elementary schoolers

I love the idea of doing some sort of service project for the community to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy.  Imagine how great the world would be if every family did something small for others to celebrate Martin Luther …

The following guest post is written by Natalie, of Afterschool for Smarty Pants.   Natalie shares ways she enriches her daughter’s learning at home, after school.  Check it out. —————————— As you can guess from my blog title, Smarty is a …

    For any occasion, books are my go-to gift. From baby showers to birthdays, graduations from preschool or highschool, for well-wishing or comfort-giving, books are a rockstar way to show people you care. This holiday, my pal Allie and …

October has been an incredibly busy month for us, with me finishing up two classes on top of all of my other normal work. However, our crazy schedule isn’t stopping us from having a whole lot of Halloween fun over …

    The following guest post is written by Jackie Higgins, of Ready-Set-Read. Jackie is a great friend and longtime we teach member, now a member of the we teach advisory board. ———————————- I’m Jackie, an early literacy blogger, reading …

It has been such an amazing summer.  I am desperately, terribly, incredibly sad to see it go. But here we are.  Marching forward. At my kids’ request, I whipped up another batch of lunchbox love notes.  This time, they’re silly, …

It’s hard to watch a child struggle trying to read a book that is too difficult, especially when the kiddo is adamant about plowing through it.  Whether the struggles be with decoding the words on the page, with reading fluently, …

Summer is almost in full swing, and for our family, there’s no better way to begin our summer fun than with a Summer Reading Kick-Off Party! Each year, we invite a few friends over and turn it into an easy …

Some children are able to easily read the words on a page but cannot remember a lick of what they read. Believe it. Whole paragraphs, pages, chapters can sometimes decoded–words read, even fluently–but nothing.  The child remember nothing.  Frustrating right?  …

It’s actually hard for me to type this title after years and years and years of math drills that made my elementary-school head want to explode. Can learning math facts be fun? Is it possible that learning these facts can …

While we were at the craft store this past weekend, picking up some supplies for Maddy’s after school club and for Cora’s Butterfly Birthday Playdate this weekend, we stumbled upon this AWEsome springtime craft. Beautiful, easy homemade flower barrettes. So …

It’s Spring Fair time, Science Share time, Reader’s Tea, Poetry Share, and International Night time at schools all around the country. Kids are sharing their learning, and they’re learning about sharing. Or at least they could be! My kids are …

We are big into managing our kids’ screen time over here, and that’s no secret. Though we truly value all they can learn with the help of technology, and we also know that they need a whole lot of time …

We are always looking for reasons to play with our food over here, so when we put away the last of the holiday decorations, instead of tossing our candy canes, we held onto those puppies. Today, in between a lot …

Halloween is over, so our joke notes are pushed to the wayside. Our wordless riddles are taking a break, and the troops are ready for someserious lunchtime fun before the holidays hit. When I asked Maddy, Owen, and Cora what …