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Summer Tutoring

July 9th, 2014

Imagine if each year you allowed three consecutive months to pass without ever considering diet or exercise; the result would be low energy, an underperforming immune system, and many other undesirable consequences. Just like any other part of the human body, the brain requires regular attention and maintenance to perform to its potential.  Students often struggle to get back into the swing of academics after a long summer break, as their brains have been stagnant for weeks on end.  Here at Study Hut Tutoring, we make sure to keep our students sharp through the summer time, allowing an easier entrance into the new school year and helping them to start strong and maintain that impressive GPA throughout the course of the academic year.

Summer tutoring offers many benefits to students.  For some, summer tutoring serves as a valuable time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the previous school year, and to clear up and solidify conceptual understanding that they will need to progress to more advanced courses.  For others, summer tutoring serves as an opportunity to learn new material before being exposed to it in the classroom, giving them more confidence and an easier route to an “A”.  And still for others, we help with writing enrichment, summer reading requirements, and preparation for the Fall SAT and ACT.

Of course, we at Study Hut Tutoring also appreciate the value of leisure time.  Our founders, Rob and Sean, along with our tutors have been making the most of this summer by spending plenty of time on and in the ocean, be it to surf, spearfish, or boat across the channel to Catalina Island.  We will be seeing off our managerial staff on an annual leadership trip at the end of July, and look forward to building an even stronger team to help our students through the remainder of the summer and next school year.

If you would like more information regarding our summer tutoring services, or you would like to sign up your son or daughter for summer help to prepare for the upcoming school year, please feel welcome to contact us at info@studyhut.com.  Enjoy your summer!

A Perfect Tutoring session

March 19th, 2014
“A perfect tutoring session is a thing of beauty. There’s no formula for recreating it every time, but it happens more and more often at Study Hut these days. Tutors and tutees are in mid-season form by this time in the year – the early-semester inertia long past and the end-of-semester burnout still months away. We’ve settled into the school year, developing our own rhythms and rapports with all our Study Hut students. It’s perfect tutoring season.

No two perfect sessions look exactly the same; there are too many contributing factors to consider. Some students are panicked, struggling to finish cramming for that test they kept putting off; some students are relaxed, looking forward to another weekly session with the same tutor they’ve been working with for the past 6 months; some are on their way to SAT tutoring, dreaming of the day they will strut their stuff at college, applying all their Hut study skills to everything from Bio 101 to Shakespearean sonnets to intramural softball. Some are terrified at the mere mention of numbers, others are enthralled by the simple joys of deriving or integrating. Still others are history sponges, seeking to soak in as many dates and elections and revolutions as possible, baffled by some of their peers’ classic refrain: “Why do we have learn this? It already happened.”

This variety is what makes working at Study Hut so engaging. It is a constant process: evaluating a student’s interests and needs, weaknesses and strengths, passions and quirks. Only by getting to know each student – asking them about their day, their favorite color, and their life’s goals – can we craft these elusive perfect sessions.

As we begin to understand our tutees, we get better at tailoring our sessions to their own specific needs and goals. This is the constant process of creating perfect sessions. We may not achieve perfection every time (and some students may make it more difficult than others), but even when we fail we do pretty good job at making learning happen.”

Hope this is useable and feel free to make any changes you want!

Summer kick off!

June 28th, 2013

We have had a great start to summer tutoring! This week all our managers were out of the office for a Canoe trip down the Green River in Utah… but our tutors were in the office working hard and getting a lot done! Our managers go on a trip for a week once a year, and they canoed 70 miles down the river! What a huge success that is! 

We had many new students this week and we are super excited for what the summer’s going to bring! We had many younger students in here getting prepared for their next school year. We are open all summer.. Monday through Friday 10am until 8pm! 

Yesterday (Thursday) was a big day for us! We were preparing a lot of students for Mr. Hughes Geometry Summer School test today and for the Modern World History exam as well !

We have been focusing with the younger students on mainly reading, writing, and reading comprehension. It has been getting a slow start, but it will definitely pick up after July 4th!

We have a lot of great summer camps coming up starting July 8th and 9th! We have a new summer course that we are offering in the summer for Freshman that will be Sophomores in the fall. It is a Pre-SAT course that costs $650 and will be Tuesdays and Thursday from 6-8pm. It starts July 9th and ends August 15th (so a 6 week course). If you are interested – you can come in for an SAT Diagnostic test. The Diagnostic test will take an hour and forty minutes. You will complete 4 (25 minute sections) taken from past CollegeBoard SAT tests!

If you are interested you can contact Samantha@studyhut.com or rob@studyhut.com. You can also call our MB or RB office: (310)5462408 (MB) or RB: (310)540-5888

We are also offering a lot of SAT/ACT/ and HSPT Diagnostic tests coming up! We have one tomorrow – Satuday July 28th, Saturday July 6th, and Saturday July 20th! Let us know if you want to sign up! They are free and go from 8am to 12noon! 

Back to School Shopping

August 17th, 2012

As a kid, one of my favorite times of the year was when my parents would fork out money for me to go back to school shopping. I would go with my mom to pick out the newest styles. Requirements were new shoes, a new backpack, and at least three new outfits, one for each day of the first week of school. My brother and I would always want to wear our new shoes right away, but were forced to wait until the first day of school.

Along with the back to school shopping came orientation. Mira Costa has their orientation this week as well as Manhattan Beach Middle School. This was always exciting because the students got to see which teachers they had, and also,more importantly, which friends made it in the same class.

Now that I am no longer in school I see more of an importance on the preparation academically rather than the outfits and classes. Students are starting to trickle into The Manhattan Beach Study Hut to get their mind in gear and ready for the whirl wind to begin. Most students need refreshers on math and Spanish. It is extremely important for the seventh graders to come in and review their foreign language. Spanish, French, Latin, and even Chinese are subjects the middle school offers. These are such new topics to the students that they often forget how to conjugate a verb. However, after a simple refresher they are ready for the school year. Moral of the story, don’t forget about tutoring when you are shopping for back to school. The Hut is open for appointments!

Summer Time at The Hut

June 28th, 2012

Winding Down at the Hut

We’ve had lots of blog posts about how to prepare for finals and end the year on a high note. All week, students have been rushing in and out of the Hut, reciting geometry theorems and putting the final touches on Socratic seminars. But we’ve failed to mention the most important aspect of the end of the school year…

It’s the end of the school year! Yay!

In addition to playing Alice Cooper on loop, we’ve been doing a lot to prepare for summer. This mostly includes staring out the window and daydreaming about our plans. Between the tutors and the students, we’re a busy bunch!

Some are planning vacations and some are eagerly anticipating the London Olympics. Some have weddings for dear friends and others are just planning on soaking up as much sun as possible on the beaches of the South Bay. Here are a few responses from around the Hut to the most whimsical and challenging question: What’s your favorite thing about summer?

“Surf and work.”
-Alex, Tutor

“Sleep, surf and travel.”
-Codee, Sophomore

“I like not wearing socks when I’m wearing my shoes!”
-Amir, Tutor

“The sun not going down until 9pm.”
-Madison, Sophomore

“I like reading Robert Frost while sitting contemplatively under a tree in the summer breeze. Just kidding! Corn dogs.
-Amy, Tutor

“Not being at school.”
-James Houston, Sophomore

“Music festivals, Vegas, and beach parties in the daytime.”
-Sam, Study Hut Manager

“I am really looking forward to sleeping, surfing, vacations, no school, playing with my dog, having free time and hanging out with my friends on the beach.”
-Matt, Freshman

No doubt about it, we’re a Hut about town. What are you looking forward to this summer? Let us know in the comments, and enjoy your time off!

Summer Writing Workshops

June 13th, 2012

We’ve all been there.

It’s the dreaded blank sheet. The writing assignment stares up from the table, but you have no idea where to begin. Should you start with the thesis statement? Gather textual evidence first? Maybe it’s better to just wing it and worry about editing later.

It’s a frustrating situation, but there is help! Study Hut is offering a series of writing workshops this summer designed to review the different types of essays and prepare students for the next level of writing.

Each grade brings new expectations, particularly when it comes to writing. If a student enters the school year even moderately unprepared, it can turn from a small setback to a major problem in a hurry. It’s tempting to regard writing in terms of black and white; there are inherently good writers and bad writers. That, however, is far from the case. Good writing is a matter of discipline, strategy and lots and lots of practice.

The Hut’s summer workshop is designed to be all of those things and more. Each week, we’ll spend one-on-one time with students going over everything from correctly citing a source to crafting the perfect topic sentence. From college applications to AP tests to middle school lab reports, strong writing skills are always going to help students succeed.

Each student has one-on-one time with a tutor, so we can adapt the program to fit any skill level. We’ve put together instructional, age appropriate materials that will help any student prepare for the next step in the great journey of mega-awesome skillstastic writing! Also, we promise to discourage made-up words like “skillstastic.”

Contact us today by emailing Samantha@studyhut.com for more information on the writing workshop. Sample topics include: thesis writing, finding and citing sources, topic sentences and using evidence effectively in narrative, analytical, expository, synthesis and literary analysis essays.