Category: department of good parenting

  • 18 Tabletop games that are great for kids

    18 Tabletop games that are great for kids

    Our family has a lot of board games. Gaming has always been a huge part of how we entertain ourselves and also an important part of our kids’ education. But typical “educational games” are almost uniformly awful. And unnecessary — all games can be educational in one way or another, whether they use math or…

  • Jenny and Jai

    Last weekend, we found out that two friends of ours — mothers of our kids’ classmates — were involved in a domestic dispute that left the two of them in the hospital in critical condition from multiple gunshot wounds. Full news reports here and here. What happened was horrid and devastating and both women not…

  • That’s our school!

    Deseret News covers the “Thriller” flash mob the 6-8th graders pulled off at the Open Classroom. Photos: ‘Cause this is Thriller: Kids dance to the scary classic | Deseret News.

  • Lilah’s first day of Pre-K

    Someone else had a first day of school this week, too…

  • 1st grade!

    Today is Gavin’s first day of 1st grade!

  • Updates are coming

    We haven’t posted anything recently partially because I had a couple computer meltdowns (first my processor fan died, next my hard drive died). Now that my computer is back up and running, we’ll be uploading pics from the summer. It’s almost the new school year, after all, with Gavin heading into first grade (!!!) and…

  • Role Playing Games for kids

    Role Playing Games for kids

    Our son loves reading.  He’s recently gotten way into The Magic Treehouse series and we’ve since completed the full series (all 45 books!).  It occurred to me, since he’s so interested in storytelling, that he might be into those Choose-Your-Own Adventure books that I wasted my youth reading and re-reading until every possible scenario had…

  • last day of kindergarten

    All four of us got to be at school today for Gavin’s last day of Kindergarten.  Lilah was so excited to go that she had to wear her backpack!  Gavin gave her a big hug and told her, “I’m so glad you’re coming to school with me.”  I was a bit sad that our time…

  • bugs

    We got a new bug “house” a few days ago.  It’s a clear plastic box with a lid shaped like a roof that lets air in.  It has a handle for easy transport of newly made insect friends.  Both Gavin and Lilah were very excited and immediately wanted to catch something in the new bug…

  • Five plus three

        Gavin is weeks away from the end of Kindergarten!  He has made incredible progress this year, keeping up with his class and gaining his voice.  He is reading!  Before this year I wondered how far away reading was for him, and one day in winter I realized he was already there.    The…