Jeffery Educational Consulting, 62 North Main Street in Florida, NY

 

We offer academic assistance, enrichment classes and consulting services to students of all ages and their families at very reasonable prices.

We have small group classes and individualized instruction for children and adults.    

Low rates are part of our overall philosophy.


Our Prep Center and Tutoring Classroom is in the Historic Florida Village Professional Building.  The quaint Village of Florida has great parking. The parking is convenient and free.   Never, ever park far away!      

We are located across the street from this monument in honor of William H. Seward, Secretary of State to Abraham Lincoln, born In Florida, N.Y.  

Being close to Rt. 17 and located on Rt. 94/17A makes our center convenient to anyone from Orange, Rockland,and Sullivan Counties as well as Sussex County in New Jersey.

Click here to find out more.

New CLEP Prep Courses Available

by Tom Jeffery (Online column updated regularly.)

Great Online Resource for Parents and Students

The Internet can be a confusing array of too much information in too many places. How do you know if a web site is the best source
of print or multimedia information for your child’s research project or homework? One particularly excellent resource—
www.free.ed.gov—is hosted by the US Department of Education.  Over 1,600 free resources are available for educators, whether they
be classroom teachers, parents, students educating themselves, other school  personnel, librarians, or any other lifelong learners. These free resources from  the federal government will enhance and enrich any educational program.  Besides giving much greater depth to what students are learning, these
resources provide sources for research projects that all educators will consider of  the greatest value, as many of the resources are copies of original documents  surrounding scientific theories or historic events. Many more resources are found  through links from the home page and lead to educational pages from federal web sites of the National Park Service, NASA, the National Archives, and others, as well as web sites of libraries and history and science museums around the country. From www.free.ed.gov and links you can:

• Travel the entire voyage of Lewis and Clark through maps, documents, paintings, and photos.
• Read original documents scanned for the Library of Congress of letters written by U.S. Presidents and many other prominent historic figures.
• Read typed fireside chats delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered by radio to the nation at a very trying time not too long ago.
• See Civil War photographs by Matthew Brady, famed photographer of America's first photographed war (particularly significant for residents of
Florida as the Secretary of State during the Civil War was Floridian William H. Seward).
• Investigate New York State history artifacts, such as multiple resources that can be found on the Battle of Saratoga under the “New York State” links.

In addition, besides lesson plans for teachers to teach Math, there are also excellent resources for families on math “manipulatives” you can easily make such as a Jacob's ladder toy) while learning math concepts along the way.  Printable activity handouts of games and magic tricks that also teach math oncepts in pre-algebra, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry make Math more fun to learn.  Science resources appear to be endless, including the latest shots and web casts from the Hubble telescope. Also available are animations that many Science teachers use to help learners better understand science concepts not readily seen, such as animations of cell division. Better understanding of these concepts through these visual resources leads to higher grades. But classroom teachers have only limited time and cannot show all the animations or use all the resources. Parents and students can readily avail themselves of these resources when difficult concepts (such as “meiosis”) need to make more sense.

Family Games to Play with Middle and High School-Aged Children (Grades 4 and Up) During the Holidays

Because high school work and the SAT specifically test for knowledge and understanding of vocabulary words and key math concepts, four traditional board games could be modified this holiday season to improve your child’s vocabulary and knowledge of mathematical concepts. When school is out, recreational time is one of the best ways for learning to increase while enjoyment for the whole family and time together as a family are still maximized. Playing four traditional board games in this new way is also challenging and fun for the adults in the home as well.

Scrabble

There are many SAT vocabulary word lists, such as the one found at http://img.sparknotes.com/content/testprep/pdf/sat.vocab.pdf

Print it out and tell your middle and high schoolers to study the words because they will triple (or quadruple, you decide) their points in Scrabble if they use one of them with correct spelling and can recite its definition for the family (without looking it up). To make the task less onerous and more fun to start, only use the first three pages of the 1000-word list. Then, over time, you can increase the number of pages allowed for studying.

Battleship 

Another favorite game to modify is Battleship. This modified version of Battleship is best played when you use the traditional two-player sets you can find in the toy aisles of local supermarkets and pharmacies. Battleship can be turned into a math game in which the players use coordinates from a type of geometric plane in which they call out coordinates to see if a battleship is attacked. You set up four boards with four players. The traditonal Battleship game set typically only comes with two playing boards so two full game sets will be needed. Each player is the captain of his quadrant. Quadrant 1 will have positive integers (from a number line) along the bottom axis and along the left-side axis increasing in value from the lower left-hand corner. Use masking tape to make a horizontal number line marking the integers +1 to +10 for each axis, (or print out this page and use the one found here) and tape it along the bottom lining up the integers with the bottom set of holes. Do the same for the axis going from the bottom of the left-hand side of the playing board to the top of the playing board creating a vertical number line of positive integers (or print this page and cut it out).

Quadrant 2 will have negative integers (from a horizontal number line with -10 on the left and -1 on the right) along the bottom axis and the right-side vertical axis would have positive integers increasing in value from +1 in the lower right-hand corner to +10 in the upper-right hand corner. Use masking tape to make a horizontal number line marking the integers -10 to -1 for the horizontal axis at the bottom of the playing board (or print out this page and use the one found here) and tape it along the bottom lining up the integers with the bottom set of holes. Do the same for the axis going from the bottom of the right-hand side of the playing board to the top of the playing board creating a vertical number line of positive integers (can also be found here for you to print and cut out).

Quadrant 3 will have negative integers (from a number line) along the top axis and the right-side axis displaying from -10 in the lower right-hand corner to -1 in the upper-right-hand corner. Use masking tape to make a horizontal number line marking the integers -10 to -1 for the horizontal (top of the board) axis, (or print this page and cut it out) and tape it along the top lining up the integers with the top set of holes. Do the same for the axis going from the top of the right-hand side of the playing board to the bottom of the playing board creating a vertical number line with -10 at the bottom and -1 at the top (or print this page and cut it out).

Quadrant 4 will have positive integers (from a number line) in order from +1 to +10 along the top axis and the left-side vertical axis will display -1 at the top and -10 at the bottom. Use masking tape to make a horizontal number line marking the integers +1 to +10 for the top horizontal axis, (or print this one out) and tape it along the top lining up the integers with the top set of holes. Do the same for the axis going from the bottom of the left-hand side of the playing board to the top of the playing board creating a vertical number line with -1 at the top and -10 at the bottom (or print out this page and use the one found here).

Players place their battleships on the board and then take turns calling out two integers such as “-5, -9” or “+5, -3”. Each set of two integers is called an “ordered pair”.

If a player happens to call an ordered pair that would be in their quadrant, they have hit their own ship and should accept that penalty. No integer called out should be higher in absolute value than 10, since the number lines utilized do not go past +10 or -10.

This is best played with a monitor (parent or older sibling) who checks that the players have properly found the coordinates to see if their ships are getting hit or not. Graph paper with the x and y axes creating these four quadrants should be drawn for each player to keep track of their hits and misses (x's for hits and o's for misses).  A good way to see the diagram to sketch on graph paper is to visit this link: http://www.sparknotes.com/math/algebra1/graphingequations/section1.rhtml.  The horizontal axis is the x-axis and the vertical-axis is the y-axis.  Because this type of chart is utilized a lot in mathematics courses (and some SAT questions have been known to refer to it as well), this modification of Battleship is a great way to have fun while developing and enhancing the student's understanding of these axes (the geometric plane).  

The remaining players can only call ordered pairs for quadrants that are still in the game. If they make a mistake, they are out. In other words, if Quadrant 1’s player is out, then neither Player 2, 3, nor 4 should call two positive coordinates in the called-out ordered pair since Quadrant 1 is the only quadrant in which both coordinates would be positive.

Although this Battleship game appears complicated, it is even more suspenseful than the regular battleship game because there are four players. If only two players are available, then each player can manage two quadrants each. The first to have all their battleships sunken in both their quadrants is the loser.  This game is more exciting than traditional Battleship as there are more quadrants and, therefore, more "enemy" ships to sink.

Once students become more familiar with this type of graphing, shapes can be drawn and plotted on the plane as a way to find more coordinates (ordered pairs).  This is particularly interesting to visual learners.  You can begin to see how area and perimeter problems can be solved using squares in this type of chart.  This type of visual learning can also help when analyzing some more complicated scenarios that are posed in SAT questions, particularly the ones where the test-taker should sketch the diagram himself or herself to solve the problem!

Jenga

A third game that has gained popularity in recent years is Jenga.  Buy small mailing labels at a local store.  Place a label carefully on each Jenga block.  Make sure there are no air holes when placing on the labels as they can affect the stacking of the blocks.  On each block's label, write a single digit from 0 through 9.  Continue on each block the writing of single digits choosing from 0 to 9 until you run out of blocks to write numbers on. 

When stacking the blocks as the rules in the Jenga set you bought explain, you need to pull out a block from the stack to then place it again on the stack.  Numeric points are recorded on paper and are written in pairs.  For the first turn, each player writes one number (the number on the block he or she pulled out of the stack).  For their second turn, each player writes the second number and then the players multiply the two numbers for overall points.  For the third turn, each player writes one number (again, as always, the one pulled from the stack).  For their fourth turn, each player writes the next number and then all players multiply the third and fourth number for overall points.  At the end of the game, players add their series of multiplication answers for their grand totals.  However, the person who made the stack falls (which ends the game) subtracts 100 points from his/her total.  

Monopoly 

If you can find play money (including coins) in a supermarket or pharmacy toy aisle (some crafts stores also have play money), a fun way to play Monopoly and brush up on the all important 10-percent calculation is to play the game with all prices and charges 10 percent higher than listed on the board or on "chance" and "community chest" cards.  Using a calculator to calculate the 10 percent would be fine to start but players should quickly see that the ten percent is easy to figure in their heads.  To enhance further learning at another moment once your players have gotten very comfortable with ten percent, you could try playing with a twenty percent increase in prices/charges and have your students notice that 20 percent is double the value that ten percent of an original number would be.  You will need a lot more singles and you will need coins to play this way, but in real life we use coins, and in real life prices can change by percentages.  Many SAT questions also assess how well students can calculate increasing and decreasing percentage values.

Example:  If a player lands on a property that is listed as a $26 property, 10 percent more in value would be $2.60 more.  The player would add $2.60 to $26.00 to get $28.60, and would need to use play money (along with the Monopoly money that comes with the set) that totals $28.60 for the player to buy that property.  

Good Advice if Trying Any of These Game Modifications/Enhancements:  

If your child would rather look up multiplication values on a multiplication chart than "already know them", this is a reason to rejoice, as using multiplication charts is a great way to learn the values (answers) in multiplication tables. Be glad they are using it!  Many notebooks that you can pick up at local stores have multiplication charts imprinted in them or on them.  Why?  Students learn multiplication facts best when they have access to them. They also learn multiplication much better from charts than from a calculator (Charts visually show the patterns in each table.  For example, you can quickly see that the answers in the four-times table are also in the two-times table, but the four-times table skips every other answer in the two-times table.)  Students see these patterns naturally, but they need to have the charts available in order to see them.  Remember, these are "games" and they are therefore "just for fun" so a child who shows struggles with any of the material involved in playing them can be reminded that "this is not serious.  It's a game."  If you know, for example, that one of your children has memorized the multiplication tables but another one has not, give them each multiplication charts to use individually, so that each one can feel comfortable using one if he or she chooses to do so.  The point is that the more students use multiplication, the more ingrained the multiplication facts become.  Most students in all grade levels including twelfth grade have only some multiplication facts ingrained into their knowledge base of multiplication facts. These games, coupled with some basic understanding of what multiplication is,  could also help introduce multiplication to some children who have not yet had it introduced.

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