The K5 - elementary education for parents

Prepare For Summer: Get That Green Thumb Growing!

Every spring we plant beans and my students love it. So you can do the same at home. If you have a yard, help them plant a few things that are theirs to take care of. If a windowsill is all the yard you have, go to the local gardening store and buy a few [...]

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Prepare For Summer: Go For A Hike!

Or even a walk! It can be through an urban park or you can go to a national or state park area for a day hike. It is so much fun to take a day and go for a walk. You don’t need to hike up the local equivalent of K2 – a gentle walk [...]

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Prepare For Summer: Leah’s Ideas: Fun Ways to Practice Letters and Writing

Fun ways to practice letters and writing:
Summer is a great time to have a little fun with writing. No grades or deadlines.
Play with letters:
Write letters or words in the sand. If you can’t get to the beach, fill a plastic box or cookie sheet with sand, then use your finger or stick to form the [...]

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Prepare For Summer: Three Easy Summer Field Trips

Field trips that can include the entire family and keep everyone interested and engaged are winners. Here are three quick trips you can take that will keep brains movin’.
The Local Farmer’s Market:

I see Farmer’s Markets as a great place to let kids explore and learn. Here are some ways to make food shopping at your [...]

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Prepare For Summer: The Weather Journal

Toward the end of the school year, as summer approaches, I’m frequently asked for good activities for kids to do that will keep them thinking, using their brains. Nobody wants to inflict sitting at a desk in the corner practicing math drills. But on the other hand there isn’t a parent who wants their kid’s [...]

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Should I Put My Child In A Gifted Class?

What a great problem, but never the less there are considerations to weigh.  Many “Gifted” programs are terrific, and provide students with certain academic strengths a more challenging environment and peers surrounded who are at a similar academic level.
 Here are a few matters to be contemplated before heading down this path.
1.   Prestige: Am I considering [...]

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The Paper Saving Homework Helper

Well, it isn’t exactly a “homework helper”, but every parent should have a white, dry erase board.  It will save you tons of paper when working out math problems with your kid, spelling words, outlining ideas, writing To Do lists, simple sentences and the uses go on and on.  Why use scrap paper and kill [...]

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My Kid Hates The Food I Make!

Well help is here, and it is in the form of an interesting blog called Chow Mama. They post a quick to read and easy to use idea, recipe or tip almost everyday. The blog is organized by meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and by ingredients (grains, nuts, meat, fish, veggies, etc.) and even by events [...]

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Questions To Ask Your Kid After Reading

I regularly check up on my friend Richard’s blog about reading. His latest post was about the conversation to have with your child after they read. Not to steal his thunder (a link to his page is above), but I thought it would be a good idea to list a few important questions to [...]

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What Have You Learned From Your Kid Lately?

Yesterday morning I was heading to work and I ran into my friend Robin and her two sons, 8 and 6. She began to tell me that her older son was really into chess and was entering competitions and winning. She had a huge grin on her face, and then she started to laugh. [...]

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