In the wake of a storm, we've lost electrical power here on Long Island for 7 days 15 days now and counting. Sure there is a some real tragedy - although it's been blown way out of proportion by the media - but for the most part the storm has delivered what can best be [...]
The other night my wife and I dropped our kids off at their grandmother's at 6:45pm....so we could go out to dinner. Now our kids are NEVER without books to read or academic assignments to do. In fact we take this *precaution* most especially when it's a babysitting situation. Why? Well it does make the [...]
Teenagers, in the course of their education, DO NOT read enough. And they definitely don't read enough of the important books from the last 50-100 years or so which are tragically ignored by school curricula. These are some of the books that I've read recently and believe are MUST-READS for the +12 age group: Flags [...]
My daughter has finally become a full-blown bibliophile! All the signs are there: opening a book in bed the second she wakes up, reading at the breakfast table, walking around with her eyes buried in a book, etc. Those are just SOME of the books she has checked out of the library right now. In [...]
Through the first three academic quarters of this year (about 8 months), these are some, but not all(!), of the books our son John (age 7.42 now) has read. Brace yourself... 2nd Quarter: The Mystery at the Roman Colosseum (Around the World in 80 Mysteries) (Carole Marsh Mysteries) - 126 pg The Mystery at the [...]
That's the status of our library account right now! We almost never have fewer than 60 books checked out. 8-10 of them are *parental* and the rest are the kids'. A lot of people are neither aware nor take full advantage of the library resources available to them. Most local libraries are part of [...]
This is a list of what my 6 year old son has read and recorded in his *books* Google Doc for this year's first quarter. I'm sure he's missed a bunch but that's understandable given the overall book chaos in our house. The Secrets of Droon #35: Lost Empire of Koomba - 128 pg Vespers Rising [...]
Kids all learn (are taught) to read at different rates and by different means. With all the phonics books, websites, and theories out there... I still doubt there's a better approach than sitting down with them and playing with something like Bananagrams. "Furball"? That's an old nickname of mine wielded by my golf jabronis. And [...]
Here's our son reading random words at age 4.8: Now at age 5.5 here he is reading a *chapter book* all by himself: At the time he simply could not read to himself silently. It was kind of funny and probably unpleasant for his throat! John easily reads 100 pages a day now; sometimes he's [...]
