Whether you’re a teacher working in a traditional classroom setting, conducting classes via Zoom, or a parent who is homeschooling your children, you know that keeping students motivated can make a huge difference in the way they perform academically.

Telling your students that they’re doing a good job can encourage them to continue doing well in class, but there are some creative ways to show them that you notice their hard work and the progress they’ve made. If you have middle school students, your motivational tactics will likely require a mixture of prizes and memorable gifts.

Rewarding Student Achievement

It’s important to let students know that their academic diligence doesn’t go unnoticed.  Affirming a student’s achievement is an essential aspect of effective classroom management. Teachers can reward students for a variety of accomplishments and provide students with a tangible reminder of their accomplishments, including an upcoming transition from middle school to high school. This can foster a positive and supportive learning environment.

Here are five ways to reward your middle school students for a job well done.

1.  A Handwritten Note

This simple gesture will stay on your middle schooler’s mind for years to come. Instead of simply emailing your student to let them know you’re proud of them, give them a note written by hand to express your gratitude for their hard work and diligence. If you’re homeschooling, you can give a handwritten note each semester and put them in a scrapbook for safekeeping.

2.  Lunch or Dinner On You

Give your middle schooler a tasty treat as a reward to congratulate them on their academic success. You can purchase a gift card for a popular fast food restaurant and send it to your student for making a good grade on a test or turning in an informative and well-researched report. If you’re homeschooling, you can finish up the school day early and take your student to their favorite restaurant as a reward.

3. Custom Badges

Custom badges are a powerful tool for motivating and engaging students in the classroom. By providing students with a tangible and visible reward for their accomplishments, teachers can help to create a sense of accomplishment and pride, and can also serve as a reminder of the progress that students have made. This can be done by awarding a custom badges from 4inlanyards for reaching specific milestones, such as completing a project or earning a high grade on a test.  It may be to recognize student participation in school events or clubs, or to acknowledge leadership roles or other contributions that students make to the school community.

4.  Tickets to a Local Sporting Event

If your middle schooler has spent most of the school year at home learning virtually, tickets to a local sports game are a great way to provide an outing they’ll enjoy. Find out when your local basketball, football, or baseball team is playing and purchase tickets as a surprise for your student. Or, you can promise the tickets at the start of the school year to motivate your students to work hard and make the best grades possible throughout the year. If you can, arrange for the student to take pictures with their favorite athlete or receive a signed jersey or ball from the team so they’ll have a souvenir to remember this special day.

5.  A Trophy or Award

Even though some middle-schoolers may not show it, they may be excited to receive a trophy as a reminder that they’ve worked hard and accomplished their academic goals for the year. You can present the trophy with your student’s name engraved on the front of the trophy along with the reason for the award, i.e. perfect attendance or highest grade point average in a particular subject. Be sure to include the month and date on the trophy to serve as a way for the student to remember how well they did that school year. Visit your local trophy store to choose creative designs for the trophy or to purchase a wall plaque or desk placard for your student depending on their style.

6.  An Appreciation Video

Middle schoolers will likely appreciate a video compilation of all their accomplishments throughout the semester or the school year. You can present the video to them as a gift at a virtual honors ceremony. Or, you can create a video for one of your children to congratulate for doing great things during the year while you homeschooled them or supervised their virtual schooling. You can add your student’s favorite songs and even edit some of the pictures in the video to feature the student’s favorite colors or video game characters. End the video with a message telling the student how proud you are and how you’re looking forward to seeing great things from them in the coming year.

Motivating Students

There are many times throughout the school year a students can be recognized for their achievements, such as;

• Awarding badges for specific milestones
• Creating a sense of community and belonging.
• Recognizing student progress over time
• Creating a sense of competition
• Creating a sense of achievement

Conclusion

These are just a few of the ideas you can use to motivate your students and reward them for their hard work. Congratulating your students should be a year-round practice but rewards are especially important with all the other challenges children face in school. Whether your students are homeschooled, attending school in person, or virtually, they’ll likely be elated that you noticed them and want to encourage them to excel academically.

We all want our children to grow up and be successful. We want to see them become confident, motivated, and resilient adults. Raising children with an entrepreneurial spirit can help to give them a can-do attitude. It can teach them analytical skills and leadership qualities.

An entrepreneurial spirit will help kids thrive in all situations as they explore what they want to do when they grow up.  Some will be more apt to move in this direction of independence that entrepreneurs have. At the very least, teaching these skills to children will give them many skills to thrive throughout life.

Why Is It Important To Encourage Entrepreneurship?

An entrepreneur has vision, drive, confidence, determination, and persistence. They can adapt, grow and change their approach according to shifting markets. As you nurture your child’s entrepreneurial spirit, don’t forget to emphasize the importance of a strong legal and organizational foundation for their future ventures, using resources like LLCBuddy to help teach them about the value and process of forming a well-structured business entity.

Raising a child with this entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t mean they have make owning a business their lifelong career.  However, it will give them the qualities they need as they develop a growth mindset to follow their own dreams and be self-starters.  Entrepreneurship can also teach many practical skills, such as customer service, finances, and marketing. It will teach children that hard work is essential to success.

Teach Your Children Basic Financial Skills

Cultivating entrepreneurship in children can help them to become financially savvy. When they earn their own spending money, it will likely mean a lot more to them.

They can learn how to meet the community’s needs and how this can lead to financial compensation. Do people need dog walkers or animal care? Providing solutions for people will always pay off.

Children are likely to learn from watching you, so it is imperative that you display good financial habits in your own life. You can get young children a piggy bank and encourage them to save as a good starting point.

Giving commission can be more beneficial than providing an allowance. Make them earn their money around the house by doing chores. You could also open a bank account for your child and look at kid debit card choices. This will give them a sense of independence and responsibility.

You could make a budget list with your child, looking at ingoings and outgoings. You could also encourage them to give some of their earnings to charity or those who are less fortunate.

Help Your Child Set Up Their Business

There are so many ways a child can earn money outside of the home. This can include neighborhood services or online products and services. Your child can place ads in local newspapers, online forums, or social media.

Babysitting and petsitting can earn a good income if your child advertises and has several clients. There are likely to be people in most neighborhoods who will require a dog walking service, lawn mowing, or odd jobs.

Other jobs could include collecting lost golf balls and reselling them or teaching something like music or computer skills. Children could also make their own candles or jewelry and sell them in online stores.

It is important that your child is interested in whatever they choose to do. You want them to enjoy the experience. If they don’t have a specific idea in mind, help them to create a list of things they enjoy that could provide financial compensation. As kids get older they may be interesting in developing an online business.

Have them think about the steps they will need to take to bring their idea to life. Will they need any equipment or training? If they are going to mow lawns, they will need a lawnmower. If they are going to be babysitting, they may want to take a first aid course.

You can also have them think about financial goals. Teenagers could think about income and expenses. They could learn about the legalities associated with starting a business. Younger children could add up totals and count change. You could even hold an investor meeting and ask them to pitch their idea to you and outline what financial help they will need to get started.

Make sure you stress the importance of customer service and communication skills. You may need to look into any licensing or permits your child may need. You may also want to think about liability and legal protection for your child.

Life Lessons Learned From Their Business

First of all, it’s important that you allow your child to make mistakes. Encourage them without being overly interfering. You may feel like you want to take over more complex tasks, such as legal forms. However, they are likely to gain a lot more if you let them handle some of these responsibilities.

Children can learn other vital life lessons from starting a business.

• They will have to be organized and learn to manage a diverse set of responsibilities.
• They will have to develop time management skills and develop a schedule that works.
• They will learn money management. This can include income, expenses, and even paying taxes.
• They will learn valuable communication skills. Learning how to interact professionally will massively increase their skills when connecting with others.
• They will learn endurance and resilience. You can help them to see setbacks as temporary and encourage them to keep going.

If they work through challenges, they can gain tremendous confidence. They will also be continually learning. There is nothing that teaches quite like firsthand experience. We have all heard the stories of famous entrepreneurs who started young.

Finally, they will learn some of the realities of running your own business. It isn’t all plain sailing. Most successful entrepreneurs work really hard to get where they are. The payoff is worth it, but it doesn’t come easy. Being a business owner can help you to forge your own identity. It can give you skills, knowledge, and experience that will help you to succeed in all areas of life.

In Summary

Being an entrepreneur requires the ability to think for yourself, take calculated risks, and reach for big dreams. You must love a challenge and be able to think of creative solutions. Helping your child to start their own business could be one of the most valuable lessons you ever teach them.

Children and teens can learn how to overcome hardship, get through challenges and take on responsibility. The skills they gain can stand them in good stead for the rest of their life. They are sure to enjoy the money that comes in and the sense that they earned themselves.

Holidays bring a mix of feelings for almost everyone. Parents are forced to think of fun things to do at home during holidays to prevent kids from boredom. So, if you’ve been wondering, “What are some fun holiday activities, or how do I entertain my kids on a budget?” you’ll get all your answers right here.

To make the most out of off-days or keep your child busy, below are some holiday activities for kids that will not let you fret!

So scroll down and find new activities for each day.

Holiday activities for kids – First week

Go for Volunteering:

Holidays always give you enough time to indulge in extra yet soulful activities. Volunteering is also one of them. Check if any club or organization is looking for volunteers around you, and push your kids for this mindful activity.

Make Sock Toy:

If your kid’s stuffed toy is no longer as pretty as it should be, try making a new one using spare socks available in your home.

Practice Setting Goals and Completing Them:

This is the healthiest activity. By setting goals and practicing their fulfillment can help kids with their mental strength building.

Invent New Games:

Do you want your kids to practice brainstorming more often? That shouldn’t always have to be academic, right? So try making new games of your own as holiday activities.

Charitable Giving

Have a discussion with your kids about giving.  Decide what you can do as a family to help someone in need or an organization. Everyone can contribute, even very small amounts from young children.  It’s an excellent way to ignite compassion for giving in share in the joy together.

Start Journaling:

Journaling can help your kid in many ways too. For example, being aware of their good and bad deeds or how much fun they had in a particular, all this when written can turn out good. Also, journaling helps in improving writing skills a lot.

Try to be Close to Nature:

You can utilize holidays in a way that makes your kid closer to nature. For example, going for nature walks.

Host Play Date Outside:

Put your backyard to use by hosting a play date. This is another one of the healthy holiday activities that can help your kids maintain a bond with their buddies.

Plan 2^nd week of entertainment for your kids

Attend a Holiday Lightshow:

Christmas might be just around the corner and if you’re not sure what to do exactly, then try exciting and fun-filled Christmas ideas for kids. Attending a holiday light show can be one of them too.

Read Books:

Reading books doesn’t always have to be as boring as it sounds usually. You can use audiobooks, books for kids that come in an interactive form or accompany your kid’s reading session, so he doesn’t feel alone.

Try Verbal Games:

Verbal games come in handy when you’re really busy with important work of your own. With such games, your kid will stay active and practice his vocabulary words while you do your own work.

Bedroom Makeover:

Making changes to your surroundings can be one of the holiday activities too. This will let your kids make changes as they wish as well as stay active.

Visit the Library:

Nothing beats a healthy visit to the library. Push your kids to join book clubs and discuss books after reading them.

Suggest a Science Experiment:

You can discuss with your kid and see what interests him the most in his science subject. Then, you can select an experiment related to it as a holiday activity.

Learn About The World:

Utilize these holidays to increase your kids’ knowledge about the world he lives in. This can also help him develop a positive attitude after knowing the good he has been blessed with.

Keep your child busy in 3^rd week also

Create An Idea Box:

It is perfectly normal to run out of creative ideas sometimes. So to deal with this, you can create an idea box and expand the holiday activities you want to do with your kid.

Write Holiday Stories:

Writing holiday stories can help collect memories in a way that your kid can go through again.

Family Photo Shoot

It is often difficult to get everyone together for a Christmas photo. A child’s first impression of it may be that it’s boring.  So, why not make the family photo shoot a fun activity.  Create a theme and dress up accordingly.

Arrange Slumber Party:

Spend a night with the kids at a slumber party arranged at your own place. Kids always love to try fun ways to spend their nights.

Teach them Baking:

Is your kid a sweet tooth? Then try teaching him baking because he’d definitely love trying and tasting baked items.

Play Board Games:

Playing board games can be a perfect option as one of the holiday activities.

Sketching:

You can also encourage your kid to improve his sketching skills during the holiday break.

Try Music Classes:

Based on the interests of your kids, you can sign up for music classes too. Creativity comes in different shapes, and being good at music is one of them.

Conclusion:

Being mindful of your kid’s positive learning can sometimes feel trickier. But not to worry, because we are constantly surrounded by opportunities waiting for us to explore.

So, hopefully, these holiday activities will keep your kids active, busy, and happy throughout the holiday season.

Looking for ways to engage kids that don’t involve a TV of some kind? Want to entertain your child in a way that is helpful to their growth and development? Challenging games for kids are simpler than you think.  Children are growing constantly, and their brains are making new connections all the time.

These easy brain games can be done almost anywhere and will help your child develop important thought processes for later in life.

So, let’s have a look at the list and see what’s hot these days!

1. Minesweeper

Minesweeper is a single-player puzzle video game where players clear a rectangular board by revealing cells without hitting hidden mines, using numeric clues to avoid detonation.

It’s excellent for children as it helps develop critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and logical reasoning while providing a challenging and engaging gaming experience.

2. I Spy and Simon Says

These games for children can be more productive than you may realize. Saying “I spy with my little eye something green” and then having your child find the green objects in the room helps with spatial awareness, memory, and language.

Simon Says offers a lot of the same benefits, as well as enhancing attention and a better ability to follow instructions.

3. A Scavenger Hunt

You might not think that a scavenger hunt involves brain training, but by making it a themed scavenger hunt, you can teach them about all kinds of topics. This also helps them with focus and orienting tasks in a certain order of completion. It can be a great game when you need them entertained for a while as well.

4. Building Blocks

Providing your child with blocks or other toys that can be stacked and built upon may seem like a very simple way of keeping a child busy. However, this can help early development of color recognition, coordination, and math skills.

This can be helpful later when your child needs to tackle some easy school projects, and they already have the basic building blocks of construction and crafts.

5. Playing Pretend

While playing pretend may feel like a child’s play, it is filled with brain exercises. Playing pretend or make-believe helps your child with language, emotional skills, social skills, and learning to think on the spot.

They will better understand things in the world and how it works. Try being creative with playing pretend by doing a wide variety of roles.

6. Story Time

This is not just about reading to your child from a book, but giving them the opportunity to tell their own story. Allowing your child to create their own narrative helps with memory, building up language abilities, and confidence in your child’s own imagination.

You can use prompts to get started and take turns making up stories together. This is a great activity for car rides when there isn’t much going on.

7. Puzzles

Puzzles are great for brain training, and you can find puzzles that fit a variety of ages. Whether you’re doing Sudoku, a word puzzle, or an actual puzzle with pieces, your child is learning spatial awareness, fine motor skills, problem-solving and more.

There are also online puzzles for kids who are more interested in playing games online.

8. Game Night

Board games and card games make for great brain exercises. You can do a family game night with everyone, or simply play games when you have the time. Games can help a child learn how to handle frustration, how to plan and coordinate, and problem solve on the spot.

Best Brain Games

Some of the best brain games are simple and easy to learn, but can help your child in innumerable ways. You don’t need lots of fancy gadgets and tech to help your child learn how to succeed in the world.

Often the best games are the ones where you’re having fun and don’t even realize you’re learning. And if this helped you get some good ideas on how to entertain and teach your child at the same time, keep reading for more great tips and tricks.