Healthy Kids Tip #26

More Free Cash for College

My new book, Free College, shows how to avoid massive college loan debt. It includes the steps used by successful Full-Ride Scholarship winners. It's a valuable tool for parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone in the lives of Pre-K through High School students. Help them earn more free cash for college and graduate debt free.

Free College is available now. To buy, click the image of the book cover in the upper right hand corner of this page. If interested in making a bulk purchase for your school or PTA, send an email to freecollegeinfo@earthlink.net.

What People are saying about Free College: 

“This book should be available to parents before their children enter school. A perfect handbook for student success.”
-Jeanette A. Fratto

“A much needed book depicting eye-opening methods easily employed by parents and students to maximize scholarships covering college tuition and expenses.” -Shelley Schuber

“Most people aren’t aware of what’s available. This book increases awareness, step by step.”-Jane Lewis

An amazing guide through the ins and outs of acquiring the means for a college education in the United States. Elizabeth Wallace takes you step-by-step through 17 habits that all full scholarship winners have practiced. It is written in a manner that makes these steps easy, without feeling at all overwhelmed. -Amazon Review

This is not only a guide to getting into college for free but practical ideas that will help them do what will make them successful in later life. I recommend every high school parent should own this book. - Rett Lemoult

"I was a scholarship receiver who followed the advice she makes available. Graduated with zero debt." -Elizabeth Burke

"The information in this book is beneficial at any point in a college-bound student's academic life. The book is well-written, easy-to-read, and lays out all the necessary steps in a very detailed and organized manner." -Domestic Diva (via Baby-Boomer-Retirement.com) 

For daily updates to help students earn more free money for college, check out my Twitter feed, @elizawallace27. 

You are reading from the blog: http://www.roadtofreecollege.com

Photo Credit: Free College, Elizabeth Wallace ©

Reality Check

Healty Kids Tip #25

How to Stay Sane The Day Before The Thanksgiving Holiday

The day before a holiday like Thanksgiving is usually just this side of insane at school. Students don’t want to work. Focus is lost. Just keeping the lid on seems overwhelming. Unless you have an educationally sound, kid-approved lesson that keeps them interested, occupied and engaged. Decades ago I created such a lesson. Kids loved it. I loved it. It‘s easy, academic and fun! The bonus of this lesson, it helped with student retention in foreign language classes. 

Here are the steps to follow: 

1. Completely erase the entire white board. You will want the space. 

2. Number the entire board from 1 to 35. Place holiday appropriate symbols, like pumpkins, around each number. 

3. Put a large assortment of dry erase pens at the front of the room. The more color variety the better. 

4. After school, the day before the holiday vacation, have each student in your most advanced class go to the board and draw a culturally appropriate picture next to a number. If your class is smaller than 35, they will need to draw more than one. Be sure to explain to the class the night before they need to come up with three or four ideas for their drawings. Most students are eager, although the shy need some encouragement. After this has become a tradition in your classes, you will overhear students commenting they look forward to being in the class that gets to draw the pictures. Never let an underclassman participate in putting the pictures on the board. 

5. Check each picture as they finish drawing. A few may need a little help so their drawings are clear, and some can be too obscure. You may need to edit, as students can be a bit gross at time. One Thanksgiving students drew a very vivid picture of a turkey being beheaded. I erased that one. Remember, all day students are going to see these pictures. You want to understand them, so you can give hints if necessary. My favorite was The Twilight Zone Marathon. It became a tradition in my program which was passed down each year from class to class. 

6. Before the first class arrives the next morning, place a stack of German (French, Spanish, Chinese)/English dictionaries on the first desk of each row. I always had enough dictionaries that students could work in groups of two. Three does not work. Working alone is tough. 

7. Students should look up what they see on the board, and write the German (French, etc.) on their own papers. Don’t let them put two student names on one paper. This never works. Trust me on this. One paper is turned in by each student in class.

8. They must write the definite article and the noun. If there is an adjective, like in a drawing of black cat, they must include the adjective, with the correct ending. This allows you to preview grammar not yet taught. Students are very receptive to this, and ask for help. It’s a contest. They want to win.

 9. Buy a small bag of individually wrapped candy (or stickers) and give a piece to each member of the first team finished. Be sure to check their work. Sometimes they make errors, of course. Don’t be too picky. Perfection is not the goal.

 10. After the first group finishes, and as each group finishes, they will help their classmates. You’ll find they don’t give them the answers, but give them hints instead, especially in grammar.  

11. Collect work as students finish and the rest of the papers at the end of the period. Grading is subjective. First year classes typically have a few students who finish by the end of the class period. Most, however, finish about half of the pictures. Second year will complete more. The majority complete about two-thirds of the pictures. Most third year students finish them all, as do AP/IB/fourth year students. 

12. There are several goals in this lesson. Students learn the correct way to use the dictionary. They learn the symbols and abbreviations. It removes the mind-numbing boredom a dictionary lesson creates, and replaces it with fun. 

Students learn vocabulary that’s both meaningful, and is usually more advanced than where they are in the curriculum. This they do without complaint. You are able to foreshadow grammar, so when it arrives later in the school year, you’re able to point back to what they discovered at Thanksgiving. 

Finally, it keeps students focused, doing an academic lesson without arguing at a time where students are going nuts in other classes. I had four decades of happy “day befores” while colleagues were losing their minds.

If you don’t teach a foreign language class, adapt this lesson to your curriculum. Remember to keep it fun and entertaining, but academic. 

You’re reading from the blog: https://www.roadtofreecollege.com/

Photo credit: Google Images 

If you’re interested in learning more about helping your children succeed, you can follow me on Twitter, @ElizaWallace27 or click on the image of my book, Free College, in the top right corner of this page. You'll be taken to Amazon, where you can read more about my book, and buy it now.

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Healthy Kids Tip #24