Did you know studies show that clutter actually had an affect on our brain chemistry? That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Yet, when people adopt a minimalist attitude, they have overwhelmingly positive reports. More time with family, less stress, more money, etc. We’ve been working on minimizing for a few months and oh my gosh, it…
When kids are little they work on sorting all the time but it’s one of those subjects that just gets left behind. However, sorting can become so very complex. Venn diagrams are great for people who learn visually. Venn diagrams themselves are not that complex but it helps to introduce them using familiar ideas. Being…
There is something magical when kids learn that numbers move in patterns and they really only need to know 0-9. Showing kids the pattern of 10s unlocks a new world of math but it’s kind of confusing. Or really confusing. We recently tried to show Logi-Bear how 9 to 10 is just like 19 to…
Grammar is a really dry subject and I’m going to go ahead and admit that I don’t think I ever actually listened to my teachers when they talked about grammar. For the most part, I could write how I talk and get away with it (I do the same thing now too). Honestly, I didn’t…
We are going to end up carving 6 pumpkins this year, I just know it. I got all excited when I saw pumpkins in the store last week and we bought some. Halloween is a month away still! There is simply no way these will last that long. The holidays have already got me thinking…
We’ve all heard that music education is beneficial and important. All we’ve also all heard that music education is lacking in many schools. Admittedly, it didn’t make the top of my list either. I know music is important. I grew up a “musical” child, in that I played piano and loved music. As a new…
Some mornings I can tell we need to get a bit of The Wiggles out. Incidentally, my kids no longer like they song (which is a bummer because I loved it). So I needed a quick and easy way to get them moving a bit before we get started. Of course, I remembered my construction…
Baloo and I have read aloud together every single night since he was about 11 months old. Back then it was a tool to calm down before bedtime but now it is a time for just the two of us to share. Nine years of reading nightly has given us much more than the gift…
Multiplication is one of those topics that we come back to again and again. For some reason, memorizing his times tables is the bane of Baloo’s existence. We don’t necessarily push it too hard, but I do think it is important. Having your multiplication tables memorized makes higher math so so so much easier. I…
I am a bibliophile to the core (that’s ‘book lover’ for those of us who like to appear fancy) and always expected that my kids would automatically be book lovers, too. I thought that would just be genetic. And while my kids do love books, it took time and effort to get us to that…
I have two kids memorizing multiplication facts now and they have both improved by leaps and bounds since we started introducing fun and engaging ways for multiplication practice! The code breaker multiplication was probably the favorite, but the scratch off multiplication wasn’t far behind. I’ve been worked on games, activities, printables, and much more for multiplication….
My kids hate writing. I hear this from parents and teachers over and over and over. My kids hate writing. Typically people mean the physical act of writing, not the process of thinking of words to put on a paper. And this activity handles the physical act without the process part. My kids will dictate…