My son’s third grade class came up with the best idea for a teacher gift! A progressive story! Using Google Docs, each child wrote one or two paragraphs of a story about their teacher before passing it on. You needed to read the story before you could add your own, so it was also a…
Month: June 2014
Happy Tau Day Today: 6.28
Tau is approximately equal to 6.28, so that makes today, 6/28, Tau day! Happy Tau Day. One easy way to think of Tau Day is just to eat twice as much pie today as you did on Pi Day (March 14). But … uhmm, what exactly is Tau?! What is Tau? In 2001, Bob Palais published…
Summer Reading Ideas: What Counts as “Reading”
Please welcome my guest author today, Donna Lasinski of ThinkStretch Summer Learning Program. What is Reading? Summer reading is a time-honored tradition for adults and children alike. But what really counts as summer reading? With my three boys, we can often haggle over what “counts” for their daily reading time. So, with the benefit of insights from…
Plimoth Plantation: Learning About the Wampanoags
I went for the first time to Plimoth Plantation as a chaperone for my son’s third grade field trip. I somehow managed to avoid it for my girls. It was really a great trip and the kids were very well prepared. My son said that he preferred learning about the Native American (and Wampanoags specifically) over…
Healthy Essentials for Summer Play
My son’s elementary school spent the whole year fundraising in order to build a new playground because the old one was nearing the end of its life. The new playground is wonderful and just opened this past week. PickyPidPix, now in middle school, came to the playround opening with her friend right after soccer practice. The…
Reading and Imagining Writing Exercise For Kids
My guest blogger today is Jeffrey Pfaum, an inner-city schoolteacher, who is sharing his creative ideas for reading, writing, imaginning and drawing exercises. Reading-and-Imagining Writing Exercise You can develop the imagination with simple exercises, where the mind changes words into pictures. Ask your child to close her eyes and picture—or visualize—words in her mind. For…
10+ Best Graphic Novels and the Kid Lit Blog Hop
There aren’t many children’s book awards for graphic novels or comic books so I was excited to learn about The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards. It awards prizes for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the Comics Industry’s equivalent of the Oscar Awards. The Cybils also has a graphic novel…