About a month ago, my grandson, Isaiah, turned ten. For a couple of months before his birthday I had been teasing him a little about what it meant to become a double-digit person. “You know, Isaiah, when you turn ten you’re going to magically stop teasing your sister.” Or “Isaiah, did you know that double-digit [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: Billy Collins, developmental changes, fifth grade, ten-year-olds | 
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Closer to teenagers than middle childhood, the twelves, too, are still tweeners. Twelves have enormous positive energy for both independent and group endeavors, whether at school, in sports, or in after-school activities such as dance, gymnastics, martial arts, chess, cooking, or crafts. This is a great age for camp, whether day or residential. More mature [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes, seventh grade, twelve-year-olds | Post a Comment »
Elevens are powerful advocates, strong believers, and budding lawyers. They are passionate about their ideas and their opinions, their allegiances and their sense of justice. They are devoted to their classmates and peer groups,and the social negotiations surrounding cliques, which tend to peak at eleven and twelve, elevens are in a clear growth spurt both [...]
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Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, eleven-year-olds, Positive Attributes, sixth grade | Post a Comment »
Double-digit kids, these tens can take on anything and love every minute of it (well, almost). If you sense my unbridled enthusiasm for this age, you’re not off the mark. It didn’t take me long as a teacher to latch onto the understanding that if you want to teach in “middle childhood,” there is no [...]
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Tags: bellasara.com, children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, fifth grade, Positive Attributes, Rick Riordan, ten-year-olds | Post a Comment »
Nine is not always an easy age, but it is an age of growing social awareness, of intellectual stretching, wondering, and clamoring These are the “ing,” kids, the “dangling participles” easily misunderstood, the kids who are doing, encouraging, questioning, doubting, arguing…sometimes seemingly just for the sake of it, with no clear antecedents for their [...]
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Tags: Billy Collins, children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, fourth grade, nine-year-olds, Positive Attributes, Yardsticks | Post a Comment »
When eight-year-olds wake up in the morning, new plans for adventure are percolating before their feet hit the floor. These plans usually involve a friend, or better yet, a group of friends to share adventures with in the neighborhood or at school. It can be as simple as rounding up a game of kickball [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, eight-year-olds, Positive Attributes, third grade | 2 Comments »
Sevens notice everything…in detail. Smallness is characteristic of their drawing, writing, and play constructions. Everything’s reduced to the microcosm, miniaturized to an intricate and controllable world they’re trying to make perfect.
Dioramas fit in shoeboxes, providing room enough for furniture, rugs, vases, with tiny flowers, people and/or animals smaller than clothespins, cut out of cardboard and adorned with colorful [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes, second grade, seven-year-olds | 5 Comments »
No one is more industrious than six-year-olds. They take on every activity, at home and at school, with unbridled enthusiasm. Work is completed in no time at all, though quantity, not quality, is the measure that counts for sixes, along with trying new things. Being first to read a new book, spell a new word, [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, first grade, Positive Attributes, six-year-olds | 1 Comment »
There is a discernable turning point in the fifth year where the focused, centered, rule-following kindergartener becomes the full-fledged explorer. A growth spurt is beginning that will last through the sixth year. “Stretching” is a good word for this age. At home and in class, children are often stretching the truth, testing the rules, seeing [...]
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Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, five-and-a-half-year-olds, kindergarten, Positive Attributes | Post a Comment »
Oh, what fun to be five! Busy and loving every moment of it, it seems five-year-olds may be the happiest people on the planet. Each day is a brand-new adventure, and if the structure of life around them is strong, they’re good to go.
Fives are actively and selectively receptive, as they take in the world through [...]
Categories: Developmental Needs, Positive Attributes |
Tags: children's positive attributes, children's strengths, developmental changes, Developmental Needs, five-year-olds, kindergarten, Positive Attributes | Post a Comment »
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