{"id":1972,"date":"2019-05-19T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-05-19T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/?p=1972"},"modified":"2019-05-13T18:39:59","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T18:39:59","slug":"conversation-starters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/2019\/05\/19\/conversation-starters\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversation Starters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, the door opens, your little kids rush in from school&#8230;your older kids drag in from school. What next?\u00a0 I know you are curious about their school day but wait! Hold off until they&#8217;ve had a snack, finished their sports practice, had that piano or karate lesson and\/or had a chance to relax or play outside, a chance to decompress.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2036 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/05\/familymeals.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ever asked, &#8220;What did you to at school today?&#8221; and gotten a shrug. Questions <em>may<\/em> get answers once the kidlets are settling in at the dinner table, while you are sharing a story or as you send them off to bed. K.I.S.S.- <strong>K<\/strong>eep <strong>I<\/strong>t <strong>S<\/strong>hort, <strong>S<\/strong>weety. Ask 1 or 2 at the most and let them share whatever part of their day (since breakfast and up to this moment that has meaning or maybe bothered them). It&#8217;s better to let them share than to become an inquisitor. Here&#8217;s the list of possible queries:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What was your favorite part of today?<\/li>\n<li>What was your least favorite part of today?<\/li>\n<li>What funny thing happened today?<\/li>\n<li>What happened in a story you were reading today?<\/li>\n<li>Did you notice a time today when you used math and it wasn&#8217;t even math class?<\/li>\n<li>If you could change one thing today what would it be?<\/li>\n<li>If you were the teacher, what would you have had the class do this afternooon at school?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I remember once my kids asked me what I did today while they were at school. It stopped me in my tracks. That was MY question. Now, what was my answer? I ran through my day and found I remembered nothing. Sure I&#8217;d cleaned up the house, gone to the grocery store and maybe worked on a project, but put on the spot I drew a blank. Kids do as well so save your queries for a time after they have slowed down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, the door opens, your little kids rush in from school&#8230;your older kids drag in from school. What next?\u00a0 I know you are curious about their school day but wait! Hold off until they&#8217;ve had a snack, finished their sports practice, had that piano or karate lesson and\/or had a chance to relax or play\u2026 <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/2019\/05\/19\/conversation-starters\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,21,38,328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engaging-students","category-family","category-support-for-families","category-teacher-student-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1972"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2038,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paddyeger.com\/blog\/educatingamericablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}