Common App Essay: In 650 Words or Less an Expert’s Advice
August 22, 2014
As if your life depends on it… In 650 words or less, describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there and why is it meaningful? You are now sitting in the shoes of a high school senior, thank you very much. These questions are a few of the prompts on the 2014-15 Common Application for college. They are the same ones from last year, the makers of the common app essay say, because feedback was positive. Still, Brenda Bernstein, a professional resume writer, personal statement coach, and business copywriter behind the Essay Expert, knows that for some students facing the questions, it’s not that simple. “They don’t all have life coaches… Read More
An Original Educated Mom: Nancy Weinstein
August 8, 2014
In the process of raising our kids, when we come up against an obvious “miss” in the things we depend on, whether it’s a highchair that could be better designed or a book that could have been better written, we have two choices: settle with the way it is, or take matters into our own hands. It’s the later choice that often drives us to obsession, as it’s done with a few parents I’ve profiled who’ve seen a need for something and then set off on a process of educating themselves and making their concepts a reality. I’ve interviewed moms who’ve figured out how to manufacture better lunch boxes; foster parents who have started charities for kids in the system;… Read More
Parents with Agendas: Back Away from the Lemonade Stand
July 24, 2014
By Sarah Vander Schaaff And so we have come to this, a headline: “Let’s stop trying to turn lemonade stands into MBA programs.” In the post in Fortune that followed that headline last July, Dan Mitchell says, essentially, “enough already.” Mitchell’s argument is more nuanced than the headline but his point is blunt: let the games of childhood serve their own purposes. The only thing to squeeze into an afternoon pitching refreshments to the neighbors is a bag of lemons, not lessons in profit margins. Mitchell refers to Michal Lemberger in Slate, who in her post, “Down with Lemonade Stands” debunks the idea that lemonade sales teach entrepreneurship because customers don’t actually compare prices and the quality of the lemonade…. Read More
eeBoo: A Game to Hold onto
July 18, 2014
By Sarah Vander Schaaff I had a good hand. A couple of giraffes, some elephants. My six-year-old opponent was going down in this game of animal rummy. I played my hand, went out, and then she showed me her cards. “Oh,” I said, looking at the cards she’d squirreled away and not wanted to part with. “Actually, you won,” I told her. And so it goes when you play with the foxes. And sheep. And fish for that matter, when each animal is beautifully painted as they are in a deck of eeBoo animal rummy. If one has to lose, at least it can be done with great art. Mia Galison started the unique company eeBoo 18 years ago when… Read More
What to Expect, When You Have No Idea What To Expect: Tweens to Teens, part II
July 3, 2014
By Sarah Vander Schaaff Continuing our series on What to Expect When You Have No Idea What to Expect (raising tweens to teens), we hear from a mother of two girls and a boy, whose ages range from 15 to 17. If the theme last week was to listen to your growing children, this week’s may be to give credence to what they say. They may not tell you much, but behind those bits of expression, may be deep concerns. Our featured mother’s screen name today is: Cobblestone 1. How would you describe the process of raising a child from early tween to teen years? Difficult. We, too, experienced a difficult time for our girls (and boy) during these years…. Read More
Learn with Homer: This Pigeon’s Got Wings
March 7, 2014
By Sarah Vander Schaaff When Peggy Kaye was first starting out in teaching, a parent asked if there was something she could use for the classroom. “Yes,” she said, “a tape recorder.” The parent got her one, and Kaye recorded herself reading books her students could later listen to on their own. Today, Kaye is Director of Joyful Learning for the Learn with Homer App, and it’s children who have the ability to record their voices in the product designed for beginning readers. She’s come a long way, it seems, from the days of analog cassettes. But Learn with Homer is all about blending the creative and imaginative traditions of the past with the capabilities of the present moment. As… Read More
Escape to the Land of Toys
February 21, 2014
By Sarah Vander Schaaff This past Wednesday, Nancy and I broke from our regular routine of packing lunches, hunting for missing mittens, and heading to our office in Tiger Labs, and made our way to Manhattan where we explored the 412,000 square feet of the American International Toy Fair. We walked the aisles, showcasing more than 1,150 toy company exhibits, on the hunt for toys and games with an educational bent. Mindprint Learning CEO, Nancy Weinstein, was intent on meeting the inventors behind the games as well as finding new products to review and add to our database. It was my first experience at the Toy Fair, and after I reminded myself that I was not an eight-year-old let loose… Read More