Theres no such thing as a free lunch!Or is there?A  Really Easy Option: Just Sign Up for FluentUActually, if youre not tech-savvy and would rather not mess around with video and su btitle files on your computer, theres a super simple solution for obtaining dual subtitles on a huge number of select authentic videos: FluentU.The minds behind FluentU have chosen authentic and interesting native content  and turned it into personalized language lessons that include painstakingly-created dual-language subtitles just for you. Youll find all kinds of content on FluentUâ€"like movie trailers, music videos, news, commercials, vlogs, cartoons and inspiring talks.With FluentU, you hear languages in real-world contextsâ€"the way that native speakers actually use them.Just a quick look will give you an idea of the variety of FluentU videos on offer:FluentU really takes the grunt work out of learning languages, leaving you with nothing but engaging, effective and efficient learning. It’s already hand-picked the best videos for you and organized them by level and topic. All you have to do is choose any video that strikes your fancy to get started!Each word in the interacti ve captions comes with a definition, audio, image, example sentences and more.Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and easily review words and phrases from the video under Vocab.You can use FluentU’s unique adaptive quizzes to learn the vocabulary and phrases from the video through fun questions and exercises. Just swipe left or right to see more examples of the word youre studying.The program even keeps track of what you’re learning and tells you exactly when it’s time for review, giving you a 100% personalized experience.Start using FluentU on the website  with your computer or tablet  or, better yet,  download the FluentU app from  the  iTunes store  or  Google Play store.A Still-not-too-hard Option: Setting Up Dual Subtitles for Video Files on Your ComputerBut maybe you already have FluentU, and in addition you want to be able to watch full movies and TV shows in a dual-subtitle format. Or youre learning a language thats not yet a vailable. Or you just want to geek out over as many options as possible.Not a problem!Heres a short tutorial on getting and using dual subtitles with the video files on your computer:First, youll want to download subtitle files from  OpenSubtitles.org. There are a few different sites where you can download subs, but OpenSubtitles is the oldest and most respected. The collection is enormous, spanning around 50 languages and thousands of films and TV shows.They even have their own forum and blog for advice. But all you really need to do to get started is search for the name of the movie or show you want.Then, select the language of the subtitles and download the SRT files you need. One SRT file is one set of subtitlesâ€"simple!Put the SRT files in the same folder as your video file, and make sure they have a similar name.  For example, if youre watching Toy Story, maybe your video file is toy-story.mp4, your English subs are toy-story.en.srt, and your Spanish subs are toy-story.es.srt .Next, make sure you have or download a good media player, like  KMPlayer,  VLC  or  Kodi, that will automatically allow you to choose between your sets of subtitles when you play the file. In the Toy Story example, youll see options for subtitles in English and Spanish.But how to play them at the same time? Some players already include options to play more than one file at once, but you can also  take the additional step of combining two sets of SRT files into one using a free service like DualSub.Depending on your media player, you may get smoother results by combining your two  SRT files into one ASS file.Enjoy your dual subtitles!Now, lets look at what you can do with them.How to Use Dual Subtitles to Learn LanguagesUse Dual Subtitles to Improve Your Listening ComprehensionFirst off, let me be clear that all dual subtitles all the time arent for everyone. This is why both of the options we recommended above can easily be adjusted to accommodate single-subtitle or no-subtitle wat ching. If youre advanced enough in your studies, you may not need subtitles anymore at all. Just watch and understand and enjoy your hard-earned fluency.But for the rest of us, when a native speaker opens their mouth in a target-language video, it can be overwhelming.Simply listening along with a transcript is one of the best ways to get used to natural speech. But if you listen just one time, it might be tough-going.Listening multiple times and following along with the subtitles or a transcript will bake those language patterns and vocabulary words into your brain in no time.Use Dual Subtitles to Learn Foreign Alphabets and Tough Spelling SystemsDid you know that same-language subtitling can boost literacy?The applications for second-language learning are enormous. If youre struggling to get your head around unfamiliar writing systems or complicated spelling, take a break from laboriously copying out the alphabet.Switch on some videos with dual-language subtitles and just concentra te on the sounds and the writing.  You can use the translations for understanding, but its the target language youll want to mainly be focusing on. Then go back to your instructional materials and watch as you make astonishing progress in reading your target language.Use Dual Subtitles to Check Your UnderstandingWhen you watch a video in your target language, you may think you understand everything.And when you read the target-language subtitles, you may also believe youre following along perfectly.But what dual subtitles bring to you is a way to instantly check if youre actually understanding your target language or just getting the gist.Cover up or turn off the answer (your native language) and play a short section of the video. Rewind and check to see if you got it right. Its that simple! (With a FluentU Plus plan, Quiz Mode takes care of this part for youâ€"and keeps track of the vocab youre learning so it knows when you need to review something.)Then repeat over and over. With hundreds of lines of dialogue in any film or TV show (and so many YouTube videos in existence!), this might be the most efficient and convenient listening practice exercise out there.But what else can you achieve with dual subtitles?Use Dual Subtitles to Compare Two Foreign Languages at OnceLots of language learners like to double things up and study more than one foreign language at the same time.Thats great, and Im all for it. Learners like this have a special way to benefit from dual subtitlesâ€"listening to content in their native language and comparing two different translations.Let me explain: Youll hear your native language, which is effortless to understand. Then you’ll see translations of what was just said in both of the languages you’re studying.This way you can get reading practice in both target languages and see where they might differ in terms of vocabulary.Norwegian and Danish, for instance, are very similar in their written form.By comparing the subtitles line b y line, you can get a sense for where they do differ and strengthen both at the same time. Talk about efficiency!Use Dual Subtitles to Understand Nuances in Target Language ContentHeres another tip that can work for multi-language learners.Imagine youre watching a film in one of your target languages and you understand it at a high intermediate level.You know what the characters are saying, what theyre thinking and how they relate to each other.If you put on subtitles in your native language, youll understand the meanings of the lines.But if you add subtitles in a different language that you also understand, youll see how another translator from a different background rendered those lines, too.This can actually add a lot of depth to your understanding of the film and the language.Oftentimes films from other cultures have nuances that are hard to appreciate from the outside.Lets say youre watching a film in Italian, and you understand French well, too. By comparing French and English subtitles for the filmâ€"youll see how the Italian lines were understood by two different translators and interpreted for two different audiences.With a second opinion on the language used in the film, your understanding will be a lot more complete.However, even if you dont have a third language or set of subtitles for this extra context, youll still gain understanding of a lot of nuance from comparing a target-language transcript that you already understand to a full translation your native language. This is one way that advanced learners can still benefit from translations, and it also shows the value of another simple exercise: Working out a translation yourself and then comparing it to someone elses translation.Of course, there are a million and one ways to learn a language.Whatever gets you thinking in and thinking about the languageâ€"thats the best way to study.Dual subtitles are just one of many tools available to you, but theyre one of the best.Try them out today and see h ow they work for you!

Costa Mesa Tutoring Tips Elementary School Math - TutorNerds

Costa Mesa Tutoring Tips Elementary School Math - TutorNerds Costa Mesa Tutoring for Elementary School Math Costa Mesa Tutoring for Elementary School Math  Parents of students in elementary school often overlook the potential of early math tutoring. At these grade levels, the math being learned is often seen as too fundamental and memorization-based: counting, numbers, digits, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. It might seem that private Costa Mesa tutoring is unnecessary to learn this material that everyone gets through together in elementary school. After all, for the most part, there isn’t as much pressure or emphasis on grades, standardized test scores, and honors or remedial classes until they get older. Isn’t it better to wait until they are in a more advanced class like algebra before tutoring can really help?  It isn’t. This way of thinking is prevalent but wrong. Early math tutoring by an experienced private tutor can lead to improvements in quantitative skills and mathematics grades for the rest of their educational career. Here are three reasons why this early tutoring is so vital. The Fundamentals Never Go Away  The mathematics that children learn in their first few years of school will continue to be used for the rest of their math classes and the rest of their lives. These fundamentals are just that:  fundamental. This material sets the foundation for  all  future math skills and learning. There will never be a single lesson in their classes from this point forward that does not include the math that they are learning now.    So, what are these fundamentals? Well, of course, we have topics like numbers, counting, and estimating. There are also early operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Other topics like shapes, geometry, spatial skills, problem-solving, and word problems are learned in elementary school. And, importantly, there are introductions to fractions, decimals, and percentages. When tutors help and evaluate students in middle school, high school, or even college, a lack of expertise in these fundamental skills is often a significant factor holding them back. Being able to quickly and correctly do basic operations and times tables (remember “mad minutes”?); understand and work with fractions, decimals, and percentages; and confidently solve math questions in their head (or at least, without a calculator) are all issues that plague students who struggle with math. How many adults do you know who still say that they can’t do fractions, or can’t solve math problems in their head if it’s more than one digit? Costa Mesa tutoring at this time solves those problems before they become problems. Some of the processes used to help students become experts in these topics might simply not be effective for your students.   Or, the material isn’t learned as well as it could be.   Or, the teacher(s) don’t prioritize the right material that your student will need for the future.   Whatever the case, becoming an absolute expert at these early number manipulations is a huge advantage for students going into their next years of math, and it is often an advantage that continues to keep them on top and is a skill that continues to be valuable. Math Confidence is Key to Success and Self-Esteem A large contributor to many students not enjoying math or not doing well in math is a lack of confidence in the material.   When they are always learning new things, it always feels difficult and challenging.   It is easy for many students to start thinking that they aren’t good at math at an early age.   This feeling can stay with them, and it can lead to a dislike of mathematics and mathematical fields, as well as disinterest in the classes which will make it more difficult to do well. One way to help boost math confidence is to build it early on.   Experienced math tutors know what is important and they know what will be coming next for the student.   A private Costa Mesa tutor can help your students master what they are learning now and prime them for future material.   Learning some of the material with a private tutor is very effective: they can be more engaging with your student, cater to the ways that your student learns best, and revisit confusing parts while accelerating the easier parts.   It is clear that most students respond very well to private lessons from an experienced math tutor. What this priming and preparation does is it then makes the student much more experienced in confident in class.   They have already mastered some of the material and practiced others that the teacher hasn’t taught yet.   For many students, they get to experience this for the first time when a tutor gets them ahead of schedule in middle school or high school.   The happiness, confidence, and relief from the stress of being ahead of class instead of behind can be an exuberating mentality shift for students who have never felt this confidence before.   Much joy in mathematics has been sparked by simply being in a position where the student is no longer confused and stressed. Even better than trying to fix confidence is to provide it from the first place.   Help your students excel at early math and take that success and self-esteem with them to higher levels.   You never know what problems you might be avoiding altogether by being proactive with tutoring. Guaranteed to Stay on Track and Not Fall Behind Math classes tend to build upon prior math classes.   This is true for most subjects, but it is most obvious and most prevalent in mathematics.   Difficulty or poor understanding of one math class often leads to more difficulty and worse understanding in the next classes.   This effect can build on itself, and it creates a slippery slope of math success that is easy to fall off from just one poor class. Similarly, some math fundamentals need to be mastered in order for a student to be successful in the future.   Unfortunately, most of these fundamentals are never revisited â€" meaning that if they aren’t learned and mastered early enough, it will mean problems in the future. These issues make tutoring much more difficult in the future when a student might really need help.   A tutor can often diagnose some of the deficiencies in a student’s math knowledge that are leading to their problems in a class.   The problem is that is often almost impossible to go back and revisit, reteach, and master so much older material while still learning the new material well enough to get a good grade.   This often leads to tutors having to perform “damage control” with a student where strong understanding and true knowledge must be sacrificed in order to prioritize the memorization required to help the student improve their grade in time. This type of tutoring is often only a temporary band-aid for a problem that needs much more work to truly fix.   However, it is often all that is possible with the time available. You can avoid this with early tutoring and setting your student on track from the beginning.   A tutor will catch if there are ever starting to slip off and can help fix the problem and move forward before it has been too much time.   Many students in high school and beyond who have math tutoring also would require lessons of material that they failed to understand or master from back when they were a child to truly fix their math problems.   The problem is that it is too late for them to really fix it.   An experienced tutor can fix this by working with your student while they are learning some of the most important math skills in their childhood. Book your in-home Costa Mesa tutor today! Michael C. is currently a private math, science, and standardized test tutor with TutorNerds in Irvine and Anaheim. All blog entries, except for guest bloggers, are written by Tutor Nerds. Are you an education professional? If so, email us at pr@tutornerds.com for guest blogging and collaborations. 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