A Mom Friend hosted my daughter’s 5th Grade book club. The book was The Uglies by Scott Westerfield and the activity was discussing what is beauty exactly using magazines and tabloids. The coup de grace was in looking at before and after pictures of Heidi Montag. We Moms were gratified that our kids thought Heidi looked best in the “before” pictures. In the day and age of media bombardment of unrealistic female body images, we were grateful that our girls accept both themselves and a broad range of images that they consider to be beautiful!
Category: Parenting
My blog covers education and children’s books. When I cover parenting issues, it usually contains book recommendations. Parenting topics include academic subjects, summer learning, bullying, special needs, fitness and more.
Top 10: Pokémon Books for Kids
There are a LOT of pokemon books out there. My son is obsessed with pokemon (he’s 5) and these are our favorites. There are also pokemon chapter books that are great for encouraging boys to read — all books promote literacy! We don’t have any listed because they are too advanced for my son.
How To: Select a Music Teacher
Choosing a Music Teacher: tips and questions to ask when interviewing prospective music teachers.
How To: Detect & Get Rid of Lice
How to detect and remove lice and nits. Two effective methods for killing lice: Robi Comb (an electronic zapper comb) and the Olive Oil Treatment. Pragmatic Mom does not recommend lice shampoo because it’s not 100% effective due to lice resistence, and has harmful chemicals.
How To: Teach Manners to Kids
My husband grew up in a military family so manners was a really big deal and he has beautiful manners. He’s not from the South, but he’s even got the Sir/Ma’am thing down. Manner are so important to him, or rather, bad manners are so offensive to him, that I refer to him as the Manners Nazi.
This sweet board book, Mealtime, teaches good table manners including washing hands, saying “thank you” and “please,” trying one bite of everything on your plate, and clearing your plate. It’s a nice way to reinforce what you are saying. I will be giving this book away. Please leave a comment with a manners tip that you do with your child to win.
Family Reunion Vacations: San Antonio, Texas!
We had the best time in San Antonio over February school break. It was freezing in Massachusetts and while San Antonio got a freakish dump of snow that was two weeks ago and we enjoyed a week of temps in the 50-70 degree Fahrenheit range! I think the key to this trip was The River Walk. Miles of meandering paths along the Venice-like canals chock full of small waterfalls and restaurants was a most pleasant way to get exercise and entertainment!
How To: Teach Your Child Compassion
Top 10 Inspirations from The World Needs Your Kid on how to teach your child compassion.