Excerpt from 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: Bug Off! (McKinley & Trombly)

Exceptional teachers Cindy McKinley and Patti Trombly have put together a book that can help any parent through this extended period of sheltering in place during the current covid 19 pandemic. Packed with home activities for learning, readers can pick any number that appeal to them or fit their personal family circumstances.

Here is one example:

#203 

Bug Off! 

(Game for +, −, ×, ÷)

Materials: a new fly swatter; flashcards, or note cards.

1. Hand your child the fly swatter and tell her she’s going to practice math. Already she’s interested and ready to enjoy this game to help improve basic math facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.

2. Place cards with the answers to math facts she is working on in school or struggling with, face up, spreading them fairly far apart. Then, simply ask a question such as, “What is 3x4?” and have her slap the fly swatter on the index card with the correct answer.

Variations:
• Use another fly swatter and play the game with her. Take turns or race each other.
• Have her teach a sibling (younger or older).
• Time her. Challenge her to improve on her time.
• Let her quiz you. She can ask the questions and you find the answer. She’ll have to tell you if you’re right or wrong so she will be learning. Remember, you learn 90% of what you teach someone else!
• Want to make it harder? Write the equations on the index cards. You would say, “The answer is 6.” She’ll have to swat the “2x3” or “5+1” card depending on the operation she’s practicing.
• Don’t forget to switch the index cards around often.

For another example, check our earlier blog post: Thinking Out Loud as a Teaching Technique.

Meet Cindy

Cindy McKinley is a parent, a teacher, and a writer.  She grew up in Milford, Michigan, and has lived there for about 40 years, attending Huron Valley Schools.  Cindy has a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in the Teaching of Reading from Eastern Michigan University.  She taught lower elementary for seven years, also in Huron Valley Schools, both at Kurtz Elementary and Country Oaks Elementary.  Her children attended the very same elementary, middle school, and high school as she did!

She now tutors children of all ages in the community and teaches English at Oakland Community College in Royal Oak.  She’s been teaching for over 25 years.

In 2002 her first book, a children’s book called One Smile, was published.  It won the Benjamin Franklin award that year.  In 2013 her second children’s book, One Voice, came out. It immediately won the Preferred Choice Award and the Carol Reiser Award.  Both books show how simple random acts of kindness can change the world.

That same year, 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Child Succeed in Elementary School came out, a book she co-wrote with teacher and long-time friend Patti Trombly.  This book is full of fun and easy ways parents can work with their young kids on all academic subjects and more!

Visit her website.

&

Meet Patti

Patti Trombly has a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s Degree in the Teaching of Reading.  Even after 20 years of teaching in elementary school, middle school and college, she still looks for teachable moments in everyday life and for new ways to help children learn. She is a parent of two, a teacher and a business owner.



Other posts about and by these authors and this book can be found by clicking here -- helpful posts for parents.