Making Room for Nothing by Lara Krupicka

After the mad dash at the end of the school year we could all use some rest and relaxation.  The relatively calm and stress-free start of the summer is a good time to reflect on ways to downsize your family's jam-packed activity calendar.

Raising the Bar summer programs fit perfectly into a streamlined summer schedule. Our camps don't start until the end of June to give you and your family some much needed downtime. Once July approaches, we have half-day options (as well as full-day) and each of our camps run for only one week to promote engagement and excitement, not exhaustion!

Making Room for Nothing
Scale Back and Enjoy the Downtime!

by Lara Krupicka


Most parents have times where they feel like they have to be in multiple places at one time to manage their children's calendars. But what happens when the imagined need becomes real?

Like a typical mom's, Hillary Homzie's schedule for her family was a house of cards, a careful stacking of one activity on the other. Then one day it came toppling down. A change in plans with a carpool partner, when all three of her kids had somewhere to be, left her scrambling. "I remember dropping off one kid at a swim party and not even being able to have the time to arrange how my fifth-grader got home," she explains. She herself had to get to a doctor's appointment where she was diagnosed with multiple ailments, brought on by stress. It was then she realized something had to change.

Homzie's story may sound extreme, but it's more normal than many realize. According to a research study conducted at the University of Michigan, children experienced a major decrease in time spent in unstructured activities between 1981 and 1997. A followup to that study showed free time activities for kids continued to decrease into 2003. With shrinking amounts of down time, you have a recipe for collapse.

Decisions, Decisions. . . Finding the Perfect Summer Camp for your Child

Decisions, Decisions...
Finding the Perfect Summer Camp for Your Child

by Mikey Smith, M.Ed

As summer camp season approaches, the choices are seemingly endless. There are camps for everything from cooking to karate to quilting and everything in between. But what's the best fit for your child? Sometimes, the obvious choice might not be the best one. Thinking outside the box when making decisions about what camp your child will attend can go a long way toward helping make the most of his summer camp experience.

The Athlete
Sure, there are sports camps for just about every specific sport under the sun, but how many football or soccer or volleyball camps can you go to? Attending the same sports camp year after year can get a little stale. Encourage your budding superstar to branch out with another sport, or a multi-sport themed camp. Help them get and stay fit with a nutrition or yoga class.
Raising the Bar Recommendations: From Fishin' to Football, Karma Kids Yoga, The Great Outdoors, "What's Cookin'?"

Spring Showers Bring. . . Standardized Tests!

Springtime means sunshine, flowers, and. . .standardized tests! Thousands of students (and teachers) across the country will welcome the warmer weather but not the standardized tests that the spring months usually bring. Read on for more information about one of the most commonly administered standardized tests, the Stanford 10.  This test is used in some districts, including HISD, as part of the criteria for Gifted and Talented qualification.

Spring Showers Bring...
Standardized Tests

by Mikey Smith, M.Ed


The unseasonably cold weather most of the country has experienced this winter has most of us hoping for an early spring and the warm weather that comes with it. For students and teachers however, spring is not only the season of sunshine and daffodils, it is the season of standardized tests -- lots and lots of standardized tests. Most accredited schools give at least one form of standardized test per year, but it is not uncommon for students to take two.

Spring Cleaning in January? By Mikey Smith, M. Ed.

Spring Cleaning in January?
Preparing for a Successful Second Semester
by Mikey Smith, M. Ed

Remember August? Sparkling school supplies sat waiting to be used by students who sat down at the same time, in the same place each afternoon to diligently work on the evening's homework before laying out clothes and supplies to be taken to school the following day. As the school year wore on, however, these routines seemed to fade away, (or never got adopted in the first place) making each day a stressful blur. January is the perfect time to get back into great habits or to start some new ones. Here are some suggestions:  

--Clean out your student's backpack, lunchbox, binders and folders. By December many students' backpacks are as big as they are, usually packed to bursting with a bunch of outdated and unnecessary worksheets, notices and papers, not to mention piles of candy wrappers and a few wads of gum. Take no prisoners! Dump everything out. If your student doesn't know for sure whether to keep or dump something, to be on the safe side, put it into an appropriately-sized storage tub so that it can be found if need be. Don't recycle or trash anything unless you are 101% sure it will never be needed again.

--Check schedules - some schools change electives or other classes at mid-term. . . and some parents never find out until the end of the year! Make sure you know what classes your child is taking and have teacher contact info for all teachers.

--Re-stock your school supplies. You started the school year with a selection of supplies that would make Office Depot jealous, but now you're down to a few pencil nubs with no erasers and a bottle of crusty White-Out.  While most stores don't have huge school supply sales in January like they do in August, Dollar Stores almost ALWAYS have basics like pens, pencils, folders and notebooks for rock bottom prices.