Today we feature a guest blog from Cait Fitz, a school psychologist, homeschooling parent, and the voice behind the blog, My Little Poppies. We asked her to give us some pointers to make summer math fun. One year ago, we found ourselves suddenly, unexpectedly, homeschooling our eldest son. I knew it was the right path for our family, but the thought of teaching math filled me with my math anxiety of old. I’ll never forget the moment that those fears were squelched. It was Memorial Day weekend last year and we were spending the holiday at my parents’ condo in the mountains. Well, my parents’ place is on a small golf course – which had yet to open for the season- and… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Yesterday, my six-year-old announced that she and her good friend had swapped lunches for the week, pretending to be one another. “I had a salami sandwich and no pickles. And she had a bagel, cream cheese, yogurt and two pickles.” The pickles were a key part to this story. It’s evidence that each girl had embraced their alter ego’s preferences with full commitment. My daughter has had her regular order of a bagel with cream cheese, yogurt and two pickles for most of the last 100 plus days of school. Had I suggested she mix it up a bit, I’d have been met with a firm “no.” She really likes pickles. But when she pretended… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff (Staff writer for Mindprint Learning) Note: This was a previously published blog. Mindprint continues to provide FREE accounts for teachers and their families all year long as our ongoing thanks for all their dedication to support to our nation’s future.  If you are a teacher and would like a free Mindprint, please contact us here. 6 Key  Facts about Teacher Appreciation Week  May 4th-8th is Teacher Appreciation Week. We do not need to wait until this week in May to show our appreciation. FACT #1: Teacher Appreciation Week was started by the National PTA in 1984. It is always the first full week in May. FACT #2: The social media hashtag for posts related to Teacher Appreciation… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff According to the nonprofit Reading is Fundamental, “Children who do not read over the summer lose more than two months of reading achievement.” And because reading loss is cumulative, the organization says that by the end of 6th grade, “children who lose reading skills over the summer will be 2 years behind their classmates.” So, what’s a busy family to do? One inexpensive, engaging and fun way to keep nonfiction reading comprehension skills sharp is to encourage children to start the day with a morning newspaper. A mature high school student may be just find reading the entire “A section” of The New York Times, but I’m not a fan of handing it over to… Read More

It’s IEP Season, that time of year when parents and school teams meet to review the following year’s Individualized Educational Program (IEP) or the plan students receiving special education services will have to meet their academic goals. IEP meetings can be stressful for families. I interviewed Dr. Wendy Matthews, a psychologist in the Princeton area who spent over 30 years in private practice specializing in children and adolescents. In that time, Dr. Matthews administered hundreds of psychoeducational evaluations. 1.  What materials should parents bring with them to the IEP meeting? All past and present evaluations, doctors’ written comments as well as therapist (speech/psych/tutor) written comments. If you haven’t had a recent evaluation or you think your child might have changed since the last evaluation, you can bring… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff “What parents see is a very bright and intelligent child who can’t pass the grade because they can’t get the homework turned in.” What the child needs, Joyce Kubik says, is to learn simple skills to fit into the linear world when they need to. Kubik is the president of the nonprofit ADHD Coaches Organization, (ACO) a group that serves ADHD coaches and families. As a coach, she brings another level of expertise to her work: she has ADHD, too. For a person with ADHD, Kubik says, “…their brain is wired to be the person who sees everything and reacts to things—they are the movers and shakers.” Still, in a world with linear expectations, such as following… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Spring Break. A lot of our readers are just beginning their week off from school, starting with this holiday weekend. Then, there are those, like my family, who had spring break in late March, and now have Friday off for Passover and Easter Weekend. The kids had a total of four days back in school. Of course, others have Friday and Monday off. And still others, such as our college babysitter, have neither Friday nor Monday off. It’s all very illogical, in an Andy Rooney-type way, with the most egregious spring break scheduling occurring in our local district last year when the unexpected snow resulted in the chipping away at vacation days until students had neither… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff We’ve had an exciting week on this blog, with a team of bloggers joining me in our drive to “learn something new everyday.” Can you imagine if the energy and money that went into sports commentary were put towards educational programs, or if we had a 24-hour cable network with the pizzazz of ESPN devoted to the issues parents cope with in raising kids? In case you missed it, here’s a recap of what we’ve featured this week.   1. Benefits of Music for Children with Attention Issues This well-received post was written by Nicole Davies with follow-up commentary by a Mindprint Learning educator with years of experience teaching special education.       2. All… Read More

By Nancy Weinstein As parents we really need to stop saying: the teacher, the curriculum, the lesson, or the test is bad. Really, we’ve just got to stop. The reality is that most teachers are highly competent. Most curricula are well-vetted and well-written. Most administrators put a lot of care into selecting the materials they believe will work best for their students. So don’t immediately assume the worst of our educators. Instead, consider starting with the assumption that the instruction is probably fine, but for whatever reason it is not working well for your child. Believe me, I’m not suggesting that you allow your child to struggle or be bored without asking for accountability. Quite the contrary. I’m simply suggesting a shift… Read More

Kaylie Crosby is the project manager overseeing a team of 134. Using the special technology of the auto industry, VDP (Vehicle Development Process) she and her team of engineers are working on making a Chevrolet Camaro more fuel-efficient while “retaining the vehicle’s performance, safety, and consumer appeal.” Kaylie’s a fourth year student at the University of Alabama. Yes, she’s still in college. While some of the work on this multimillion-dollar project is integrated into course work, the large majority of it is in addition to her studies in the University of Alabama’s 5-year STEM path to the MBA program. I spoke with her on the phone a few days ago to learn more about what this mechanical engineer and her classmates are… Read More