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.
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.
Exposing infants to language, even another foreign language is actually great for a baby’s brain development the latest research shows. Articles from NPR and the New York Times. I also have the foreign language DVDs that we used with our kids when they were young (that they actually enjoyed watching).
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.
I was the co-chair for my elementary school Fundraising Committee last year and also served on my preschool’s fundraising committee a few years ago. For both schools, the auction is the single biggest fundraising event and must bring in a princely sum in order for the PTO budgets to function. This is what I learned to make an school auction successful:
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.