Before young children are able to perform simple mathematical operations, like addition and subtraction, they must first understand that the visual representation of a number, the way it is written, represents a set or quantity. For example, if I see the number 5 written on a piece of paper, I can envision 5 cookies, 5 apples, or 5 cars. If…
Read More
It’s with both a smile on my face and tears in my eyes that I say — my daughter is beginning preschool this year. I am in complete disbelief that in just a few weeks she will be such a big girl. How’d this happen? I have been homeschooling her for the last (almost) 5 years, so I know she…
Read More
Developing play skills is an essential part of childhood. Through play, typically-developing children acquire the skills necessary to communicate with others, express and understand emotions, physically manipulate a variety of items of all sizes, build strength and endurance, and gain the cognitive skills to understand their world. As children mature, their play skills move through four specific stages of play:…
Read More
This is a sponsored post written for LifeLock. The personal experiences shared are honest. At the beginning of this year, I set a personal blogging goal: to attend 3 different blog conferences this year. And not just local conferences, but some of the major national-level conferences. Exciting stuff, but this means a lot more travel than I have done the…
Read More
So your first grader hates to read. In my years as a teacher and private tutor, I have seen two types of first graders: those who are highly-motivated to read and those who have little to no interest in reading. This isn’t based on any scientific evidence, just my observations, but here’s what I think. Birth to age 2, children are…
Read More