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#VlogMom question of the week comes from Hillary at My Scraps: "Do you plan your summer or do you just let it happen?" This summer, I've created a system where my kids have responsibilities each day. I'll share it in depth (with PDFs of the chart) in a week or two, after we tweak it and adapt it and see how it's going, but here's a sneak peek at our program. (Excuse the voice. I tried recording this 4 times and YouTube kept failing me... The kids will love me without a voice … [Read more...]
It's a horrible phenomenon: teachers just don't have the funding for classroom supplies that were typical when you and I were in school. They're lacking paints, brushes, glitter, paper. In fact, just last week, I overheard a teacher telling her class: I couldn't copy that list for you because we're out of paper! While I hate that my taxes aren't providing enough for my children to learn in their public school, I also don't want our teachers, who make too little in each paycheck, to have to … [Read more...]
The kids and I had a great time picking out Valentines this year for their class parties. In the past, I'd run to the store, grab a box and toss them at the boys. But this year, we played on Pinterest. No, I wasn't setting out to be that mom, but I'd seen a few that were just so them and way more fun for all of us than buying a box. When making this list, I had only one rule: the Valentines had to be simple enough that my kids would't mind making 25 of them... each. With limited time and … [Read more...]
One area where children struggle in school is the use of describing words and showing more details in their summaries. If your child is coming home with assignments marked "need more details," use this free printable: Character Description graphic organizer worksheet to help him explore the description of characters he reads or characters he's creating in his writing assignments. This organizer is great for book reports, brainstorming and processing. Next week on Julieverse … [Read more...]
At Back-to-School night this year, my third grader's teacher addressed homework this way: Your child should read each evening, respond in his reading journal 2-4 times a week and do a word study activity each evening. There will be projects. If you feel he needs more homework, he can access First in Math or Study Island online. (Both programs require school programming and passwords.) And that was it. I did a little whispered cheer. Big has homework every night, but not too much. Together we … [Read more...]
I hesitate to answer this week's question, which comes from Suzanne from Iowa: I feel like we have a lot of homework every night. How long should homework take for my 3rd grader? It's hard to take an authoritative stand on this one, because every culture, every school system, every organization declares something or wants something and expects everyone to just follow it. Basically, there are no set rules. According to NEA (National Education Association), "the National PTA … [Read more...]
