Letter from Betty for June 2015

Hello, 

As the school year begins to wind down, families are planning vacations and trips with extended family members and friends. Being the parent of a child with a learning disability can make these memorable moments challenging. Some parents struggle to receive the understanding and the support system they need from their loved ones and friends. You'll find tips and advice on how to handle these situations in our feature article, "Getting Support from Friends and Family."

We take a third trip in our imaginary time machine with this month's Puzzler, and this time the pilot is a dinosaur. See if you can puzzle out the relative size of two enormous time spans in "T. Rex Time Machine."

Remember: Whatever your educational needs are, Foundation for Learning, is ready to assist you with caring, one-on-one, individualized tutoring, SAT/ACT test prep, and educational evaluations. Please don't hesitate to give us a call at 973-425-1774 for a free consultation.


Best regards,

Betty

Betty Bodenweiser
Director
Foundation for Learning

Focus on One: (New) SAT or ACT

 

Free Diagnostic test offered at FFL

Currently many high school juniors take both the SAT and ACT to determine which test is better for them. We feel it is beneficial for the students to focus on only one test. In order to accomplish this, we administer a complimentary SAT/ACT diagnostic test to help students determine which test is better suited to their abilities.

Summer test dates are:
Please call for June availability
July 25, August 8, August 22

*Our diagnostic test incorporates the new SAT which will be adminstered beginning in January 2016. Please call Donna for more details.

Please call (973) 425-1774 or email betty@foundationforlearning.com as space is limited

June 2015 Test Schedule

Mark your calendars! Here are the latest test dates. Testing is winding down for this school year, but as soon as 2015-2016 dates are available we will share them.

 

Getting Support from Friends and Family

Disappointed, frustrated, and awkward are some of the emotions you may feel when friends and family don’t understand your child's learning issues.
 

As a parent you expect unconditional love and support from those closest to you, right? Yes, in an ideal world, friends and family would “get it” and be there to help when needed. They’d offer comfort and encouragement when you need it, and be sensitive to your child’s needs when visiting or in social situations. But we don’t live in a perfect world. It could be that they don’t understand the issues at hand, that they’re making judgments based on pre-conceived ideas or they don't think your child has a disability.



Talking with friends and relatives about your child’s learning issues can be helpful to both you and them in many ways. Listed below are Dos and Don’ts to help facilitate these conversations.

1. Do: Discuss your child’s issues with family members and friends he sees regularly. Give them the chance to ask questions and you the opportunity to correct misconceptions as they come up in conversation.
2. Do: Provide helpful strategies.  Loved ones who spend time with your child will find these strategies helpful when you are not there to step in and help your child.
3. Do: Identify your child's strengths as well as his challenges.
4. Do: Help relatives stay involved in your child’s successes. Invite them to your child's ballet recitals, ball games or the theater to watch them perform.. 
5. Do: Spend more time with people who will recognize your child’s courage, strengths, and other positive attributes, and can give you the kind support that you desire as a parent.
6. Don't: Use a lot of technical terms. Use plain language to explain your child's challenges.
7. Don't: Have just one conversation about your child’s issues and never bring them up again. Revisit the conversation regularly to educate those who care about him..

As a parent, you might want to find a parent support group in your community that will give you the opportunity to spend time with people whose parenting experiences are similar to your own. You can trade information, tips, stories and experiences,as well as support one another. Gather like-minded families together and schedule outings and family-centered activities.Just being around and spending time with them will bolster you, creating much-needed connections for you as a parent and for your child.

The Puzzler for June 2015: T. Rex Time Machine

Question: If a Tyrannosaurus Rex living 67 million years ago had a time machine that he could squeeze his super-sized dinosaur body into, and he could use his tiny little brain to pilot such a vessel, which trip through time would be the longest in years: to see a living Stegosaurus or a living Marc Bolan, front man for the 1970s rock band T. Rex?

Bonus question: How much longer in years is the longer of the two trips?

Answers in the next issue. 

ANSWER to The Puzzler for May 2015: John Adams Time Machine

Question: If John Adams, second US President, jumped into a time machine in the last year of his life, would he take a quicker trip back into the past to witness the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, or forward into the future to witness the day that Google first appeared on the world wide web?

Bonus question: How much longer in years is the longer of the two trips?

 

 

Answer:

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Answer:  
Believe it or not, if John Adams had a time machine and used it to travel to the past to see the Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth rock, that would be a much longer trip through time than if he traveled to the future to see the first day that Google was born!

Bonus answer:
From John Adam's final year of life in 1826 back to the time of the Pilgrim's landing on Plymouth Rock in the year 1620 is 34 years longer than the trip he would take into the future to see the first Google search results in 1998.

This means that:
The Pilgrims seemed more ancient to John Adams than John Adams seems to us today.