Unlock Your Parent Potential
The most powerful learning tool your child has is already at home.
It’s cheaper than a tutor and much more engaging than a learning app.
It’s you.
Easy For Parents
Fun for Kids
Aligned to the Academic Standards
Parent Potential will empower you to play a confident, meaningful role in your child’s academics. Career educational leader and father, Mr.M, will guide you with the best practices he has picked up from educators for you to use in your everyday life. This will not add another thing to your plate, but transform the time you already have together. All it takes is 20 minutes to get started on your next adventure…
What Parents Are Saying
“Like so many parents in COVID, we found ourselves trying to teach our kids at home, we had mild success and spent most of our time just keeping the kids quiet so we could work from home.
My wife convinced me to ask for help.
Mr.M explained a few basic concepts of teaching and learning to me. I couldn’t believe how much confidence that tiny little bit of knowledge gave me and helped the kids become more intrinsically motivated to learn.
It was like flipping a switch and we never looked back!
— 5th Grade Parent, El Segundo
“While we haven’t had any issues with our son’s grades, we noticed him finishing his homework too quickly and his enthusiasm for school beginning to wane.
We reached out to Mr. M, and he gave us some great family project ideas and cool routines like CarTalk. Now, our son can show us what he’s learning at school, and we can join in on the fun!”
—- 3rd Grade Parent, Los Angeles
"Mr. M’s 'learning target' framework takes jargon-laden standards and translates them for families so students take ownership of their learning. It helped our school regularly outperform district test scores. Parent Potential will beautifully expand this crucial connection between parents and schools!"
— Teacher and Parent of 2nd grader, Woodland Hills“I spend so much time in the car with one or both boys, and sometimes struggle with how to move beyond the day-to-day chat into something that really gets them thinking. The day after the CarTalk workshop, I sparked up a debate about which Mario character was the best (lol you gotta start somewhere) and both boys were instantly SO into it – animated, engaged and excited to make their cases! We’ve had a few more moments like that since, which has been really fun.”
—- Kinder and 2nd grade Mom, Los Angeles
Our 5 Routines
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sing an old school teacher framework of “I do”
”We Do” “You Do” you will be able to model your thinking out loud and prompt your student to become independent on certain skills. -
You may have already built a space to read stories together as they fall asleep. Using this routines, you will develop questions and prompts that siblings can even ask each other as they build their higher level analysis of literature and informational texts.
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Using principals of Socratic Seminar, you will be able to use careful questioning and prompting to develop understandings of certain concepts. Sometimes these are around bedtime stories, but sometimes they make for a great car talk.
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This might be the most fast moving routine of them all. It is important to find your preference, some parents enjoy using the encyclopedia or dictionary, some prefer Google, and others want to model how to prompt AI resources. These are all options within these routine cards.
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You speak, they listen and write. From letter names and sounds to writing grammatically complex sentences, there are many skills covered by this routine that help your student be the best reader and writer they can be.
You will witness a deeper bond with your child as you engage in their educational journey together. You'll notice their confidence soar in the classroom as they become more comfortable with concepts that may have previously seemed daunting.
Problem of the Month
Each month, we will share a family problem from our “project card” selection. We encourage our Parent Potential Family to upload a screenshot of your scratch paper work as exemplars for our next visitors. Here is our first challenge:
📊 Taking Inventory
Goal: Estimate, count, organize data, and compare quantities using graphs and tally marks.
CA Standards: NBT1.1, OA1.5, OA1.2, MD1.3, NBT1.3
Day 1 Estimating Quantities (CarTalk)
Use CarTalk to choose which 4-5 collections to use as part of a house inventory. We want to find items that would have quantities between 20 and 100:
LEGO pieces
Coins
Baseball cards
crayons
socks
toy cars
Ask estimation questions such as:
“Do you think you have more or less than 100 coins?”
“How many more LEGO pieces than socks do you have?”
“About how many socks do you think there are in the house?”
Write estimates in the notebook when you return home.
Day 2 Counting & Tally Marks (Modeling)
Gather the collections and count the actual amounts.
Model using the note book to make tally marks grouped by 5 then count by 5 to get your totals.
Model other methods like making piles of 10 and counting by 10s for each.
Create a data table showing the estimated and actual amounts together.
Day 3 Creating Bar Graphs
Use graph paper to create a bar graph to compare these amounts. Depending on the number of items you have tallied, decide on a scale for your vertical axis. For example: 1 square = 5 objects
I DO Model graphing the first total of items and estimate.
Use a ruler to make a line at the correct amounts and draw the bars
WE DO the rest of the amounts and estimates in the same way
Model how to use the Bar Graph to compare the data by asking and answering questions like:
Which item had the greatest amount?
Which had the fewest?
Which estimate was the closest to the actual?
How To Get Started
The Learning Audit $150
60-minute Parent Potential virtual consultation to develop a personalized Routine Roadmap based on your child’s needs and your schedules.
The Next Level Monthly Mentorship ($650/semester)
60-minute Parent Potential virtual consultation to develop a personalized Routine Roadmap based on your child’s needs and your schedules
Two 30 min progress monitoring sessions per subsequent month, including report card review
Direct SMS and email support
COMING THIS SUMMER!!!
The Parent Potential Toolkit:
Self paced training modules on 5 Routines
A set of Learning Target Cards
A Learning Notebook
These resources help you support, introduce, and explain every Common Core standard for your child’s grade level in a way that feels natural for you.
With the purchase of the kit, you will have access through a QR code to a wealth of training videos, resources, and tips from teachers at your child’s grade level.
Professional Relationship & Conflict of Interest Disclosure:
Parents’ Potential is a private educational consulting service independent of any school district or educational institution. This consultation is provided solely in my capacity as a private consultant. Please note that this service is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to my official duties as a school administrator with the Culver City Unified School District. This engagement does not constitute a school-based evaluation, nor does it guarantee specific placement, grades, or services within any public or private school system. By proceeding, you acknowledge that this is a private professional agreement.
Join a movement in the making!
Follow Parent Potential on one of these platforms and get insights from Mr.M that can transform your family’s life. There are so many moments each day as parents we can maximize with some tips and tricks from educators.
Virtual Workshops
Insight Articles:
You are the sunshine for your little flower.
Coming soon
The Parent Potential Toolkit
This summer, we plan to release our Toolkit in a limited supply. Our goal is to one day this will give access to the Parent Potential for many more families throughout the country. If you are interested in pre-ordering these, please click below.
Here is how it will work:
Choose a card
Use the notebook to make a few “appointments” for the month with your child. Use the routine icons on the front of the card to select what you both feel like doing.
It can be more efficient to sort out cards by the routines and place piles where you will use them the most!
Work on it
Use the back of the card to guide you through the scripted activity. Each card leaves lots of room to take this into new places and make it your own.
The QR code on the front of the card will take you to a grade level support page with further training videos for the routines and activities at this age.
If you are using a Project card, make sure you follow the series in order (ie Card A, B and C)
Celebrate!
After your 20 minutes together, soak in the moment. You have connected with something your child will see (or has already seen) in class.
We recommend you build a special box or place to put the cards you finished and pull the next sticker on the puzzle in your notebook.
Help is there
If you run into confusion, you are welcome to click on the Learn More button on our website. Don’t be shy to share any confusion with your teacher, as this information allows them to target their time with your child in class!
