Tips For Studying History!

hi!!! i’ve seen lots of posts going around about how being a studyblr only means to have cute and expensive stationery and i know that lots of you don’t want or can’t spend that much money on stationery and i thought that doing your own stuff is waaaaay more fun and cheaper than buying it!!! (and it’s so original! no one will have the same notebook as you!) picture from here

dorm

dorm decor by @notquitenightingale 

dorm room masterpost pt1 and pt2 by @studypops

46 cheap ways to decor your room

33 DIY ideas / 25 / 18

15 cute af ideas

16 even cuter ideas!!

10 DIY for lazy ppl

20 DIY DESKS!

stationery

school supplies pt1 and  pt2 by @gracelearns

custom notebook covers by @studyquirk

make your own syllabible by @xannerz

map compositon book cover

pen loop! (rlly useful) by @studyingalpacas

make shift tabs by @vellichoristic

decorate white boxes! by @wodka-aunt

13 stationery ideas!

17 DIY projects

very very cute DIY

really nice DIY

10 DIY ideas

10 DIY pencil cases!!

20 backpack and pencil cases!!

15 pencil case tutorials

20 DIY pouches

super cute DIY pencil case

organize your binders

DIY cardboard binder

stylish af binders

11 DIY notebooks + another one!

17 cute ways to cover your books!

10 tutorials to make unique books!

15 ways to personalize your pens!

DIY calligraphy pens!

Flower pens!!!!!

+ my printables masterpost

treat yo self

25 relaxing spa ideas

so many face masks

a whole page on DIY beauty

17 DIY beauty products

50 DIY from pinterest!

27 hacks!!

10 DIY treatments

40 genius beauty hacks

+ my food masterpost

{ 06.09.15 } » did someone say making posters?

Giving Amazing Presentations!

These are my tips for giving really good presentations in class! It will be slightly more geared towards history, english, etc. and some of the tips might not apply to science classes, but hopefully this helps.! 

Presenting Well: 

Know what you are talking about. When you are giving a presentation, you should be an expert in what you are talking about. Study the topic like it’s your job. 

If you are working with a partner, still make sure you know it all! When I do partner presentations, this is what I do. Decide who is going to do each part of the presentation. This is the part that you should know backwards and forwards. But! You should also have a good amount of knowledge about your partner’s topics. If one of you falters or forgets something, the other can back them up. Also, this helps to make you look more cohesive and less like you just split it in half. 

Be able to answer questions. This ties into my last point. If a classmate or a teacher asks you a question and you have no idea, it doesn’t look good. You should know more information than just what you’re presenting. 

Don’t read from notes. If you stand up and just read from a page, your class might as well be reading this information from a textbook. If you can, don’t use any notes at all. If you absolutely need them, make them super short jot notes, not full sentence pages of notes. 

Organize your slides in a way that makes sense. Start with background information, then state your thesis, then get into your arguments and more detailed information. Don’t put your thesis at the end, or skip over the background information.

Include a conclusion at the end of your presentation. A presentation is basically a verbal essay, so you should be including all of these parts. Restate your thesis and quickly sum up the reasons that you talked about in the presentation. This will help everyone in your audience to understand what you discussed. 

Dress up a bit and try to look really good. I personally believe that a lot of confidence can come from the outside. Looking good and being comfortable with what you’re wearing will make you more confident. Also, a lot of teachers want to see that you made an effort to look professional for a presentation. 

Talk to the class like you’re having a conversation. Obviously, you don’t want to be too relaxed and seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. But it is really helpful to use your normal language and tone, throw in a couple jokes, and just act normal! It’s always really weird when someone turns into a robot when they are giving a presentation, so try to avoid that if possible. 

Practice in front of someone! This will help you avoid looking awkward and help you go at a normal speed. Also, they can tell you if there was a part that they didn’t understand or anything like that. Try to choose someone objective, that won’t lie to make you feel better. 

Time out your presentation. You have to time out your presentations before you do them. It’s not fair to other presenters and to your class if you go way over the time limit. Time yourself reading through the presentation, then again when you present in front of someone. Maybe leave a bit of time at the end for questions, too. 

Making Good Visuals: 

Use something simple. Unless your teacher suggests otherwise, just use slides or something simple like slides. Unless you are really good with these kinds of programs, when you try and do something like a video or a Prezi, its way more likely that it will look unfinished or crazy. I personally hate Prezi, because it’s way too hard to follow. 

Use a built in slides theme. Again, this might not apply to you if you’re really into graphic design, but for the most part, stick to this rule. When you try and mix your own colours and patterns and fonts, it can tend to look really busy. Try to stick with a preset theme. 

Do not have full sentences. You should not have more than 10 words on your entire slide, if that. A really good photo, political cartoon, graph, or other graphic says way more than an exact copy of the words you’re already saying. Your slides are a visual to back you up, not the main focus. If your class has to take notes on your presentation, this might not apply.

Don’t use a white background. Pure white makes your eyes hurt. Change the background colour to a really pale grey, one shade lower than white. This will help your audience focus on the slides better. 

Make sure your visuals are working. Ask your teacher if you can double check that your slides are compatible with their computer, or at least check it on a computer at your school. Especially if your school uses Mac and you use Windows (or vice versa). Also, check that your videos and audio work! 

5 Tips when it comes to Mind Mapping

1) Decide on your paper size Before you start writing anything it’s really important to work out what size paper you want to do your mindmap on. Be it A3, A4, A5 or any other size you can think of, deciding this early on will make things much easier in the long run and leave you with a much more organised mind map

2) Work out the basics Before you actually start writing anything it’s a really good idea to work out the basics of your mind map. What type of bubble do you want the title to be in? Spiky or a cloud or just a plain circle? What kind of lines to you want leading off from it? Arrows or just plain lines? Straight or curved? Taking 30 seconds to work these out before you start will make everything much easier in the long run and leave you with a much neater and better organised mind map

3) Choose what to write with This part is all down to personal preference. Do you prefer writing in a plain colour and then highlighting later? Do you want each section in a different colour? Felt tips or biros? Fineliners or pencils? This is the time when you can think about what you’re most comfortable writing with and what’s going to make it easiest for you to retain the information 

4) Add pictures and diagrams Adding little drawings to aid your explanations is a really great way to help you remember what you write. You don’t have to be good at art to make this work, just add a few little diagrams here and there and you’ll be surprised how much more easily you retain the information

5) Have fun with it You may be looking at a picture of a mind map online and saying to yourself ‘that’s exactly what I want mine to look like’ but in reality that’ll never happen. You’ll never manage to get a mind map that looks exactly the same as someone else’s and in all honesty that would be a bit boring. Instead just get stuck in and create your own unique masterpiece

German vocabulary list: Colors

rot (red)

rosa/pink (pink)

blau (blue)

hellblau (light blue)

dunkelblau (dark blue)

grün (green)

gelb (yellow)

orange (orange)

braun (brown)

beige (beige)

violett (violet)

lila (purple)

weiß  (white)

grau (grey)

schwarz (black)

8.30.15// Anatomy and Physiology body system flow chart

yay, my first masterpost !! it’s all about playlists i love to listen to while i study !! i hope you get some use out of it !!

instrumental

focus and study

what do u mean u dont like classical?

focus.

sit down + revise

classing it up

classical.

the universe’s background score

gaming, movies, tv, and anime

DETERMINATION

video game ost

running

PAUSE:

puella magi

sinnoh, pt. 1

animal crossing new leaf

study your little heart out

empowering

bad grls do it well

the female mastermind

CAPRICORN 

she’s a rebel

werkin girls

magical girls represent

eyeliner so sharp it’ll slit your throat

good vibes

a hopeful new year

indie love

i’m good, i’m good, i’m good

goodmorning!!!!

flour(s) in your hair

i wanna get better!!!!

the kids aren’t alright;

and that’s it !! thank you for reading and once again, i hope you get something from it !!

Back to School: Your Help Guide to Waking up Early

1. Set your alarm for waking up early, a week or more before school starts. This will help you get into the habit of waking up earlier and you will ease yourself into it so that by the first day back you can wake up feeling refreshed instead of grumpy 

2. Keep your phone away from you when you sleep… on the other side of the room if possible or maybe inside the drawer of your bedside table. This forces you to actually wake up and be attentive in order to turn off that alarm instead of just being able to roll over and tapping snooze. 

3. Get out of your bed and open the curtains or blinds to let sunlight in, it will energize you and again force you to wake up. Plus, who doesn’t like watching the warm rays of the rising sun, if you are a nature lover or you just enjoy watching the sunrise this will even help you start your day on a positive and productive note.

4. Try to set yourself a regimen, I know this is hard because of all the homework and assignments and jobs  or extracurriculars that accumulate over the school year but if you put in the effort to set yourself a regular sleep time each night you will definitely see the results. 

5. Plan the night before. If there’s anything that you can get done fairly quickly at night so that you have more time to do things in the morning instead of rushing yourself because you’re rampaging through the house trying to find the pair of jeans that you thought was in your closet. The benefit of this is that your subconcious and concious mind will both feel at ease knowing that you are more relaxed about the day to come and it will allow for a better sleep which in turn will help you wake up on time.

Do you guys have any tips for waking up earlier in the morning for school? Reply to this post! 

xo 

Achieving your full academic potential: Things to Avoid Doing

Things you may want to avoid doing in the future. 

 Doing, wait, not doing these things always works for me. 

Staying up late. 

 Sleep is yes.  And as my speech coach puts it “there are only so many all nighters a person can pull before they just can’t”.  Not only will staying up uber-late make the next day a battle between you an a surprisingly pillow-like desktop, if you’re tired, your work probably won’t be the your best.

Over-scheduling. 

 It’s easier to look at a schedule with 3-4 assignments than it is to look at one with 9-10.  When scheduling, if you have a plethora of assignments, prioritize.  Write down the most important assignments, and leave any others off the page or in the margins.  You only have so many hours in the day and it’s better to complete the most important tasks than none at all.

Pro-tip: The Pareto Principle.  The Pareto principle revolves around the 80%-20% ratio.  Allow me to explain, if you have 10 pieces of work, there are probably only two of them that will take up 80% of the work.  And 8 of them that will take up 20% of the work.  The key to prioritizing is finding those two assignments (or however many = 20% in your workload) and doing them first

Working in bed or laying down.

 NONONONONONONONONONO.  This is how “cat-naps” happen.  You swear that you’re going to get straight to work and then your phone on the bedside table lights up.  It’s too hard to organize a book, a notebook, and a laptop on a bed without moving the laptop off of your lap.  So why not check it?  

Working in bed helps the boogeyman grow under it.

Over-working.  

If you take on more than you can handle, you will not get the results you want.  It’s perfectly alright to challenge yourself.  In fact, it’s great.  But, there is a difference between being ambitious and stressing yourself out.  If it’s too much, go back to the Pareto principle and prioritize. 

Drinking excessive amounts of coffee and energy drinks. (Especially in the afternoon.)  

One (maybe two, if you ordered a tall) cups of coffee in the morning is fine.  But in the afternoon or the evening, stick to exercise, healthy snacks, and naps.  Sugary energy drinks as well as coffee that contain caffeine can speed up your heart rate, cause stress, and irregular breathing patterns.  If you become addicted to caffeine these things will accelerate and can end up hurting you detrimentally.

Over-using productivity apps.  

Productive apps are awesome, if used correctly, don’t abuse them.  It was difficult for me to use productivity apps on my phone at first because the other things on my phone would distract me.  If you plan to use productivity apps on you phone and computer make sure that you have the self-control needed o use them properly.

Tumblr. - I’m only half kidding

Those are the general ones, these are a bit more subject specific

Math/science

Falling behind. 

 In other classes falling behind is not recommended, but is usually fixable by reading a few chapters or asking a friend for notes.  Because of arithmetic’s complex nature that relies not only on facts, but applying them it is very difficult to master one a concept while you’re supposed to be mastering another.  Often, learning one key concept can help you with many other assignments, not learning key concepts can make those other assignments 10x harder.

Receiving low homework scores.  

In all of the math classes I’ve been in, the homework scores were more of your grade than your test homework.  Always turn in your homework, even if it feels impossible, try your best, and never leave your paper blank.  Even if you got all of the answers wrong, many teachers will give you serious credit for trying and failing rather than just failing.

Learn everything from the teacher. 

 There are a plethora of online math resources that are awesome, and math teachers usually only teach one method of solving a problem.  Try Khan Academy , For Dummies, or IXL.  Or look around a bit, there are a lot of other great sites, those are just my favorites.

Learn everything. (This is usually for science.) 

 In science (especially in biology and Earth sciences.) you are introduced to a myriad of concepts and vocabulary words that might seem like too much to memorize.  Don’t.  Look at what your teacher puts emphasis on and memorize that. Also, if you are using a textbook, there is a good chance that the textbook is filled with notes on the ‘key concepts’ or learning requirements for each chapter.  These are also things that you should attempt to memorize.

English/writing/history/ other humanities

Not develop an opinion. (Especially in history) 

 If there’s anything a english/ writing/ history teacher loves, it’s an opinionated student.  Textbooks give you facts and figures, and you can interpret them however you want.  So, do just that.  This will show your teacher not only that you are interested in his or her subject, but that you are engaged in the material that they gave you.

Ignore teacher comments. (No matter how small.) 

 It isn’t fun to read nit-picky comments about your work.  Especially on your writing.  But look at them.  Even if you receive a good grade on a paper, applying corrections on your next one will ensure that you get a better grade the next time.  

Staying quiet in class.  

I understand that for some people this one is hard, for some people this one is practically impossible.  But teachers love it.  If you can, voice your opinion and answer questions in class as frequently as possible.  I’ve even received extra credit for being verbally engaged in class more than other students.

Not trying to learn everything.  

This one is a lot like the ‘not ignoring teacher comments’.  A lot of information slips through the cracks (especially in english)  that pops back up on exams.  Because most of what is learned in an english class is not drilled into you like it would be in a math or science class, to do well, you have to drill yourself.  I’ve been told the difference between ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ plenty of times, but I didn’t truly learn it until this year when I had to study it for an exam.

Pro-tip: Don’t challenge your teachers.  They determine your grades.  Momentary satisfaction is not worth a bad grade.

Hope this was useful!

Today’s notes!