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5 ways to spend more time with your kids

mom reading with her two kids

If you feel like you are ‘all work and no play’ these days, you’re not alone. With so much going on, how can we really maximize the time we are spending engaging with our kids, especially those parents who are flying solo? I’ll give you five ideas to do just that. Read more at my [...]

Project Life Tuesday :: 10/11/11

Picture of an apple

This is my first Project Life Tuesday! I am cheating a bit using pictures from just one day last week; I will try to be more diligent about taking at least one photo every day. Of course, all of the following pictures have gone through Instagram. (LOVE that app!) I’m sharing photos from our trip [...]

Relieve the first-day jitters

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It happens every autumn. Millions of young children start school for the very first time. They carry backpacks, lunchboxes, pencils, sometimes a grin on their face, but more often, a look of trepidation about what school will really be like. They wonder: Will my teacher be nice? Will I have friends? What if I can’t [...]

Literacy begins at home

read

Teaching a child to read gives them the gift of a lifetime. The National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) states that there are five components of reading: Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. Phonics is the relationships between the letters (graphemes) of written language [...]

Nursery rhymes: help your child read better

black sheep

Experts in literacy and child development have discovered that if children know eight nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re 4 years old, they’re usually among the best readers by the time they’re 8. (Source: Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever) There’s a reason we learn nursery [...]

Hambletonian 2011

Hambo 2011

I spent the day at The Hambletonian.  There were a couple of cakes made by Carlo’s Bakery — some might recognize the name from the TV show Cake Boss.

3 simple ways to help your child communicate effectively, express ideas and follow directions

encourage literacy

“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.” – Abraham Lincoln It is important that your child understands the meanings of words and concepts to communicate effectively, express ideas, and follow directions. Three activities to do at home: Explain It [...]