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Ashley Tutors believes that learning can be fun and educational at the same time! With this in mind, Ashley Tutors is offering one lucky family the chance to win a pair of tickets to Wolf Trap’s International Children’s Festival this September!

The Arts Council of Fairfax County presents the International Children’s Festival ­– the premier international arts education experience in the U.S. — featuring the exciting young U.S. dance sensation TAP KIDS; young performers from Georgia, Serbia, and Spain; over 400 local artists and performing groups representing a diverse range of art forms, genres, and cultures; interactive arts and education tents and more!

Discover the Arts & Technology Pavilion, witness artists and performances close-up at the Global Art & Rhythm Tent and the Arts & Crafts Market, experience international foods, and participate in dozens of interactive educational activities at multiple stages and tents around the park.

Visit www.internationalchildrensfestival.org for more information.

For your chance to win a pair of tickets, please email your name, address, phone number and children’s’ ages to contest@ashleytutors.com. A winner will be selected at random on August 1^st, 2009.

While lots of us have had experience with bullying and know how painful it can be, kids today face challenges earlier generations never saw. Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook facilitate bullying outside school and around the clock. When talking with parents of my students who want to learn more about issues impacting their child, I tell them that the biggest factor preventing a student from focusing on academics may not be lack of interest or understanding, but social issues like bullying.

Talk with your child about bullying and offer them support. Some tips:

• · Communicate with your children every day. Parents are often the last to know their child is being bullied (or being the bully). Create open communication, where you know things about your child’s friends and who he or she interacts throughout the school day. You are much more likely to be aware of problems if you regularly talk about social issues.
• · Get involved. Speak to school officials if you believe bullying is occurring and learn what steps will be taken to stop the problem. Schools that approach the problem with ongoing educational programs about respect and diversity are usually more successful than school’s with zero tolerance or punishment-driven policies.
• · Understand cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a relatively new concept to many adults but is a fast growing problem area. Cyber bullies need to be taught that they are responsible for their actions, even online. Studies show that the risk of cyberbullying goes up with the more online exposure a child has, so consider limiting online time and monitoring usage by younger children.

I encourage you to visit two online sources with more information about bullying:

• The Bullying Information Center: tips and advice on how to approach bullying conversations with your child
• Stop Bullying Now: animated webisodes and games for younger children

Remember…we can all help put an end to bullying!

Source: Education.com

I am here with another great Web site for the students in your life and one that we use all the time with our students at Ashley Tutors.

As adults, when we want to learn more about something, we have all been programmed to say, “Google it.” What are kids to do? Where can they go to investigate a subject that we know is safe? Here is what our tutors have been suggesting:

http://www.kidsclick.org/

This site was designed and is maintained by a group of librarians who were concerned about Internet safety and specifically search engines. These fine people developed a user friendly search engine that will be valuable to your student and direct them to age appropriate web sites. One tutor and his students forwarded me this neat fact from the site — did you know that Benjamin Franklin advertised the first pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729? I learned it at www.kidsclick.org!

The more and more we talk with parents all over Montgomery County, Md. and the Washington, D.C. area interested in Ashley Tutors, we are finding out that most students are very smart and motivated – organization in school is the main concern. During the first session, most of our tutors help their students get their binders, backpacks and even lives organized. Whether it be color coding their agendas, making new folders for each subject, or simply throwing away old papers — organization is something that is not taught in school but is vital to every student’s success. At Ashley Tutors, we recognize that and I think it is very important to help all of our students get organized!

AND, IT IS IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE TOO! So, here is how you can be more organized as a parent, at work or just surfing the net! I found this very cool site: www.mystickies.com. Here’s how it works — ever go to a web site and want to read an article on it but you don’t have time — put a “sticky” note on it, tag it with a name and come back to it. No need to bookmark the whole page, print the article out or put a sticky note on your computer screen — this site does it for you. The site even organizes your tags so they are easy to find! I usually don’t add tools like this to my computer because I am not computer genius (and I don’t play one at Ashley Tutors either) — but this is easy to use and super helpful!

Good Monday morning to everybody! I hope all is well and y’all enjoyed the weekend. While I spent a lot of time tutoring, I also spent some quality time checking out the Web site of our good friend Brian Cheek of A+ Home Tutors. Brian is based in San Francisco and has a similar outlook on tutoring and education. Plus, he has a dedicated and experienced team of tutors — just like Ashley Tutors.

We both share the same views on communication — which is why we both have journals! Take some time and check out his entry called, Little CEOs: Are kids too busy? Brian is seeing the same trend in the Bay Area that we are seeing here — between school, after school activities, students are working 60 hours a week and are as busy as CEOs! He writes about how his tutors are helping their students/CEOs stay ahead of the game even when it seems time is not on their side.

We have busy students and also supportive parents all over Montgomery County, Md. and the Washington, D.C. area who are turning to Ashley Tutors to help us keep their students organized, motivated and reaching their potential. Ashley Tutors is happy to help, and just like Brian’s strong team, our “tutors can take a load off the student, and a load off parents as well.”

We are very excited to be partnering with and jamming to the music of Takoma Park’s Echo Boom.  These guys have a bit of everything when it comes to music with their unique sound that keeps your body and mind moving all of the time.  On your winter vacation, why not make the jouney to Jammin Java in Vienna, VA to see Echo Boom in action.  Since it is a venue for all ages,  we expect to see some of our younger students and even Ashley will be out enjoying the tunes.  The folks at Jammin Java called Echo Boom, “Educated, meaningful, yet approachable lyrics; soulful, driving, yet simple melodies coming from a variety of instruments and voices, laid out over rhythm that is sure to keep you moving.”

So, you must be asking, why is a tutoring team working with a band?  Simple – we all believe in education!  From reading, to writing, to math, can’t forget chemistry and biology, and all the way to French, Echo Boom’s members believe in the importance of education.  They all graduated high school in Montgomery County and then went onto earn college degrees too.  The boys always wanted to start the band and be the rock stars, but they kept education as their number one priority.  Our tutors had amazing dreams too and always knew education was the key to chasing their dreams.  Some wanted to be writers, teachers, scientists and an American Idol hopeful – but before they could get to their their career of choice, they had to get an education first!

These guys not only play great music and are great people, they are great proponents of education.  Come out tonight and support these great friends of Ashley Tutors!  Plus, we will have some awesome announcements about our partnership with Echo Boom soon (can you say, free concert for all ages…shhh…)

Jammin Java in Vienna, VA on Tuesday, December 30 at 8:30pm. All ages are welcome so come out and support a group of guys that support us too!!!!!!!

http://ca-es.facebook.com/pages/The-Echo-Boom/44998343200

Time and PlaceStart Time: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 10:00pm
Location: Jammin Java
Street: 227 Maple Ave E
City/Town: Vienna, VA

Contact InfoPhone: 703.255.1566
Email: http://www.jamminjava.com/

Did you know that music lessons can help improve the memory of children? When the guys from B&B Music World, a D.C. based, in-home music lesson service told me that – it was music to my ears!

That is why I am proud to announce that we have formed a special partnership with B&B Music World. Through our new friendship, we are going to encourage our students to work with B&B to learn awesome music and improve their memories (that will help them in school too). And, since their team is a lot like ours at Ashley Tutors – energetic, experienced and always looking to make learning more fun they will get to learn in a 1-1 setting, which is exactly the same successful experience they have at Ashley Tutors.

Go see and hear for yourself! Check out our new friends at their website. Be sure to watch their free music lessons, too! Don’t forget to read this great article all about music and memory.

In November, we are really going to begin rocking and rolling with B&B Music World. So, listen up because we have some terrific contests and prizes planned for our students!

Did you know that music lessons can help improve the memory of children? When the guys from B&B Music World, a D.C. based, in-home music lesson service told me that – it was music to my ears!

That is why I am proud to announce that we have formed a special partnership with B&B Music World. Through our new friendship, we are going to encourage our students to work with B&B to learn awesome music and improve their memories (that will help them in school too). And, since their team is a lot like ours at Ashley Tutors – energetic, experienced and always looking to make learning more fun they will get to learn in a 1-1 setting, which is exactly the same successful experience they have at Ashley Tutors.

Go see and hear for yourself! Check out our new friends at their website. Be sure to watch their free music lessons, too! Don’t forget to read this great article all about music and memory.

In November, we are really going to begin rocking and rolling with B&B Music World. So, listen up because we have some terrific contests and prizes planned for our students!

Hello all:

As much as we think our team can tutor the presidential candidates in a thing or two, we know that it might be too late to help Obama or McCain.  But, it is never too late for us to help students in the Washington, D.C. area in anything from reading, to writing, to SAT prep, and even college essays.

So, during this political season, we created a political spoof on the seemingly endless political ads to show students, and especially high school students, that we have tutors who are not too old or too inexperienced — but just the right age to understand any student’s work and any student’s world!

Check it out and please send the commerical around (who knows, maybe we will get it to McCain or Obama?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfU8jb-Vths

I can’t tell you how proud our team is of Demetric Evans on the Washington Redskins.  We partnered with #92 last May to promote the importance of education and now he is educating the NFL about the importance of Demetric Evans.  See, I have my own personal tutor to teach me about football and I learned that Demetric is one of the big reasons the Cowboys couldn’t run on our defense this weekend as the Redskins ran over Dallas.  Demetric is a key defensive run stopper (to quote my tutor)!

Well, last May when Demetric talked about education, he was able to impress even the smallest of Ashley’s friends (check out the cute picture) and be sure to see the video of Demetric meeting Ashley Tutors students!  Now, he is impressing all football fans in our town.  Demetric said he wants to tutor for Ashley Tutors — maybe in the offseason?  He might be #92 for the Redskins, he is #1 on our team!

Well, if I was able to give out an award like that — say the Ashley Tutors Award for Best Book Ever — I would have to say, The Giving Tree. Still a classic and still my favorite! And that got me thinking, what are the Top 10 children’s books of all time? Since we are a team of tutors, I talked with a few other instructors and here are a few books that kept making the Top 10 list:
The Giving Tree

Wemberly Worried

The Mitten

Owl Moon

I’m Gonna Like Me

Chrysanthamum

First Day Jitters

The Dog Who Cried Wolf

The Relatives Came

My Teacher for President

Two other books that made honorable mention, according to our tutors, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs and Pirates Dont Change Diapers. While these are the Top 10, if you go to our web site at www.ashleytutors.com, you can go shopping with me and find these books and a bunch of other fun stuff! Thats right — go to A+ Shopping With Ashley and I will show you all of the latest and greatest toys, books and games for children and even adults!

Don’t go yet though — we want you to tutor us on what are the best children’s books ever…according to you. Please let us know through your comments:-)