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10 Ways to Encourage Fine Motor Skills for 5 Year Olds

Activities

Oct 20, 2020

Fine motor skills activities for 5-6 year olds are important as kids enter kindergarten. Encourage hand dexterity—even with an active child—with these fun activities! If you're like most parents, how your child holds a pencil may not be top of mind. But once she enters kindergarten, you suddenly notice how well the other kids hold theirs in comparison. You also realize that she can't write her name well, much less cut with scissors (and forget about pulling a zipper). Come to think of it, you don't even know what her dominant hand is yet. Or perhaps it's the opposite: you're well … [Read more...]

6 Ingenious Strategies for Teaching Sight Words

How Kids Learn

Sep 01, 2020

Is your child struggling with sight words? Learn fun and effective strategies for teaching sight words without stress and pressure! We've all seen it: the list of sight words our kids are supposed to master by the end of the year. For some, sight words can be a challenge for parents to teach. Maybe your child isn't able to read or spell this week's sight words, making both of you feel discouraged. Getting her to practice at home feels like pulling teeth. If she doesn't know the word or finds it too hard, she might even start crying. And other times, she just might not be interested, … [Read more...]

Top Children’s Books to Get Ready for First Grade

Children's Books

May 06, 2020

A selection of top children's books about first grade. Read these picture books with your child as you get ready for the new school year! At our old school, the kindergarten lot was separate from first grade and up. Here at our new school, kinder kids are on a different schedule, getting picked up much earlier than the rest of the kids. And this made sense: Kindergarten is the first time many children experience a school setting—the first time they play with other kids in a learning environment. But after kindergarten, they now have yet another big change: the first grade. For my … [Read more...]

What to Do if Your Child Shows Off to Others

Little Kids

Apr 30, 2020

What do you do if your child shows off to others, whether on purpose or not? Discover how to teach your child not to show off to other people. What do you do if your child goes beyond being proud of herself to outright showing off? Maybe she keeps talking about herself whenever grandma calls, grabbing the phone and showing off all she can do. She keeps calling for your attention, saying, "Look what I can do!" (never mind that she's just catching a balloon or running across the room). She might even flaunt her accomplishments to her classmates, announcing, "I read the most pages out of … [Read more...]

How to Stop Tattling

Little Kids

Apr 23, 2020

Does your child tell on other kids for every little thing? Learn how to stop tattling and telling on others once and for all. It was starting to get predictable. I'd leave the twins to cook in the kitchen when one of them would follow after a few minutes. "He was jumping on the couch," one of them would report about his brother. Or we'd be sitting at the dining table and he'd point out, "He's playing with his water cup." Sometimes he'd even start the day with yet another report before saying hello: "He was talking instead of being quiet in bed." The tattling was getting out of … [Read more...]

Why We Need to Encourage Our Children’s Interests—Even when They Seem Strange to Us

How Kids Learn

Apr 16, 2020

Do your kids have a passion for hobbies? Here's why we should encourage children's interests, no matter how strange or different they may seem to us. "I've had it with fountains," I complained to my husband. What had been a cute quirk—my son's fascination with fountains—was getting out of hand. It even took over an outing at the zoo, where he'd rush to see fountains instead of the bears and monkeys. Still, I bit my tongue. As strange of an interest as it was to have, fountains still held a special place in our son's heart. So we did what we thought would help nurture it even more. We … [Read more...]

What Should a Kindergartener Know Before the Year Ends?

Little Kids

Apr 10, 2020

What should a kindergartener know before entering the first grade? Your child should be able to meet these 12 milestones by the end of the year. Before you know it, your kindergartener is about to end the year in a few weeks or months. It seemed not too long ago when you walked him to his desk as he held onto his school supplies, anxious about his new school. Now the little guy is headed off to first grade, leaving you wondering where the time went. But if you're like many parents, you're wondering how he has fared this whole year in kindergarten. Did he meet the end-of-year milestones? … [Read more...]

How to Get Your Child to Stop Talking in Class So Much

Little Kids

Feb 22, 2020

What do you do if your child is talking in class too much? Help her focus, pay attention, and learn in class with these gentle and effective tips. The dreaded teacher's note. As usual, it says your child has been disrupting the class again with her nonstop talking. That she was getting left behind because she was missing or misunderstanding instructions. She's been getting in trouble nearly every day for talking when she's not supposed to. And since she's social and loves being the center of attention, it's like she's "rewarded" for negative behavior. You've tried punishments at … [Read more...]


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