About Smart First Graders

Our Mission

Smart First Graders provides parents and teachers with games and hands-on activities that help kids understand tricky concepts, master new skills, and have fun learning.

Our goal is to help create a world in which:

• kids are taught in a way that helps them get it
• teachers can reach kids of all learning styles
• parents have a fun and easy way to help their kids, and
• learning is fun!

We Believe...

Learning should be fun. When something is fun, kids want to keep doing it. We show teachers and parents how to help kids hold on to a spirit of exploration and discovery through their school years.

Games help kids learn. To master a skill, kids need lots of practice. When learning is made into a game, kids naturally want to "play" again and again. This gives new information time to sink in.

If a child can't understand something, we probably need to teach it in a different way. Hands-on activities use many parts of the brain to maximize the chances for learning.

Parents are teachers, too. Whether helping with homework, practicing math facts, or homeschooling, parents play a huge role in children's success. We give parents tools to make a big difference in their kids' learning.

About Kelli

Kelli Pearson is the founder of Growing Smart Kids and author of Miss Brain's Cool Math Games. She has spent over 20 years coming up with fun games and activities that help kids love learning.

Smart First Graders has been a labor of love, created to help parents and teachers give kids the strongest possible start in school.

Kelli currently lives in Santa Clara, CA where she gives teacher trainings, parent workshops, and does classroom visits as a local author. She is working on her latest website, www.GrowingSmartKids.com, for kids in grades K-5.

When she's not teaching or writing, you can usually find her traipsing about in the mountains or lounging in her hammock with a good book.

Here are a few ways to stay in touch:

Follow us on Twitter.

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Get our newsletter with free activities and games.

Send Kelli an email.