My five-year-old can’t even do half of the math in this picture book but he’s enjoyed this book so much that we’ve read it every night for a week and he insisted that I blog on it.
Author: Pragmatic Mom
I am a mom with three kids and a husband living in Newton, MA. I graduated from Harvard University with a degree in HIstory and Science. I went to The Anderson School of Management at UCLA for my M.B.A.My background is entrepreneurial. I started several companies and currently serve on three boards including for my elementary school and preschool. I was a SAHM for nearly 8 years, and went back to work part-time just recently. Now I work almost full time as a WAHM for a consumer electronics start-up in Boston.My blog is my outlet to read children's literature which is my great secret pleasure, and to document any interesting and/or useful information that I acquire as I parent. My kids are quite active and pursue many interests collectively including soccer, gymnastics, rhythm gymnastics, karate (Chung Kook Doh), ice skating, Chinese, Spanish, flute, piano, T-ball, book clubs, and art. In my free time, I have been doing kickboxing, vinyasa yoga, zoomba, and I am trying to learn Spanish as well.Learning about SEO and how to blog has been a really fun enterprise albeit very time consuming. I started a bloggers group that meets weekly called www.coffeeshopbloggers.com. The S.O.S. on SEO. We share our collective frustrations and knowledge from blogging.Now you understand the Type A parent I am...hence the tagline my blogger friends came up for me for my blog:Type A Parenting for the Modern World
SAT Vocabulary for Kindergarten from Picture Book Edward the Emu
I know that some moms thought this was a terrible idea, but I am finding that my kindergartener loves big words and his teacher sends a list home each week. We just read the word and the sentence at the dinner table (for the benefit of the two older kids), and let our youngest tell us what he thinks the word means. It’s actually a cute and fun exercise and he’s surprisingly correct most of the time. Try it. Your older kids will be DYING to give the answer. And that doesn’t suck!
Tips to Encourage Kids to Write
My Kindergarten Teacher sent this home to help us encourage our children to write at home. Learning to write goes lock step with learning to read she says.
5th Grade Book Club with Karen Day, author of No Cream Puffs
A Big THANK YOU to Karen Day for her visit! And just a shout out that SHE’S AN AMAZING SPEAKER. SHE IS OPEN TO VISITING SCHOOLS. Our elementary school brings authors into the classroom as part of our literacy program that is funded by the PTO. Here’s her contact info.
Top 10: Challenged or Banned Books
The American Library Association (ALA) has issued their annual list of the 10 most frequently challenged books from US libraries. There’s a number of the usual suspects on the list, and while I’m still flabbergasted that there are people out there who are so concerned about the content in these books that they are requesting that they be removed from libraries (To Kill a Mockingbird? Really?)
21 Great Latinx American Children’s Books
September is Hispanic Heritage Month so I am barely squeeking out this list in time to celebrate Latino/Latina and Hispanic culture in children’s literature. Por favor, disfrutar de. (I think I said please enjoy!).
Predicting Newbery and Caldecott Winners
Ok. So these are not really the list of Caldecott and Newbery candidates for 2011 but School Library Journal Blog’s best guess… but I have feeling that they know what they are talking about. We shall see when the awards come out next year, but I’m betting they got quite a few correct.