Would your high schooler be interested in spending two weeks in New York City or Washington DC diving into unique academic pursuits which take advantage of the best these cities have to offer? The New York Times Summer Academy offers high schoolers two week courses in June -August which cover a host of great topics including "Diverse Voices in [...]
Have you heard about the 8 year old Nigerian refugee living in a NYC homeless shelter who took first place in the NYS Scholastic Chess Championship for his age bracket? This is a story of hard work, perseverance, and kindness to share with your sons and daughters. Eight year old Tanitoluwa Adewumi, who is known as Tani, came with [...]
BIG NEWS! I've developed a series of parenting classes called The Inside Guide to NYC Parenting, and it is coming to Hunter College in April!! If you live in or around NYC, you can join us to discover answers to some of the pressing parenting questions I've been focusing on for years in this blog. I'll be offering resources, [...]
Looking for ways to help your children stay motivated and succeed in school? Check out these resources we've recently discovered: Code.org. It is no secret that knowing how to code will put children at a huge advantage when they reach the job market. Jobs that require coding make up 58% of all projected new jobs in STEM fields, and [...]
A recent NY Times column highlights an initiative from the College Board (the folks who create and produce the SATs and AP Exams) in which the Board determined that mastering two codes--computer science and the U.S. Constitution--were the most important skills (among the skills they test) for achieving success in college and in life. They explain their clunky-but-cleverly named [...]
Now that our children are back in school after the holidays and settling back into the routine, it is a great time to check in with their teachers to see how things are going. If your son is in elementary or lower school, why not send a simple email to his teacher to ask how he is adjusting to [...]
Scrambling to finish your Christmas shopping this week? Why not add some books for all the boys on your list? We need to encourage young boys to read more. In Scholastic’s 2016 survey of over 2000 U.S. children ages 6-17, boys were found to spend less time reading than girls. Forty-five percent of boys questioned (versus only 36% of [...]
Monday is Columbus Day. While many of us were taught in elementary school that "Columbus discovered America" in 1492, we now know that Christopher Columbus never set foot on what we know as the United States. Moreover, when he and his Spanish army got to the Caribbean islands in 1492 they found settlers already there-- indigenous people from the [...]
Want to know where to find great children's books featuring Black and Brown characters? Looking for new titles to add to your children's bookshelves? Want some help on how to raise an avid reader? Here Wee Read is here for you. Here Wee Read is a website (with a great Instagram account, @hereweeread) that finds and reviews children's books [...]
Now that your son has gotten his first few weeks of school under his belt, here are a few areas to check in and focus on: School Supplies, Backpack: Does your son have the proper supplies for all of his classes? Does he need extra folders for the handouts from class? Does the math teacher require graph paper notebooks? [...]