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 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

By Sarah Vander Schaaff March 14 is Pi Day and Albert Einstein’s birthday. For a town like Princeton, it’s a particularly special moment in time with the date, 3.14.15 coinciding with the digits in the irrational, never-ending digits in pi: 3.14159…. And if there was ever a celebration of the inquisitive, intellectual, mathematical and academic, this is it. The official party in this college town (also called Einstein’s alley) is Saturday, but set your alarm clocks, folks. The party starts at 7am. It starts with a Walk a Pi Day, (yes, that’s 3.14 miles), then, there’s a Pie Eating Contest, An Einstein look a like contest; A 9.86 bike tour (3.14×3.14), but perhaps the most dramatic event takes place at 1pm… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Could you identify William Henry Harrison out of a lineup of John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, and Franklin Pierce? To be fair, I pulled these presidents from a posting on US News and World Report highlighting the 10 worst presidents, and this particular question is not one of the many my children have been fielding in the app, Presidents vs. Aliens. But it’s not far off. Presidents vs. Aliens is a 4.5 star app in the Mindprint Collection, reviews of apps, workbooks, games and learning strategies focused on how the material meets the cognitive needs or strengths of children. These are no iTunes reviews, helpful as those are. These address concepts that speak to the individual… Read More

Never The First to Finish: Why Pace Matters By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff.  This post originally appeared on the Getting Smart website as part of a series of blogs written by parents called, “Smart Parents.” Remember how it felt to be halfway through a math quiz and a classmate gets up and turns it in to the teacher? Maybe that other student rushed, or maybe he or she just happened to be super speedy. Either way, I always came to the same conclusion: I’m just never going to be that fast. Years have passed since I’ve had to take a math quiz. As an adult, I’m comfortable with my own strengths and weaknesses and the time it takes me to do… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff A few days ago, thanks to Twitter, I stumbled upon an article on the Little League official website that shared an interview with Charles Jeter, the father of the former Yankee shortstop. I don’t often spend my time reading about Derek Jeter. Really, I don’t. Not even in the checkout lines. I also confess that I am much more likely to be sitting in a theater than on the bleachers at a little league game. But the first tip the post shared from Charles Jeter, based on an interview he’d done for Growing Leaders president Tim Elmore, was this: “Never let anyone outwork you. Derek said he watched his dad work relentlessly as a substance… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Watch out, there are some new bloggers hitting the scene. They blog about soccer, gymnastics and toys. And they are really good at integrating photos into their posts. And they are six years old. When I was in first grade, I think my primary tools were pencils, some paste, and maybe a very blunt pair of scissors. My first grader types on a Mac and reads and comments on her classmates’ posts using an iPad. Sometimes it feels like the educational environment our children are in moves at the speed of light. And it begs the question: is this a good thing? I am not prepared to argue the deeper question about screen time. Many parents… Read More

Note: This is one of a 10 blog series on learning traits. Read about all 10 learning traits here. Abstract reasoning is the skill at the core of all critical thinking and problem solving. While abstract reasoning is probably most important in math and science class, it’s also key to understanding complicated reading passages in English and History. You might hear it referred to as complex reasoning, visual reasoning, or critical thinking. What is Abstract Reasoning? It is your ability to make sense of non-language-based information, including numbers, shapes, patterns and formulas. In other words, it is your ability to understand what you are looking at or reading without a detailed description. Why is Abstract Reasoning Important? Realistically, elementary students aren’t expected to use abstraction skills very much. Usually teachers give clear directions and concepts are concrete. However, as students enter… Read More