10 Creative Ways to Sharpen Summer Math Skills

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

Pretending: When it’s ok to be someone you’re not

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

It’s Time for Parents to Change the Conversation…

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

Not your Typical College Day: Transform this Camaro

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

Let’s Here it for Pi

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,

Is there an app for that? Women and the Presidency

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

Do they shed tears with those timed math quizzes? Here’s help.

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

What are you teaching your children about hard work?

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

Abstract Reasoning: The Key to Complex Problem Solving

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