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

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

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

Spatial skills are strongly linked to creativity and achievement in fields like math, science and the arts. While students might not use spatial skills in school as often as other reasoning skills, it is critical in many professions. Note: This is one of a 10 blog series on learning traits. Read about all 10 learning traits here. What is Spatial Perception? Spatial perception is the ability to visualize how objects relate in space. You may hear it referred to as spatial reasoning or visual-spatial perception. Why are Spatial Skills important? Spatial perception is very task-specific. You don’t always rely on them, but when you need them, they are essential. Drawing, design, reading graphs and maps, and working with geometric figures all rely heavily on spatial skills. Weak spatial skills might affect reading efficiency and standardized test taking efficiency…. Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff A few months ago, I decided that instead of buying workbooks for my kids to look at over the summer, I’d start collecting the homework they brought home and use it as a basis for a personalized binder.  I’d add new material, too, of course, and try to find things that appealed to their interests as well as their grade level and the one they’d be approaching. But you know, it was only last month that I took down the Halloween lights that had been iced into a bush in our front yard for most of the winter. I may, perhaps, have been too ambitious in my dream for the ideal summer “let’s not forget everything… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff When children’s book illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky was first starting out, he took a bus from New Haven to New York City to show his work to an editor at The New York Times. The meeting got him his first assignment with the paper. Back in New Haven a few days later, he saw his work in print. “Hey, Zelinsky,” a professor said, calling into his studio, “there’s a cartoonist at The Times with your name.” I was in the art gallery of my daughter’s school when I heard Zelinksy tell this story. The room was full of parents, some of us clutching tattered or newly purchased copies of his Wheels on the Bus, or… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff  A teacher. But like many things that go viral on the Internet, that important fact has gotten less attention. It didn’t take too much detective work to trace the photo back to its source, however, and last week I was able to speak on the phone with the photo’s creator, Alycia Zimmerman, a 3rd grade gifted and talented teacher at P.S. 33 Chelsea Prep in Manhattan. “Students tend to struggle with fractions,” Alycia said, when I asked her about the photo. “And some were playing with Legos during free-choice time on Fridays, and I’m watching them play and I’m thinking this would be really great to demonstrate fractions. So if this is a whole then….” The rest,… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff The Educated Mom blog launched a year ago this month. And because we have some new readers and because I love year-end lists, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on some of the themes we’ve covered. Perhaps the blog topics reveal a bit about what’s it like to be a parent and student at this particular moment in education. As much as fundamentals stay the same, I am fairly certain no one used the word MOOC when I was in elementary school. It was report card time when I started the blog, much like it is as I write this now. In the post, The Grade, I took a look at… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff “It’s a really, really, chill place. Every tutoring session involves tea latte and some candles.” That’s what Vanessa Vakharia told me on the phone a few weeks ago when I asked her about her math tutoring studio in Toronto, The Math Guru. Vanessa personifies the name. She’s on a mission to get people, especially girls, to think of themselves as capable in math. “Anyone can do well at math and science,” she states on her website, “students simply need a teacher who can communicate with them in a language that they understand.” She’s confident in her philosophy because she experienced it in her own life. “When I was in high school, I failed math twice,” she… Read More