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Mother’s Day is celebrated around the world to honor mothers. It’s a day to thank them for all the wonderful things they do and has been very popular throughout history. Many years ago, before social media and cell phones, home phone lines would get jammed up.  This was because everyone was calling their moms to wish her “Happy Mother’s Day!”

This special day does not take place on the same day in every country.  Unlike Valentine’s Day, which always occurs on February 14th, Mother’s Day is commemorated at different times each year depending on your country.  In the majority of countries worldwide it is celebrated on the second Sunday of May.

Many other places celebrate Mother’s Day in March and a few countries honor their moms in other months.

We’ll explore when this celebration of mom occurs each year for different people, but let’s first learn about the origin of Mother’s Day.

When Did Mother’s Day Begin?

The idea of honoring mothers dates far back in history to ancient Greece, where celebrations were held to honor the mother of the gods.  Back in the infancy of the Christian church, a mother’s festival was held in honor of Mary, the mother of Christ.  This took place on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Therefore, Mother’s Day in these countries is typically celebrated in late March or early April and falls three weeks before Easter Sunday.

The date for the celebration of Mother’s Day varies each year because the weekend Easter takes place also varies.  There are a few countries that celebrate Mother’s day in other months of the year.

The History of Mother’s Day in North America

Mother’s Day began in the United States on May 12, 1907. It’s origin comes from the day Anna Maria Jarvis held a memorial service for her late mother at a church in Grafton, West Virginia. Her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, had been known for organizing women’s groups to promote friendship and health.

Exactly a year later in 1908, the first formal Mother’s Day church services were held at the same church.  There was a much larger attendance of a ceremony in Philadelphia. Carnations were distributed to mothers and their sons and daughters.

West Virginia, the state where Anna Jarvis planted the seed for a regular Mother’s Day celebration, officially made Mother’s Day an official holiday.

In the months that followed, Anna Jarvis began promoting the idea that everyone should commemorate Mother’s Day.  This was done through a letter writing campaign that she organized.

Anna also founded the Mother’s Day International Association and trademarked the phrases “second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day.”  Anna is quoted as saying that she wanted Mother’s Day to be a very private acknowledgment of all the mother does for the family.

In 1914 Mother’s Day became a national holiday in the United States.

The Popularity of Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day throughout history has grown to become one of the most universally popular holidays and celebrations of the year.  It even had a hand in inspiring the celebration of Father’s Day. Perhaps it’s because no one can deny how important our mother’s are to each of us and to our families.  Mom’s stand behind their kids with unconditional love and support.  Mom will do anything to help and protect us.

Hopefully what we’ve learned will be a reminder for everyone in the world to never take our moms for granted, no matter what day it is.

Good study habits start in early childhood. Children who learn to cut out distractions and focus their attention will develop a strong study “muscle” that serves them well in high school and college. As a parent, you can set your children up for success by catering to their physical needs and developing consistent routines.

Utilizing the best that online tutoring and Ed-Tech have to offer are important steps to ensuring your child has the tools they need to build good study habits throughout their entire educational journey.

Physical Needs for Study Habits

Young children don’t yet understand the connection between their physical well-being and their ability to learn and focus on mental tasks. As a parent, you can make it easier for young children to adopt healthy study habits by taking care of their physical needs.

Start by ensuring that your child gets enough sleep. Young children need 10-12 hours of sleep to develop properly and to ensure that they can focus on their studies. So, set a regular bedtime for your child and keep them on the same sleep schedule throughout the whole week.

Your child also needs to eat healthy foods and drink plenty of water throughout the day. Eating poorly can cause mental fatigue, and breakfasts or lunches high in carbs or sugar can cause afternoon slumps due to spikes in energy levels. Instead of sugary snacks and cereal, provide your child with a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, grains, and a variety of proteins.

Ensuring that you cater to your child’s physical needs alleviates many of the challenges associated with studying, and helps you create a consistent routine that they will stick to.

Creating a Routine

Children do best when they know what to expect, and a daily schedule that involves learning will strengthen their study habits.

A good study routine should be consistent. Choose a regular time of day to study with your child and always study in the same place. For example, if your child is at a kindergarten or Pre-K during the day, you should choose a study time in the late afternoon and settle down somewhere with plenty of space like a kitchen table.

You can figure out the best time to study based on your child’s mood and energy levels. If you notice that they’re tuckered out after kindergarten or Pre-K, give them some time to rest and take care of their physical needs by feeding them and giving them plenty of water. Don’t leave it too late, though, as kids may start to lose focus as the evening draws on.

Managing Study Stress

Studying can cause real stress in children. Some children find kindergarten and Pre-K extremely taxing and have a hard time keeping up with their peers in the classroom. If you notice that your child is extremely stressed due to schoolwork, it may be worth seeing a pediatrician who can help identify learning difficulties and suggest solutions.

You can also help manage study-related stress by creating a low-stakes environment and encouraging your child with positive feedback. This is particularly important if your child is a little behind other kids, as academic setbacks can cause stress levels to rise and make children seize up when studying.

Remember that not all learning has to occur at a desk. Sometimes exercise and activity can become a part of your child’s routine and help them develop good study habits. Consider taking the study session outside to illustrate ideas from geography classes and kinesiology. This will help build a positive association between studying and happiness and help relax children who are excessively stressed due to schoolwork.

Online Tutoring

As a parent, you are probably busy with your own work and outside responsibilities. This makes it difficult to preside over every study session your child has. Additionally, as your child grows older, you may not have answers to all the questions involved in their school work.

It’s perfectly acceptable to outsource your child’s study time and opt for online tutoring sessions. Online tutoring at home puts your child in touch with brilliant educators from all over the world and provides an innovative and interactive learning experience for children of all ages.

Online tutoring is a worthwhile supplement to your child’s study routine, but it isn’t without challenges. You’ll need to check in on children who are taking tutoring classes online to ensure that they aren’t surfing the web, and you must find a reputable, skilled tutor that you trust to deliver consistently high-quality study sessions for your child.

Conclusion

Many children do not learn good study habits until later in their school career. This makes it difficult to implement a productive study routine and can be detrimental to children’s academic careers. Instead, build good study habits in early childhood by providing a consistent daily routine of learning and homework. Instilling proper study techniques now will serve students well when the move up to secondary school.

You can make studying easier by feeding young children a healthy, balanced diet to promote well-being and focus. If you’re too busy to study with your child, take advantage of reputable online tutors who know how to deliver an interactive learning experience.

About the Author
Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in education, mental health, family lifestyle and online safety. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. You can follow her on Twitter.

Read how students with dyslexia have excellent memory skills and how parents can help them in other areas.

Chess is an ancient game and for centuries it reflected perfect wisdom, the game played by the intellectual cream de la cream. However, this game was not only available to the aristocratic society strata, but to the commoners as well which eventually resulted in pricey tournaments.

For chess players, chess is more than a board game, it is a life-long passion and obsessive desire for improvement. No matter how good you are at playing chess, there is always room for improvement, and with proper habits and attitude, you can always have fun and simply be a better player.

To get better in chess, you should dedicate your undivided attention and focus on improving the segments you find to be your weakest points, and here is how.

Chess Is about Rules

There is no point in playing the game if you do not know the rules. Chess does not have complicated rules and certainly is not something impossible to be learned. On the other hand, if you are a professional chess player, this does not mean that you should not check the rules about the figures and some basic movements.

There are also openings, strategies, and game reviews you should pay attention to that will help you develop the technique and your own remarkable style.

Play a Lot of Games

Practice makes it perfect and you will get much better if you make chess games a part of your everyday routine. So, take your every opportunity to play the games and try out all of the new moves and strategies you have recently learned. You should also try out playing by using a chess clock and read reviews about clocks for chess to see what is the one that suits your needs best. Another smart thing you can do is to play chess online.

There is a whole bunch of websites offering you the opportunity to play against people from all over the world and even see what their styles are and if there are any variations in-game depending on the culture. To this end, Russians and Indians have exquisite styles which can help you improve your game considerably.

Review Your Games

Whenever we play the usual chess games, we tend to forget what are the moves and which openings and endgames we used to win the game. However, by writing the moves down and reviewing your strategies once the game is over, you will be able to spot the wrong moves which will give you a deeper insight into how to eliminate these in the future.

Also, if you want to improve, then you should learn from playing and reviewing, and if writing the moves down while playing your games online is tiring, then you can just use the specialized analysis software that can help you see the good and bad points about your game.

Try Studying Endgames

Some chess games are very difficult to be ended and hence there are some endgame moves you can study in case you find yourself in this situation. This usually happens when almost all of your pieces are traded away and you are left with a king and a couple of pawns. Your last chance is to promote one of the pawns for queen and hence bring your chances back. This is known as the endgame, and learning how to stage and navigate your endgame will help you not only come back to the game but will help you win many games as well.

Plan Out Your Moves

Most chess games are being lost just because of the bad moves you tend to make and in order to avoid them, then you should double-check every move. Chess games tend to be lost because of the blunders and before you make your move, look closely at the table and be aware of all the happenings.

Memorizing Openings Is not as Useful

Most chess players waste tons of their energy and time while trying to memorize the sequences of chess moves better known as openings. The point is that most players do not know many openings, and even if they know, then the chances to play them out are very small. The useful thing you can learn from the top is the opening principles and strategies; on the other hand, wasting your time memorizing a whole bunch of book moves will not give you good results.

Chess is a classic tabletop game and playing it comes with many benefits which can be applied to life as well. Good strategy, good reviews, avoiding bad moves, and double-checking the board tend to win many games.

Writing is an artwork that craves creative minds and passion from the heart. Writing is also a key to improving communication and confidence levels at all stages. Perhaps that is why parents desire to make it a priority to help our children learn writing skills and ensure they gain the aptitude to shine like a pro.

Writing has so many valuable benefits throughout life. It’s a powerful tool of communication, as well as an empowering internal tool those those who use journalism to work out their thoughts. Of course, the educational benefits for excelling in school can’t be ignored, such as writing an essay. It also improves reading comprehension.

According to research, most children are pretty bad at writing, while others are born with natural talent.  In either case, if you are anxious about your child’s growth in this area and want to help your children learn the art of writing, here are some tips to consider.

Top Tips To Improve Your Children’s Writing

It is a reality that today’s children have become sharp-minded and brilliant in our current fast-paced environment.  There are many things they can learn to do without your assistance. But this should never be taken for granted when it comes to boosting your children’s writing skills. There is too much at stake to ensure they have the academic skills to truly succeed.

Schedule a reading session

According to research, reading is the key to better communication, logical thinking, decision-making skills, socializing, and writing. When someone reads, their mind connects with an aura in their head, and they get open to the world of information. Not just this, reading can also entice one to get to know about different writing styles. So, try to schedule a reading session for your children so they can learn the world through manually written words. You can arrange a series of books according to their grade level. Also, ask them to read aloud to perceive the words better.

Help them explore new topics of their choice.

Yet another best tip to consider when planning to improve your child’s writing skills is to help them explore new topics. Many people become spoon feeders that revolve around a particular thing and cannot think or function out of the box. One reason can be their focus that is only putting a flash in one direction. You should note that it is human nature that when you give a daily dose of the same thing to your mind, your mind will make a habit of it, and you cannot think or perceive beyond that. So, ask or put effort into helping your children explore different topics to become versatile in writing.

Ask them to rewrite

Writing skills always start from rewriting. It is the process that refers to reading or understanding a topic or content and jotting it down in your words. For instance, you have read a topic on using anti plagiarism tools. After reading and understanding the whole thing, you have to sit back and pen those things in your words. You can do this by changing the structure and word usage by keeping the same meaning. You can ask children to do rewriting to improve their writing skills.

Talk about the ideas they have in their mind.

Yet another extraordinary thing to consider to boost your children’s writing skills is making a conversation about their ideas. After the reading session, you can take a session of this to discuss what they think about the topic, how they felt about the story or character while reading, and other related things. You can also ask them questions about all the productive and adorable things they might have stuck in their minds. In this way, you can make their minds open and sharp.

Make a strict rule for avoiding plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a thing that can ruin your children’ writing skills. If they develop a propensity to plagiarizing other work, they can never attain a good writing level. So, it would be good to make a strict rule for plagiarism occurrence. This is especially true when researching other writings for school or even when writing for fun.  Ask them to use a plagiarism checker free. Also, ensure them that you will use the plagiarism detector aid to keep a check on them, too.

Let them go for spell and grammar checks.

What’s more, slang when your children make grammar mistakes? Of course, they are already educated in their schools about this. But the completion of it while writing is not possible at the initial stages. To help your children avoid mistakes and boost their writing skills, ask them to use grammar checking tools and apps. You can ask them to drop their written text in the grammar checker and run it to pull out mistakes. Most of these grammar checking aids show the errors because you can replace them with suggestions. When your children do this, they can better learn what mistakes they make and how to avoid them.

End Words

As we try to give you a detailed guide on how you can help your children improve their writing, you should instill in them that writing is a basic thing they should learn.  It can be easy if they learn the art of writing and how to enjoy the process.