It's December, and as winter storms sweep across the nation, it's time...to plan summertime activities! Believe it or not, it is not too early to start planning what your kids will be doing in the summer of 2020. Camps start filling their spaces in January, and camp consultants are already planning events to introduce parents to a variety of [...]
With Thanksgiving a few days away, everyone is gearing up for family gatherings and good eating. Whether there are just a few of you or you are having a family reunion around the table, it is important to enjoy the time together for this holiday meal. Here are some Do's and Don'ts to help make sure the holiday is [...]
GCP's on IG! We want to expand the conversation about raising our boys of color–and our girls too– so we've just launched our Instagram account. We'll post pics and thoughts about our brand of parenting, and we want to know your thoughts as well. Please follow us at @groundcontrolparenting, and please post your comments (and likes!). Hope to see [...]
We are only a week away from Thanksgiving, so today's Thoughtful Thursday offers up a hodgepodge of poems celebrating the food, festivities and fun of this holiday. We start with Elizabeth Alexander's "Butter", a delightful ode to the spread which makes everything taste better. Bet you can't read this without getting hungry! Next is the moving and soulful "Perhaps [...]
GCP has been writing about how to talk with our children about mass shootings for too many years. Sadly, we are running an edited version of this post again below. Our children are learning to live in a world where schools and other familiar places we all visit can be targets, and we have to help them cope [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday continues the celebration of Veteran's Day with two poems written by African American veteran Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) about his Vietnam War service. Komunyakaa served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1970 as a correspondent; he was the managing editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam war, for which he was awarded a [...]
Ever wonder where to find high quality, teacher-tested educational materials online to help your child master a tough subject or learn more about a subject he or she loves? You may soon need look no further than the site from which you can get just about anything else: Amazon.com. Amazon Education has just launched "Amazon Ignite", an educational materials [...]
Today’s Thoughtful Thursday post, as it falls on Halloween, is dedicated to a series of delightfully sinister “Little Willie” poems. These poems detail the antics of Little Willie, a boy who carries out one devilish deed after another. Fans of Adams Family style fiendish humor will find these rhyming verses particularly fun. "Little Willie"poetry is first attributed to the [...]
GCP has been off the grid for a few weeks but we just had to pop back in today to say Run, Don't Walk, to see the great new movie HARRIET which is opening in theaters nationwide tomorrow, November 1!!! We saw it when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, and it is an exciting and inspirational film [...]
Is your son or daughter an inspiring poet? A good writer? A talented artist? Time to enter a contest and show the world these talents! Today's Thoughtful Thursday showcases a few contests your creative children may want to enter. Click on the links for more details. National Poetry Month Poster Contest: Students in grades 9 through 12 can enter [...]