The Do's and Don'ts of Homework

Follow these Do’s and Don’ts of homework with your kids to make the most of their learning time at home:

Do:

• Provide quiet study time in a well-lit place.
• Be available to encourage, praise, advise, and supervise.
• Monitor your child’s understanding of concepts and skills.
• Check work for accuracy, neatness, and completeness.
• Provide related home-learning experiences to reinforce concepts learned at school.
• Cooperate with and be supportive of the child’s teacher.
• Help your child make education a top priority during his/her school years. Show by example that learning can be exciting and fulfilling.

Don’t:

• Do the child’s homework for him/her.
• Make excuses or allow the child to make excuses for incomplete or sloppy work.
• Change, criticize, or belittle a teacher’s assignments. If there’s a problem, talk to the teacher.
• Allow the child to skip an assignment he/she doesn’t like.
• Fill the child’s life with so many non-school activities there is no time left for homework or play. Relieve the child of responsibility for getting homework back to school on time.

Shared from http://www.thelearningcommunity.us

College Tours 2014

Northeast Tour A

This 7-day tour will allow students to visit a wide variety of colleges in and around the major college hubs along the Northeast Coast. Each day students will visit two different colleges, and receive advice directly from admissions reps, as well as current college students. This tour is structured to allow participants to have time to visit some ‘reach’ (highly selective) schools as well as some selective colleges. Students will also have the opportunity to visit Times Square, the White House and the National Mall and Smithsonian in DC. This is our most popular tour where there is something for everyone!Duration: 7 days/ 6 nights

Colleges/Universities we will visit:

Harvard University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Boston University, Boston College, Babson College, Bentley University, Brown University, Yale University, Columbia University, New York University, Fordham University, University of Pennsylvania, Villanova University, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University

Space is limited to 26 students.

Cost: $2365 USD

Includes all transportation (excluding flight to/from Boston/Washington DC), breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars.

Northeast Tour B

This tour is similar to Northeast Tour A but it is a day longer which provides for more opportunity to explore some of the most vibrant cities in the US – Boston, New York and Washington DC. Along with the college visits, we will have some time to have some ‘tourist’ time in each city. This tour has been popular in the past and is expected to be booked quickly! Duration: 8 days/7 nights

Colleges/Universities we will visit:

Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University, Boston College, Boston University, Brown University, Yale University, Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University.

We will begin accepting applications Nov. 1st.
Space is limited to 26 students.
Cost: $2495 USD

Includes all transportation (excluding flight to/from Boston/Washington, DC), breakfast, lunch and dinner each day, all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars

California Tour

During the California tour students will enjoy visits to the most popular university destinations for international school students from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Participants will have the opportunity to experience a wide variety of schools in terms of selectivity, size, and “feel”. After a couple of days in San Francisco, we will travel to southern California to visit some of most well known and prestigious universities in that region. Students will spend one well-deserved day of relaxation and fun at Disneyland! This is a great tour for those students considering attending college in California!

Duration: 9 days/8 nights

Colleges/Universities we will visit:

UC Berkeley, Stanford University, University of San Francisco, Santa Clara University, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine University, Loyola Marymount University, UCLA, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer College, Chapman University, UC San Diego, University of San Diego, Occidental College, University of Southern California

We will begin accepting applications Nov. 1st.
Space is limited to 26 students.
Fee: $2675 USD

Includes all land travel from San Francisco to LA, all meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner each day), all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars, entrance fee to Disneyland.

Art College Tour

The Art Colleges Tour provides students the opportunity to visit some of the best art colleges in the US. For those interested in pursuing art-related careers, this tour will allow them to preview first-hand what each school has to offer as well as enlighten them to the world of possibilities for art careers. This tour will be led by a highly experienced art teacher from an international school with an established reputation of assisting students being admitted to selective art programs. The tour will also provide opportunities to engage in evening seminars on the college application process, and a special seminar on the process of creating the best portfolio possible.

Duration: 7 days/6 nights

Colleges/Universities we will visit:

School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Rhode Island School of Art and Design, Pratt Institute, School of Visual Arts, Yale University, California Institute of the Arts, Art Center College of Design, UCLA, Otis College of Art and Design.

We will begin accepting applications Nov. 1st.
Space is limited to 26 students.
Cost: $2690 USD

Includes all domestic transportation (including flight from New York to Los Angles, all meals (3 meals per day), all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars.

UK University Tour

New for 2014, the UK tour provides an opportunity for students to visit some of the premier institutions in the UK. DESCRIPTION TO FOLLOW…

Duration: 9 days/8 nights

We will begin accepting applications Nov. 1st.
Space is limited to 26 students.
Cost: $2690 USD

Includes all domestic transportation, all meals (3 meals per day), all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars.

Scotland University Tour

A great add-on to the UK Tour or as a completely separately tour, the Scottish tour will visit the best universities of Scotland and give students a chance to explore some of the intriguing and historic cities.

Duration: 3 days/nights

We will begin accepting applications Nov. 1st.
Space is limited to 26 students.
Cost: $925 USD

Includes all domestic transportation, all meals (3 meals per day), all accommodations, all tour fees and seminars.

Custom Tours

In addition to the pre-scheduled tours, TS College Tours offers customized college tours for schools, groups, or individual families.

WhatWe Do

·         Plan all logistics including arranging flights, hotels, transportation, meals, campus visit
and meetings with admissions representatives.

·         Provide promotional materials to advertise to your students.

·         Arrange all colleges visits and information sessions.

·         Make arrangements for any requested activities (museums, amusement parks, restaurant
reservations, etc.)

·         Provide students with a pre-departure planning booklet, summaries of colleges to be
visited, and a checklist to use to evaluate each college during the tour.

Benefits to you/your school:

·         Counselors, teachers, or parents will not have to spend days on planning the logistics.

·         One chaperone travels free with every 10 students.

·         Students get a complete overview of the college admissions process and its’ components.

·         Students return to their senior year focused, with a very good sense of the schools to
consider, their applications and essays already started, making their time more efficient
and productive.

MSU and Hope College Visit ( Nov.12th)

About MSU :

Spartans work every day to advance the common good in uncommon ways.

Together, we tackle some of the world’s toughest problems to find solutions that make life better—from alternative energy to better food safety to breakthrough medical and environmental applications achieved through rare isotope research.

We teach. We explore and we discover. We collaborate and lead. We innovate, inspire, and empower. We achieve our potential and create circumstances that help our students and others achieve theirs.

We're good at it, and we've been at it for more than 150 years.

The nation’s pioneer land-grant university, MSU began as a bold experiment that democratized higher education and helped bring science and innovation into everyday life. The revolutionary concept became a model for the nation.

Today, MSU is one of the top research universities in the world—on one of the biggest, greenest campuses in the nation. Home to nationally ranked and recognized academic, residential college, and service-learning programs, we’re a diverse community of dedicated students and scholars, athletes and artists, scientists and leaders.

In ways both practical and profound, we work to create a stronger, more sustainable, and more hopeful future for all.

About Hope :

Hope graduates are educated to think about life’s most important issues with clarity, wisdom, and a deep understanding of the foundational commitments of the historic Christian faith. They are agents of Hope who live faithfully into their vocations.

At this distinguished four-year liberal arts college, academic excellence and vibrant Christian faith join to strengthen each other in a supportive and welcoming community. While historically affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, Hope is ecumenically diverse and values open discussion of matters of faith and respect for the opinions of others.

The students and faculty we spoke with confirm that the school walks its talk; Hope College is both academically serious and theologically earnest.

Quality of teaching
Hope students find a faculty of professionally distinguished scholars who have a genuine concern for the total development of each student.  

Hope is one of only 10 church-related colleges and universities nationwide highlighted in the book Putting Students First: How Colleges Develop Students Purposefully. Our student: faculty ratio is 13:1.

Hope is among 50 colleges recommended by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in its guide All-American Colleges: Top Schools for Conservatives, Old-Fashioned Liberals and People of Faith, which notes that “The students and faculty we spoke with confirm that the school walks its talk; Hope College is both academically serious and theologically earnest.”

Academic programs
Our 91 majors and minors in liberal arts and pre-professional fields provide unusual flexibility for students to combine their interests. Known as a powerhouse in the sciences, Hope is also the only private, liberal arts college to have national accreditation in art, dance, music and theatre.

Ranked 4th in the U.S. for research and creative activity
National leadership in collaborative faculty/student research and creative activity. Hope is consistently awarded more National Science Foundation grants for undergraduate research than any other liberal arts college in the country and was ranked fourth behind the University of Michigan, Stanford and MIT for undergraduate research and creative activity in the initial rankings by US News & World Report.

Diverse and accomplished students
During 2013-14 Hope enrolled 3,388 students from 39 states and territories and 34 different countries. We are a leading college for Fulbright Scholars, and our students can look forward to attending their first choice of graduate and professional schools.

The 2013 Fiske Guide to Colleges includes Hope as one of the country's best and most interesting colleges and universities, noting that "Hope's academic and athletic programs continue to grow and prosper."

Other guides and organizations that recognized Hope in the past year include the 39th edition of The Insider's Guide to Colleges, the America's Top Colleges guide published by Forbes Magazine and The Princeton Review, which cited Hope among the "Best in the Midwest."

Hope College is one of only 280 colleges and universities in the country and eight in Michigan to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest scholastic honorary society. Hope's chapter was chartered in 1971.

Global perspective
Hope students choose to study abroad in more than 200 programs in over 60 countries. More than 1,800 internships are available locally, through off-campus centers in Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, Washington, DC, and other locations.

Community service
Recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for initiatives that engage students with communities here and abroad, Hope offers many options to connect.

Athletics
A member of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) and National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III, Hope sponsors 20 sports for men and women.

Tips for Parents

Tips for Parents: Questions to Ask Your Child about Their Day

Get a sense of your child’s life at school by asking questions that elicit more than a one-word response. Try one of these conversation starters:

• Tell me about the best part of your day.
• What was the hardest thing you had to do today?
• Did any of your classmates do anything funny? Tell me about what you read in class.
• Who did you play with/hang out with today? What did you do? Do you think ________(insert subject here) is too hard?
• What’s the biggest difference between this year and last year?
• What rules are different at school than at home? Do you think they’re fair?
• Who did you sit with at lunch?
• Can you show me something you learned or did today?

Shared from the www.learningcommunity.us