Meet Wilfred, Quinton, Karla, Fernando, and a host of others who attended a recent EdSuccess workshop at Live Oak School with their parents. Wilfred was the smallest of a group of boys who were showing parents how they could measure who was the tallest, middle and shortest in a group. Although he reached his arms over his head as high as he could get them, his little head still didn’t reach the chins of the other two boys. I gave him a hug and promised he grow up as tall as they were in another couple of years.

Wilfred was also in the brown-eyed children’s group when we were doing statistics. The statistics included how many brown eyed children there were in comparison to blue and green-eyed children. Children gathered in their groups of other children with their same eye color then looked around to see how many of them were there. Seven brown-eyed children looked at each other, while one blue-eyed child looked into the eyes of one green-eyed child. One brown-eyed little boy tried hard to squeeze in next to his blue-eyed brother, but the facts remained. He couldn’t change his eye color so he stayed with his brown-eyed group to be counted.

The kids played games while their parents listened and shared activities they could do at home with their children. Checkers, crazy eights, dominoes, and chutes and ladders kept everyone’s interest. Once everyone enjoyed the play, we moved on to other fun games-ones that could help with school activities. Reading and math games took on as much importance as the game of checkers.

Teachers play too. Two teachers joined the parents and children in their games. Afterward they were excited about the possibilities of what kind of difference playing reading and math games could do for the children in their classroom.

Parent involvement makes a difference. Every book and workshop I write or give has the same message. Your child does well at what you pay attention to. So what will you pay attention to this week?