I am starting to buy into this idea of teaching and really connecting material through games and apps. I was sort of on board with this concept, but since playing around with The Elements (a Harry Potter version of the Periodic Table) that my brother-in-law turned me on to, I am now a believer as I saw, with my own eyes, how captivated my kids were with the Periodic Table, an otherwise dull chart.
My oldest child is now starting 6th grade which is Middle School where I live. She’s a voracious reader now but it wasn’t always so. I guess there are many, many reasons why kids don’t like to read and for her, it wasn’t the decoding or sitting still; it was the act of performing. She hates any kind of attention. A root canal is preferable to her over performing and reading out loud was a performance to her.
Halloween ghosting is a tradition that we do in our neighborhood. My kids love it and it teaches a great lesson about giving versus receiving.
We were fortunate to have Middle Grade Author Karen Day as a guest at our 6th Grade girls’ book club where they discussed changes, Middle School, A Million Miles from Boston, and wrote short stories inspired by her talk.
This is an old recipe from my first preschool. My middle daughter used to LOVE to play with playdough but she didn’t like the stinky smell of purchased playdough. Mix a batch and store in an air-tight container for hours of fun.
I remember how difficult it was to find great books for kids once they’ve moved to chapter books but are not quite ready for Newbery books.
How to we, as parents, teach our kids the importance of having fun while playing sports versus winning when it’s more fun to win?