Minutes a Day—Mastery for a Lifetime!
Everyone loves games – especially students. There is no better way to capture students’ attention than to say, “Who wants to play a game?” Nearly any educational topic, skill, or concept can be transformed into an engaging activity with game-like qualities. Enter gamification. What is gamification? Gamification is the process of taking principles of a […]
Until four years ago, the only Great Pumpkin I had ever heard of was the one on It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. And then I read about a special breed of pumpkin and the people who grow them. I’m talking about REALLY big pumpkins. Too-big-to-carry pumpkins. World-record pumpkins. There are competitions all over the […]
The Old Farmer’s Almanac tells us the “dog days” begin around July 3 and end August 11 this year. The “dog” they refer to is the dog star, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky after the sun. The ancient Greeks thought the star Sirius looked like the nose of the dog in the constellation […]
Regina, Kim, and Diane (that’s me) work at Simple Solutions, but we’re on vacation right now. We’ve packed our bags and bicycles and headed out on an adventure that, for us, is an entirely new way to travel: bike cruising! This vacation is part cruise since we spend our nights aboard a ship […]
Light the Olympic Fire With the Winter Olympics soon approaching, opportunities to incorporate Olympic themes into the classroom are timely and endless. Sadly, it’s becoming a fact of life that in the teaching world we don’t have much time for “fun stuff” anymore. Activities that are fun must also be valuable, educational, and efficient. Here […]
Not every part of the country gets to celebrate snow with sledding, snowman building, and other outdoor activities, but everyone can catch the winter spirit with stories, lessons, and crafts. The possibilities are endless. Here, if you will, is the tip of the, uh-hem, iceberg. SNOW GLOBE CRAFT You may not know just how affordable […]
We opened our doors to give friends and family a behind-the-scenes look at Simple Solutions, and it was a blast! Since moving into our new building in late February, the Simple Solutions team has grown to love our new offices, print shop, and warehouse spaces. When you love something as much as we love our […]
Did you find one of our rocks?! The Summer Solutions team is hiding rocks all over Northeast Ohio to remind everyone that summer learning can be found everywhere! If you find a rock: Take a picture of the rock! Post it to social media using the hashtag #SSRocks and/or post it in the comments on […]
Let’s talk about poetry! World Poetry Day is March 21st! We know that poetry isn’t always students’ (or teachers’) favorite subject. Oftentimes, poetry can seem difficult to explain or difficult for students to fully understand, especially when dealing with more contemporary poetic forms—those that don’t rhyme or follow easy patterns. But don’t let these […]
It is well-known that if children don’t continue some form of academic engagement over the summer break, they will forget a lot of what they’ve learned during the previous school year. This is often known as the “summer slide.” Unfortunately, because of the “summer slide,” many teachers agree that they often get stuck spending the […]