Motivate Your 3rd Grader
Ever wish there was a secret to unlocking your child's natural love of learning? Try these tricks.
Help her love learning by making a game of it.
Knowing what excites kids is the key to helping them master new skills and become successful students. Here's how to tap into their passions in a fun way:
3rd Graders Love: Games with rules
How It Helps Learning: "Games with rules help children think in multiple steps," says Ellen Frede, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and an associate professor at the College of New Jersey. "Discussing and negotiating rules also teaches them about give and take, and how to live in a democracy."
Motivating Activities:
Give your child a new board game. Choose an age-appropriate one that taps your child's interests — whether she's passionate about princesses, horses, baseball, or outer space. Then "let her teach you how to play," suggests Amy James, author of Third Grade Success. Reading and explaining the instructions and readying the game board for play fosters reading comprehension and problem-solving. Classic games, like Monopoly or Scrabble, are great skill-builders too. If the regular rules are too advanced, work together to come up with simpler ones; or buy junior versions of the games.
Play cards. Teach your child some of your childhood favorites. Kids strengthen fine motor skills by shuffling, cutting, and holding the cards, and boost cognitive abilities too. "The card game War is math at its best," says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., a child development psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, and co-author of Einstein Never Used Flashcards. Each time your child slaps down a card, he's learning about number values and concepts like "greater than" and "less than." Go Fish and Old Maid reinforce your child's ability to categorize. Games of Concentration boost focus and memory — an important foundation for reading comprehension, which becomes increasingly important in 3rd grade, notes James. If you're feeling a bit more ambitious, play Go Fish with words, she suggests. Make your own deck with index cards, writing pairs of words taken from your child's school spelling list. Deal out the cards as usual, asking "Do you have the word ___?"
Head outside. Active games like tag, hopscotch, hide and seek, and jump rope are wonderful for groups of friends to play together. These great socializers also promote physical fitness and gross motor skills. Keep balls, chalk, Frisbees, and other sports equipment in a tote bag by the door so it's easy to grab when you head to the park or playground. If your child isn't already involved in organized sports, and shows interest in playing something like soccer or Little League, this is a good age to sign her up. Team sports teach your child about scorekeeping, sportsmanship, and working together toward a common goal.
One step ahead: Find out what motivates 4th graders.
