Top 5 Skills for Learning Beyond the Classroom | Ep 102

TD Flenaugh discusses five skills to help children avoid summer learning burnout while gaining a competitive advantage. First, she emphasizes teaching children to tie their shoes, using scaffolding techniques. Second, she suggests baking or cooking to develop life skills like measurement and sequencing. Third, she advises on organizing, starting with small tasks like packing a lunch box. Fourth, she recommends building concentration through non-digital activities like jigsaw puzzles and chess. Lastly, she highlights the importance of caring for living things, such as pets or plants, to foster responsibility and natural consequences. These skills aim to build independence and critical thinking.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:03

Are you worried that you might burn your child out on book learning over the summertime? Do you want to make sure that you're still giving them a competitive advantage? Well, listen to this podcast episode, because we're going to get into five skills that you could work on with your child over the summer that's going to help give them a competitive advantage and making sure they're having fun and not burning them out on school learning over the summer. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning Podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success, I decided to go live today, because I am out and about. If you can't tell, I'm sure you can. I am currently, let me make an adjustment. Oops, I don't know. Anyway, I'm trying to make an adjustment. I am out, and I'm in Northern California, and had a very, very busy week, some illness and things going on. So as a result, I am going live today, making sure that I do my episode 102, of the Falling for Learning Podcast, I was feeling a certain way because the lighting isn't what it should be, um, but my husband was like, What are you so worried about? You know, like during the pandemic, people were like, looking crazy online and blah, blah, blah. So just do your podcast, get your information out there, you know. So he has such a weird way of giving me encouragement, but I appreciate it. And so here we are doing the podcast. The lighting is wonky, hopefully the sound is everything that it should be. But I'm glad that you've joined me today so that we could talk about ways to keep your child learning Okay, without, you know, just burning them out. And your child may be burned out. They may be doing summer school already. You may already have activities, but something that like five main things that I see that children really need to help continue their growth and their development, then becoming independent. So I'm going to start with a number, uh, with uh with one thing, number one thing is going to be and they're not really ranked, but this is the one that I really haven't noticed glaringly, that kids don't know how to tie their shoes. Tying shoes? Maybe you haven't paid attention, I don't know, but check, Does your child know how to tie their shoes? If they don't, this is a perfect opportunity. And I am talking about third graders, fourth graders, kids that will we feel like, oh, you should already know that. Don't know how to tie their shoes. I don't know if we're really busy. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, older cousins, please. If your child, your loved one, does not know how to tie their shoes, help them with this. And I am saying Help I see a lot of people just tying the shoes now that we're in the summer months. Give yourself a break. Give them time. Let them know we're going to learn how to tie their shoes and scaffold them into this process. Now, scaffolding means that you do give help. It does not mean that you do it all for them, but you help them. You know, think about an A ramp. You know, maybe you're helping them with the first part and you know, you're, you know, the ramp all already gives you that incline up, but they're taking those steps up themselves. So what can you do to help them? You could maybe give them a YouTube video that shows how to tie shoes. You could, you know, make sure you break it down into specific steps for them. So whatever you need to do help your child, your loved one learn how to tie shoes. Teachers out there who are listening, think about a strategy for helping incorporate that into your classroom, learning, especially like when my daughter was a kid, she had been her first grade her kindergarten teacher had it up there as a skill that they were learning, along with knowing the colors as long as well as learning like the numbers. So it was different skills that they were learning, that you were giving them a little treat for learning, right? You were helping them to work on that goal. And maybe they have five steps, and then you give them, like, two steps, three steps, and you know, they could do the first step on their own. And then you're helping them from then on, kind of figure out what you're going to do to help them. And I do mean help them. That means you might be taking 15 minutes or whatever to help them through the process, and not say, I don't have time for this. I'm just going to tie it up for you. So make sure you're like, finding that time. To actually help them through this process. Now, tying shoes isn't just tying shoes. I know some people think, okay, that's not a big deal. I'm just going to get them Velcro, whatever. I'm just going to tie their shoes. I don't know why the teacher won't just help them. A lot of people don't understand the context of teaching when there are 20 other kids and your kid needs to tie their shoes. But guess what? Seven other kids need to tie their shoes as well. So instead of teaching reading or teaching writing or math, we're tying shoe after shoe after shoe after shoe. So it's a no can do. So I really want to tell you, I just ask students to tuck those shoes strings inside the shoes, and let's keep going, I cannot tie seven shoes in a 30 minute time period that I have with students to work on their reading and my contacts in my job and then other teachers right tying shoes. It just doesn't make any sense. So this is something at home that we really need to develop for our kids. And it again when I say it's not just shoe tying, it develops their fine motor skills and helps them get build confidence in other tasks tie like riding a bike or skateboarding or skiing or different things like that, later On, something simple as tying their shoes and not giving up and learning how to do that task is going to get them to that level where they're able to do harder things that take more fine motor skill development and help them blossom into someone who believes that they can do it right. Because half of this battle is kids believing that they can do it. If I am always getting someone else to tie my shoes, no one's helping me to do it. I'm not learning how to do it. I'm going to believe I can't do it. And so that's going to hold me back. If someone's like skateboarding, like, oh, skateboarding, I'm not able to do that, right? I came and learn how to tie my shoes. How would I be skateboarding? Right? So don't think about shoe tying as just shoe tying. It is a level, entry level skill that develops them their confidence and their fine motor skills so they could do other things. Okay? So it's not just one thing. It leads to other things. So give them the time to learn that. And again, as they are growing, they're going to find many different tasks that are hard to do. They're challenging to do. And if you are helping them, giving them the time, giving the 15 minutes, and helping them with it, helping them do step one and step two, maybe they can do Step Three by themselves, and help build them up, talk to them about what they did well. And so every time they're getting closer and closer to tying their shoes on their own, talk to them about this skill and how you could help them find out where they're getting stuck and then help move them forward. Okay, so it is really important that you're modeling it for them. Tie your shoes for them, show them, have them model what you're doing, mirror what you're doing as you're tying your shoes, avoid just being impatient and just tying their shoes every time. That is a way of giving them the disadvantage. And this show is all about how to give your children the competitive advantage. So let's talk about the next skill that's going to help your child get a competitive advantage this summer, right? And it's not just tied to book learning. So the next thing is baking or cooking as a life skill right? Now, baking involves so much measurement reading, and I've talked about this again before on my show, but I really want to talk about, you know, if you've already bake something simple, like cookies, maybe you will graduate them to to baking something even more challenging, or cooking something that's more challenging again. Cooking is a skill that is going to help them become more independent. Is going to help them with their reading, their writing, their measurements, following directions, sequencing, all of those things are skills that are going to help them really tackle other challenges they have to do in their life. So you want to keep this going where you are helping them make challenges, set forth challenges and goals and go forward with them and actually achieve them. Maybe they were just baking a five ingredient cookie, and then now they're doing something with 10 or 15 ingredients, I don't know you kind of think about where your child is and help them to build on that. If you have multiple kids, maybe different kids are making different things. Maybe together, they're making a whole meal for the family. So think about the level of complexity that they have already achieved in baking or cooking, and think about taking them to the next step. This is going to help them build so many different skills simultaneously, and as they get older, that is what they're asked to do in school. They need to take a passage. They need to read it. They need to be able to write about it. They need to be able to comprehend it. They need to be able to talk about. About it. And so when you are giving them a complicated task of, you know, baking or cooking something and getting progressively more challenging, and what they are approaching and cooking or baking, you are preparing them for school, right in a roundabout way, again, at the heart of everything that I'm telling you is about building confidence. It's about building self efficacy, because the more they do and challenge themselves to do, that will again, translate to other things. Oh, I've done some hard things before. Maybe I didn't get it this time, but I'm going to get it next time. I'm going to keep working on this. And a lot of our students who don't have that type of skill, right? They give up, oh, this is so hard. And then they just stop there, and they don't do better, and they don't do more, and that's a challenge, that's a problem, right? But you are building in self confidence and self efficacy the more you help them work towards these goals. And some of you I know out there, are very, very busy parents, please make sure you talk to your village. And village can be you know, mom, dad, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbor, I don't know, just you know. Think about who are those trusted people in your life that can help to take on some of these challenges and take the time to help them tie their shoe or bake or to be cooking something because other people could do it just doesn't have to be you. And again, them taking on these challenges is going to help them, not in just this one area, but transfer to so many other skills, academic and non academic. And again, all the different tasks that you have your child doing could somehow lead to them finding their passion, that spark, that helps them to love, learning and help them lead to their destiny and their passion in life. So again, the more that you can expose them and help teach them and guide them, the more you're leading them into a fulfilling life. Okay, let's get to number three. Okay, organizing. I'm laughing about the organizing because I know so many of us as parents have stepped in and done the organizing. We have cleaned that room, we have put that backpack together. We are the ones who organize. And then thinking about even some parents I talk to, they have just, they have like, it's not a growth mindset, right? It's a fixed mindset. Their child is disorganized. They've already labeled their child. He's not organized. He's not gonna be able to do that. He doesn't do that. He's not gonna be able to get his own clothes together. They are not able to do that. I'm having to do that myself. I have to do it. So again, this is not true. This is something that we tell ourselves. And yes, they might be a hot mess. I'm not saying they're not, but what I'm saying is that you can teach them, or someone can be in your village, in your realm of people that help and support you to help your child actually learn how to organize. And it can start very, very small. It doesn't have to be clean up this room, right? Because if they're a hot mess, cleaning up this room, as I know you probably already tried, does not work. It is too much. It's overwhelming is not going to get done. But if it's something small, like a backpack, it could even be a lunch box and another task to help them? Is it something that's not attached to them? Some people who are very disorganized can help with someone else organizing because it's not their stuff and they're not having it to make personal or emotional decisions about things they could objectively see this is not useful. Let us put this in the trash. Let's give this away. Let us put this here on the top shelf or the bottom shelf. You'll be surprised how helpful some disorganized people can be, or personally disorganized, but can help someone else organize their things. Again, this is a life skill helping them to gain independence in their lives as they're you know, later on in lives, when they're putting together a locker or putting together a dorm room or putting together an apartment or even a whole house, that skill, again, is going to be something that they're going to be able to hold on to and help them to become, you know, independent, self sufficient, competent and what they know what to do. Right? Just the concept of organizing everything, having its own place, is so amazing for people to understand. Right? Uh, wait, so everything having its own place is going to help us to be organized. We're not just coming in and putting things anywhere because we don't know where it goes. But now we know this is where the coats go. This is where my backpack goes at the end of the day. This is where my shoes go, right? And sometimes, that, you know, sometimes those really simple ideas are lost on kids, right when you're just telling them to put something somewhere, instead of having them make a decision about where do these things go? So now that we have assigned a home for everything, let's put them in that place. Very simple for some people to understand, but kind of revolutionary for people who are disorganized or kids who are not getting the concept of what organization is. Again, start small, scaffolding is again helping them through the process. You're doing part of it with them or for them, part not all, and helping slowly work yourself out of a job that is the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in Love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing Hoot and into loving to write. Get your book set today. You TD, the point of the filing for learning podcast to help us get our kids on track for learning and to stay on track for success. And success means independence. They're able to do things on their own. Okay? So we need to think about how we could do that academically. We're also thinking about how we could do it, and just like different skills, right? These are skills that maybe are not tested on our state test, but when it comes to living your life in a fulfilling and organized and in control way, their skills that are essential that they need to have. Okay? So this is what it's about. So far, we have talked about three things. We've talked about tying shoes or other fine motor skills tasks. We've talked about baking or cooking. And what about we talked about organizing everything, having its place and helping start small and build to more complex tasks. Now we're going to talk about building concentration with non digital tasks and activities. Okay, so how can we build concentration? Now, again, I always want to think, I'm always thinking about how to incorporate fun into learning, because, again, when we talk about falling for learning or falling in love with learning, is that element of fun that we see when kids are in love with video games or playing soccer or something like that, those things are hard tasks, but it's a lot of fun for them, and so something that kids can have fun with are types of games and activities such as building jigsaw puzzles them that helps them to concentrate on a task, get it done to the end, you know, do some thinking, some, you know, some element um, elimination, right? So they are have all these different types of puzzle pieces. Which ones are for the edges, which ones are more to the middle? Which one go with these particular part of the picture, right? When you're looking at the picture and say, Okay, these are a lot of pink things. This is probably this object here. We're going to gather these together. So so many thinking skills. And you know, you could again work with them to do this. I highly suggest working with them. You know, it's a bonding experience as well the baking and cooking, of course, bonding as well as now we're thinking about concentration, focusing on a task and getting it done right, and not using digital because this is really something that disadvantages our kids. Our kids are used to a lot of them, and I'm generalizing here, you know, scrolling, looking at social media, looking at YouTube, and when they get into class and the teacher is talking, and maybe teachers talk a lot, I don't know, everyone's experience a little different, but it's just like, it's so not entertaining based on, like, this algorithm, these, this, you know, entertainment thing that they're going for on social media and all of those things, them focusing on non digital tasks will help. Again, go directly to. Then being able to concentrate on the teacher saying and completing tasks that are not built on that algorithm that is sucking them in, right? So building jigsaw puzzles is one way playing chess. And I'm also going to provide the link for an episode where we talked about chess playing. We had an expert who teaches kids how to play chess. It could be, you know, dominoes, like a lot of games that you can play, are going to help them to have some problem solving skills, strategies, a lot of things that they're learning, you know, thinking skills, critical thinking coordination, right, all kinds of things like even just predicting, counting, right? You know, so card games. There's different games that they could play that is going to help them to be critical thinkers. And a lot of learning has to do with critical thinking, a lot of it, and it's a lot of times we forget about that because we think about like, oh, the memorization, or different things like that. And then we'll leave out those critical thinking skills that are so important and making sure that kids can make decisions and be creative and to build and to actually focus in on what the task is, what it's asking them to do, and to get it done. And again, as they get older, I just want to really highlight that they need to be independent. And some of us, I know as parents, we're not ready to give up all of that independence to the kids, but the truth is, the more, the older they get, the more independent they're requiring them to be there. Every every level requires some type of independence, even if it's just like eating your food by yourself when you're in preschool. So every, every time, every year, they're asking more and more of your child and and this is another way that you could monitor how well your child is adjusting. Right? Are they able to make critical decisions? Are they able to, you know, follow the rules of a game? Are they able to do these different things that are like soft skills that are not like set concrete skills, but skills that are really going to help move them along towards success. All right, so let's get into number five, caring for living things. So when I first was thinking about this, I was thinking about, you know, just taking care of plants. But, you know, I always want you to think about what we're talking about on this show and then adapt it for you, right? So it's not a, you know, cookie cutter type of solution as you're helping to develop your child or your students, or whoever you're working with, right? It's about adapting what you do to meet the needs of the child, the developmental stage, the age, the interest, right? And so this is why I say cared for living things. So this could fall under pet right, pets, and it can fall under actual plants, growing things again, growing things and taking care of things helps to build responsibility. Are they going to water that garden every day? Are they going to get the weeds out right making sure that they could do it. And here's another built in kind of wonderful part of caring for living things is natural consequences. I know as parents and caregivers and educators, sometimes it's hard to think about what's the right consequence for a child when they're not doing what they're supposed to do. And here some of that is taken away from us, because the consequences are natural. If they're not taking that dog out for a walk, the dog is going to be pooping and peeing everywhere. And then naturally they have, you know, again, if you're sticking to your guns. They're cleaning up that poop. MP, please try not to make this where this is extra responsibility for you in the long run, but helping them. Again, I'm going to keep saying the word scaffolding, giving them step by step, little bit of help, and having them do the rest, showing them how to do it, having them do the rest. Okay, thinking about okay, how can we do better next time, right? You didn't get all the poop up, you didn't get all the urine up. But how can we do better next time? Okay, this time, I got gloves for you. I got this for you, so you could do it better next time, you could be less grossed out. But really, the key is that you're going to take the dog out at eight. PM, like, you know, having a set time or by a certain time they need to get things done so that they are meeting those goals. They're in the habit. They're getting in the habit of fulfilling responsibilities. If I'm not watering my plant, if I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do, weeding, getting the weeds out and everything. Of course, the plants will die. And so those natural consequences are the best, the best solutions to helping kids to learn responsibility. And I do want to tell you that we're in a a a time, a moment in time where kids facing responsibilities at schools and stuff like that, is it's hard, right? They don't always allow teachers or or different people in control now to give consequences and and that's fine, it. I'm not going to debate that issue, but what I am going to say is when we can have kids having natural consequences that is going to give them an advantage, because those natural consequences are going to be life lessons that they carry with them, and that they're going to be able to to mature from, they're going to be able to reflect on, and they're going to be able to grow from that. So maybe your kid wants a pet. The summertime may be a perfect time to allow them to get that pet help them care for that pet, not you doing everything for them, but helping them care for it, slowly working yourself out of the responsibility for caring for the animal, helping them to care for a plant, right? And maybe, and I really want to emphasize, it is great to grow flowers. They're very beautiful, right? But it's also very rewarding to have kids grow food. So is it going to be some carrots or some potatoes. Is it going to be greens, kale, you know? What is it that you could have kids grow that later on, they could harvest and eat. They could add it to a salad. They could, you know, cook it up, fry it up. Whatever they're going to do, however they're going to prepare it, and again, they're eating, you know, like, it's like farm farm. It's like soil to table, right? Garden to table food, right? So that is something a lot of kids, and you'd be surprised. We talked about this before on the podcast, for kids don't even know where things come from, if they have not seeing you cutting up potatoes and making fries. There are kids out there who didn't know that. You know fries had once been potatoes, right? They if they don't ever see that process, they're just getting McDonald's fries or fries from some type of fast food, and they don't see anyone ever preparing it from a potato, then how would they know that they just may not know, and a lot of things we didn't know, our kids didn't know, because we're just so busy in our lives. So summer, most of all, is a time to kind of slow down. If they're slowing down with you, your your life may not have slowed down because you still may be working or whatever, but it is a time that someone can maybe help to take on one of those tasks, to help them get that competitive advantage for them to keep maturing and moving forward in their development. There is the summer slide I also want to bring up where kids are learning new skills all year. At the end of the year, they're learning new skills, and a lot of times it's not committed to their long term memory. So when they don't do any reading, they don't do any writing, no math, over the summer, they have forgotten those skills that they learned in school, and so they start the school year behind where they were. And so that is a travesty. So what we're doing, instead of building on what they already know, we're starting behind. You know the starting line, right? They're starting behind. We have given them a disadvantage by not continuing their learning journeys over the summer, and now we have to reteach that stuff. And then finally, a month into the school year or so, we're teaching them new information, right because now they're reviewing things that they didn't know before. So please don't give your child that the disadvantage give them a competitive advantage again, things like working on tying shoes will lead to them riding a bike one day, skateboarding, snowboarding, all of those skills, baking or cooking again is going to lead to them being more independent, as well as working on their measurement skills, working on their reading skills. Skills and sequencing, following directions, comprehension, so many things that they get from that organization. Skills, of course, kind of goes without saying when they're understanding that organization comes from assigning a home to everything that they have, it's going to help them to be able to find the things that they need, help them to feel more confident, for them to be moving around the world in a more easy way. And we know when kids are disorganized, it really frustrates them. They could have done some work. And then when it's time to turn it in the teacher, into the teacher, they don't know where it is. They don't know where they they left it at home, whatever it is, so they don't get credit for the things that they actually did. Instead, they are not getting credit because they don't know where it is. They don't know how to find it. They left it somewhere. And instead of living a fulfilled, happy life, they're built feeling frustrated and not even getting credit for the work that they've actually done, and building concentration with non digital task teaching them to play games again, games and things like that, are going to help them to bond with others, as well as to learn critical thinking skills, right, which are so important as they're moving on in their lives, in and learning and growing. And of course, not just critical thinking skills for for book smart information, but just making decisions about what they should do, who they should listen to, what's the best choice for them. Going forward and then caring for living things is really an ultimate way for kids to have natural consequences if they're not following those responsibilities and helping them to reflect and to do better and to, you know, make it a part of their daily habit to fulfill responsibilities and show up and do the things that they said they were going to do. Thanks again for joining me on falling for learning podcast. I am TD Flenaugh, and today I want to make sure that you remember to do something today that gives your child the competitive advantage. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com at falling for learning or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.