With the end of the school year and senior year in sight, staying motivated in school can be tough.
But staying focused senior year is crucial—you don’t want to be academically rusty when you start college.
Use these tips to stay on track senior year.
Tip: Play games
Gather your friends and quiz each other on material from your classes. You won’t feel like you’re studying as you’re putting together the game.
You can also form a book club to go over reading from your English class. Spend an afternoon with friends preparing for a literature test by discussing the assigned reading. Have everyone prepare a couple of questions that may appear on the test.
Tip: Help someone else
Find a friend or someone in a lower grade and teach him what you know.
For example, if your younger brother is having trouble with math, set up weekly lessons to review the material with him. Find understandable ways to explain the information and come up with examples and mock tests for him to practice.
You’ll not only be doing a nice thing for him, but you’ll also be solidifying the information for yourself.
There is no better way to learn something than by teaching it to someone else. If you’ve got a tough history exam coming up and need to go over lots of names and dates, then pick up the phone and call a relative who is curious about that historical period.
Tip: Make a goal sheet
If you’ve got three months left in the school year and you want to improve your grade in Spanish, then keep track of how your score improves.
Remember, focus on the positive and don’t just dwell on the negative. When you’ve completed all your homework for the week, put it in your calendar. Or if you have finished a big project, mark it down. And if you got back an improved test grade, circle the accomplishment with a smiley face.
By keeping track of your successes, you will be propelled to continue with the progress.
Tip: Use your environment
Studying from textbooks can get boring. Encountering the same information in real life can make the subject matter exciting.
Take a few minutes to think about how you can review what you’ve learned. For example, go see a performance at a local theater. A live performance is entertaining and will help you better understand the plays you have been assigned to read in English class.
Or take what you learned in science class and head over to the local science or natural history museum.
Tip: Pat yourself on the back
Once in a while, take a moment to reflect on your accomplishments. Review your goal calendar and see how far you’ve come. Evaluate the progress you made during the year and think toward the following school year.
If you’ve completed your work and reached all your goals, then give yourself a well-deserved break. A pickup game of baseball or trip to the mall on Saturday is a necessary reward if you’ve stayed on track!
Alexandra Mayzler is president and founder of Thinking Caps Tutoring (ThinkingCapsTutoring.com), a comprehensive educational company that offers one-to-one tutoring, test preparation, skills coaching and summer enrichment programs.
