Motivate Your 2nd Grader
Ever wish there was a secret to unlocking your child's natural love of learning? Try these tricks.
While every child is different, kids often share some common traits. Tap into this typical 2nd-grade passion to help your child master new skills and become successful students.
2nd Graders Love: Making things
How It Helps Learning: Whether it's an arts-and-crafts project or a batch of chocolate chip cookies, 2nd graders love expressing themselves visually, through step-by-step projects. "This helps them connect oral language to visual symbols in print, and refines their ability to read and follow directions," says Dianne Carter, a 2nd grade teacher at Anne Hutchinson School in Eastchester, New York. They are also strengthening their fine motor skills through actions such as measuring, cutting, taping, and stapling.
Motivating Activities:
- Set up a crafts corner. Kids need a place they can be creative when the whim strikes. Stock a cabinet or big plastic bin with colored paper, oak tag, writing utensils, and other artsy materials, and provide a work table. "Kids especially enjoy making oversized books and posters," says Amy James, author of Second Grade Success. "This provides a bridge toward extended writing." Also think beyond traditional arts and crafts. Kids can use shaving cream to write letters and words on the tub wall; scribble or draw in wet sand; or "paint" pictures and messages on the sidewalk with a pail of water and a paintbrush.
- Cook side by side. Get out a simple recipe and follow it together. The ones on the back of cake and brownie mixes are especially helpful, since they often use pictures to symbolize ingredients like eggs and oil. Read the recipe together, and let your child dole out the required amounts. She'll learn about fractions and quantities with every cup or measuring spoon she fills. As she mixes batter, kneads dough, or tears lettuce for a salad, she's also strengthening her hands for writing. And setting the oven timer and waiting for cake or cookies to bake reinforces time-telling skills.
- Play word games. "Challenge your child to a game of Hangman," using words you know he's mastered, suggests James. Repeat the letters aloud as you write them down, and give him bonus points if he can put the word in a sentence once he's figured it out. Then let him try to stump you. You can also get refrigerator magnets with words and race each other to make silly sentences. Even if they don't make sense, your child will get practice using nouns, verbs and adjectives in proper order.
One step ahead: Find out what motivates 3rd graders.
