Tips for Staying Healthy this NNAT Season

This is one of the hardest times of the to keep your child healthy, especially to keep prepping for the NNAT. However there are a lot of different small ways that you can keep your child healthy. It’s hard to sit and watch your child be sick, and anything you can do to keep them from being in pain you will do! I have gathered 5 tips below that will help keep your child healthy this NNAT season.

• The Flu Shot: This seems almost too obvious to even put on the list, but some parents do not want to have their children go through the pain of a flu shot. But the pain from a flu shot is much less than the pain from the flue! Keep your child is good health for longer with flu shot, and keep them studying the NNAT!
• Teach Cough Etiquette: Just like you are teaching your child the NNAT, teach your child how to properly cough and sneeze so they do not spread their germs. Encourage your child’s teacher to show kids how to sneeze and cough properly to keep from spreading their germs from child to child and getting the whole class sick!
• Keep hands and shared objects clean: While you are teaching your child about the NNAT, also teach them about how important it is to wash their hands. After play dates with other friends, show them that you wipe the toys down after playing to keep germs away. It is never too early to teach cleanliness, or the NNAT, to your children!
• Stay Healthy: It is easiest for children to keep from getting the flu when they are already healthy. Remind children that just like they have to do daily homework or NNAT test prep, they need to wash their hands, eat healthy, and get plenty of sleep!

Stay healthy and smart with more tips here. Good luck on the NNAT!

Thanksgiving Games for NNAT Children

Thanksgiving is a day to put down the NNAT prep and give your children a day off! However, you do not want them to just sit and watch TV all day long. Studies have shone that children under 2 should only be exposed to screens for less than half an hour a day. For ages beyond 2, studies suggest children should only be exposed to screens for less than an hour a day. Exposing your children to more television time than that may decrease their ability to empathize with those around them. I have compiled a list of activities below that will keep your children entertained and educated for the NNAT on Thanksgiving!

• Thanksgiving Pictionary: This is a game you do have to prepare before. Paint jumbo Popsicle sticks to look like turkeys and write various Thanksgiving things on them, such as cornucopia, autumn, leaf, turkey, pilgrim, etc. Then set up a chalkboard and divide your kids into teams. They take turns drawing a Popsicle stick and drawing that image on the chalkboard! This helps develop fine motor skills as well as their vocabulary! These skills will help them on the NNAT!
• Turkey Feather Hunt: This is another game that is disguised NNAT test prep! Cut out a bunch of feathers out of different colors of construction paper. Have 3 or 4 different styles of leaf and different sizes of leaf as well. First hide them out along your property and have the kids hunt for them! Then gather the feathers they found on the lawn and ask the kids to gather all of the Blue feathers, or all of the Small feathers or all of the Pointy feathers. This teaches colors and patterns, which will help on the NNAT!
• Make Turkey Hats: You just need construction paper and patterns to cut out the construction paper with. Your children can decide what colors they want their turkey hats to be and they will have so much fun dancing and playing around in a hat they made! This activity helps develop fine motor skills for the NNAT!

You can find more fun Thanksgiving activities on Pinterest here! Happy Thanksgiving and Good Luck on the NNAT!

NNAT Test Prep for a Thankful Family

Thanksgiving week always reminds me of how grateful I am for my children. Raising children has expanded my view on the world and made me realize how important I am in their lives. Children rely wholly upon their parents in order to be raised and molded into successful adults. This dependence on parents can be a heavy weight. Especially in the new environment of standardized tests, like NNAT, for children starting at the Pre-Kindergarten level, there are so many different ways that children need to be prepared. I am thankful that I was able to provide my children with the NNAT test prep they needed to gain acceptance into their Gifted and Talented programs and the school enrichment programs that ensured they were at the tops of their classes.

The holiday season, and especially Thanksgiving, puts a fine point on why I prepared my child. I want the best for my child and I want to ensure that they are happy and healthy in all parts of their lives and that they have a bright and successful future. That is why I pushed my child to prepare for standardized tests, like the NNAT, and worked with them on their subjects outside of the classroom. It is the only way as a parent to know that you are involved enough in your child’s life to ensure their successful future. You cannot rely just upon teachers to impart all the knowledge your child needs. You need to be active in your child’s education to ensure that when they take their State Standards or Common Core tests, they are at the top of their class!

Raising a child puts a point on more than just the need to prepare them for their future. I never knew how much I could love another human being, and from the first moment I saw my children, my heart grew exponentially. Being around my children has expanded not only my love but also my imagination, my sense of humor, my compassion and my gratitude. Every day differs from the day before with my children teaching me how to see the world in a different light. I wake up every day blessed with the task to help mold and guide my children into the best people they can be! Our children need and deserve their parent’s involvement, with either NNAT test prep or school enrichment, to survive and thrive in this competitive world. This Thanksgiving I am thankful for the ability to help prepare my children for the increasingly difficult world ahead.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rainy Day Activities for your NNAT Child

Now that fall is starting to feel like winter, those rainy days are keeping your NNAT child stuck in your house! It can be difficult to just keep your child from going stir-crazy in the house, let alone have activities that will stimulate their NNAT study. Rainy days are becoming more and more regular as the season progresses and you want to make sure that you do not waste those days. Especially with NNAT coming up, you need to make sure every time you can prepare your child on these days. Here are some great activities to keep your NNAT child stimulated on rainy days.
Word Posters: This activity is great not just for vocabulary but also for grouping! On the NNAT your child will have to recognize similarities in groups of items. For this activity tell your child to cut out only yellow objects or round objects. You can also tell your child to cut out only verbs or nouns. This will teach them vocabulary that is going to be on the NNAT test.
Board Games: This activity can help with counting or visual spatial reasoning, skills on the NNAT. If your child plays monopoly, then they will be able to practice their counting skills! Moving the pieces around the board helps practice their visual spatial reasoning. These skills will be tested on the NNAT, and its great to get NNAT prep in with fun board games!
Fort: Who knew that building forts could help prepare your child for the NNAT!? You can practice verbal classification while you build the fort. You can ask you child to only bring you round pillows, or blue sheets or square blankets. That will teach your child verbal classification, which is on the NNAT. Fort building also encourages creativity and allows you and your child to play and bond together!
You can find more rainy day activities here! Good luck on the NNAT!

Tips for a Polite Thanksgiving for your NNAT Child

Holiday time is a stressful time for parents and children, especially as it is also NNAT prep time! However, you can have an easier time around the holidays, and in the NNAT test, with some simple manners! It’s shocking how many children don’t know the basics of manners or etiquette. There are some simple manners that you can teach your child for improved holidays, and a smoother NNAT test experience.
•    Greetings: Teach your child that first impressions are important. You can show them how to behave by cleaning them up and making sure they look their best. Tell them to smile and say hi to everyone they meet, making eye contact! This will benefit them on the NNAT test as well. I’s sure the NNAT proctor will enjoy their manners.
•    Posture: Teach your child how to sit up straight, not lean their elbows on the table and not fidget. Also remind your children to keep their hands out of their laps at the dinner table, as that is a social faux pas in some countries. The NNAT proctor will notice their good posture and appreciate how they sit still!
•    Chewing: This may be a habit that we learned early on, but your children may not realize that they need to chew with their mouths closed. If they had never heard it before then they do not know that it is gross to chew with your mouth open.
•    Patience: This may mean waiting for everyone to sit down before eating or not rushing through the main course and demanding dessert. Thanksgiving, as well as the NNAT exam, will be much easier on you, the parents, if your child can patiently sit still.
There are a lot of different manners and etiquette points that you should be teaching your chid. it is not enough that they are prepared for the NNAT, they also need to impress the NNAT proctor of their ability to sit still in a classroom. Get more tips here. Good luck on the NNAT!

Common Core Testing Affects Your NNAT Child

Despite how new Common Core testing is, parents are already starting to prep their children for these tests, like they do for the NNAT. But many more parents do not even fully understand what Common Core testing is or how it will affect their child, like some parents of children taking the NNAT. To make this more confusing, the 2013-2014 school year will be a year of transition. States have already started transitioning to the new harder common core curriculum and some states will be administering the more difficult Common Core Standards test this year while some states will still be giving their Achievement tests, as well as the NNAT for G&T programs.
Some states gave their students the new Common Core test before they started teaching the new common core curriculum and these states came back with shocking results! In Kentucky when children were given the new Common Core tests, a third of the children in the school who were reading and math “proficient” according to the old Kentucky Achievement tests dropped to “below proficient.” In New York, the percentage of children in the third through eighth grades who passed the English Language Arts test dropped from 46.9 to 26.4! That is a 20.5 percent drop in children who passed the English Arts test with these new standards. With the increased difficulty of these tests, you will want to make sure your child is ready to take these challenging tests, like the NNAT.
These difficult tests may be used to determine the student’s eligibility for a Gifted and Talented program, along with the NNAT, or just to move onto the next grade level. If your child does struggle with a subject on the Common Core tests, they may be identified for remedial classes or summer school. The best way to ensure your child does well on their common core testing is to prepare them, like the NNAT. And just like preparation for NNAT tests, test prep works best when it is more than just reviewing practice questions and taking mock NNAT tests. You need to be fully involved with every moment with your child, because every moment is a teaching lesson that can improve your child’s score on the NNAT. Thankfully there are many ways to ensure that your child will succeed in this new, harder testing world.
You can check out resources for the Common Core and the NNAT on this site. Good luck on the NNAT!

Best Games to Play for NNAT Preparation

Like I said in my last post, the best way to prepare for the NNAT is through play! Especially for little ones, like preschoolers, play is the best way for them to learn, and also to know realize they are doing NNAT prep! If you child knows you are doing NNAT prep that may stress them out more for the test than if they didn’t know they were doing NNAT prep. Here are some fun games to disguise NNAT prep as fun!

• Simon Says: This is a great way to teach listening and following directions for the NNAT in a fun and silly way!
• Shop together: You can teach your child how to categorize, classify and compare items, necessary for the NNAT, by taking them shopping with you. In the CostCo ask your child why the hammers and saws and nails are all in the same location. Have fun going through the store and finding everything that goes together!
• Light to Darkness Patterns: Go to a hardware supply store and let your child pick out all of the paint chips they want. Then have them organize the paint chips from lightest to darkest. Then have them group them by color family. Then have them organize the color families from lightest to darkest. A great activity for Pattern and Sequences, integral on the NNAT.
• Silly Sally: This is a game children love because it is so silly. Make a sentence about how Sally was silly. Sally was so silly she brushed her teeth with chocolate pudding! Then ask your child why that is silly. This tests their memory skills as they have to remember what particular objects are used for on the NNAT.
• Read: This may be simple but reading to your child is one of the best ways to naturally prepare them for the NNAT. Read them every level of book you have. Read them short books they can look along with and read them the Lord of the Rings or your favorite child friendly book, books with varied vocabulary and sentence structure.

Find more games to play with your NNAT child here. Good luck on the NNAT!

Most Popular Questions on the NNAT

In the majority of cases, parents first learn about the NNAT from a letter sent home a child. The letter will contain information about the Gifted and Talented program offered at the school, and that your child has been selected to apply for the program. The application process for Gifted and Talented programs is multi-leveled, often starting with classroom observations and semester grades, including a standardized exam like the NNAT, and ends with meetings. However, they often do not give out much information regarding the process or the NNAT. So I have gathered a variety of the most popular questions asked about the NNAT with helpful answers.

• Should I prepare my child for the NNAT at all? Many parents wonder about the ethics and morality of preparing their child for the NNAT. However, I suggest that you do prepare for the NNAT. Like the SAT or MCAT or any standardized test, half the battle is know HOW to take the test. Preparing for the NNAT will just help ensure your child’s talent gets showcased.
• How should I prepare my child for the NNAT? I suggest making NNAT prep not even seem like NNAT prep! This is easiest for younger children and preschoolers, as they are used to doing brain games and often just enjoy spending extra time with mommy or daddy. But for older students who understand testing, just ask they do 20-40 NNAT practice questions a day, to ensure their skills are sharp.
• How long should I take to prepare my child for the NNAT? Especially for young children, I suggest about 3 months of preparation for the NNAT. You do not want to overwhelm your child with NNAT prep, and with 3 months to prepare, your daily NNAT study sessions can be as short as 10 minutes.

Want fun and different ways to prepare for the NNAT? Read Testing for Kindergarten, that you can check out here! Good luck on the NNAT!

The Importance of Kindergarten Readiness for the NNAT

Many parents do not realize that they need to prepare their children for Kindergarten, and the NNAT. If you want your child to not be behind when they enter that classroom then you will need to prepare them before they start Kindergarten or take the NNAT. Thankfully the best way to teach a preschooler is through play. There are a variety of different games that you can play with your child to ensure that they will be prepared for Kindergarten and the NNAT.

What exactly do you need to start preparing your child for? There is basic classroom etiquette that your child needs to know and there is certain basic knowledge and skills that your child should know to enter kindergarten or take the NNAT.

For the basic classroom etiquette or NNAT test etiquette, your child needs to know how to sit still, how to raise their hand to ask a question or make a comment, how to share with other children, how to play nice and not rough, and to put on their “listening ears” or how to actively listen in order for them to succeed. This is also important for the proctor to see when giving your child the NNAT exam.

There is also a lot of basic knowledge and skills your child should have upon entering kindergarten or taking the NNAT. Basic knowledge that your child should have includes shapes, colors, animals, seasons, etc. Richard Scarry’s Best First Word Book is a great book the sums up most of the basic knowledge a child should have entering Kindergarten or to take the NNAT.

The basic skills that your child should have are being able to categorize or classify or compare items, which you can teach through NNAT prep. The ability to discover patterns and sequences is also tested on the NNAT. They need to have solid visual-spatial reasoning skills as well as basic fine motor skills for the NNAT or Kindergarten. They need to have solid language skills as well as memory skills to excel on the NNAT.

The good news is that the more you work with your child the more you will realize they already have a lot of these skills and knowledge. But you need to work with your child, and do NNAT test prep, to ensure that they have these skills and knowledge and classroom etiquette. The truth is that your child cannot go into kindergarten or the NNAT and succeed without learning how to interact in a classroom and have the same knowledge and skills the other children will have. It is up to you, as their parents, to ensure that they are ready to take the first step towards a lifetime of success. You can find help and resources for the NNAT on this site.

Manners to Teach your NNAT Child

There is more to raising your child than just focusing on NNAT prep. You want to make sure that they are well rounded, play an instrument or a sport, and participate in ballet or scouting. Included in this is to ensure that they have proper manners. While they will not be tested on manners on their NNAT exam, they will be watched to ensure they know how to behave in a classroom. That includes not interrupting while others are talking, learning to share, and knowing how to stand in a line. There are some basic etiquette points that you child needs to know to be successful in kindergarten that might be able to be spotted on a NNAT test.

• Patience- This includes knowing not to interrupt someone who is speaking, as well as knowing that parents and “older people” deserve respect. This also includes the ability to sit still without too much fidgeting and being able to complete a task with given directions. These can be identified on a NNAT test. The NNAT proctor will recognize if your child interrupts them. They will identify if your child can sit still through the NNAT exam.
• Polite Phrases: Please, Thank You, Excuse Me are all phrases your child should know. If your child needs something passed to them from the NNAT Proctor, they need to know to say please and thank you. Just in general, your child should know when to use the phrase “excuse me” when they bump into someone or need to interrupt for an emergency.
• Be Kind: This includes not gossiping and being kind to people. Your child needs to know not to talk about what they don’t like about someone or to say things to embarrass other people. This also includes calling people mean names or using foul language. They should also know how to politely engage people in small talk. Their NNAT proctor might ask them how they are before the NNAT exam. Your child should know to answer and then respond asking them how they are. This can help your child have a better over all NNAT test.

It’s hard to find good resources for NNAT prep. Here is a great twitter that tweets test practice tips or fun activities to do with kids! Good luck on the NNAT!