Another decorating idea for eggs, from the wonderful blog KidsHaus: Making Easter Eggs . Shows the results of adding a little (olive) oil to the dye mixture.

Although we painted our eggs this year, we usually dye them for Easter, and last year Oma surprised the boys with a trick I have since discovered on the web: boiling the eggs with onion skins will give them an orange hue, its strength varying with the length of time left boiling. Other plants and […]

The New York Times has an article on “redshirting”, or holding a younger child back a year before starting kindergarten. Redshirting is something we never considered for our oldest child, who has a Halloween birthday, until it was too late: in retrospect, it might have been the wise thing to do, both socially and academically. […]

I missed this article when it came out last week (”In Kindergarten Playtime, A New Meaning for ‘Play’”, July 26), only finding it when I read the letters to the editor of upset readers.
The article tells of the Achievement First East New York Charter School in Brooklyn, which puts its kindergarten students to an academic […]

May is Storytelling Month at our local school. The children are treated to visiting storytellers, a teacher tells a story over the intercom each morning, and workshops are held to encourage the students to become creative and engaging storytellers. The children each learn and recite a tale from another culture (our eldest son is learning […]

A customer wrote to ask questions about the Stockmar Modelling Beeswax she had purchased. I was happy to redirect her to the Stockmar site, where along with an overview of the wonderful art materials they produce, they offer manuals to advise and inspire users of their crayons, paints and wax. These instructions may be downloaded […]

We had some friends–the parents of two young boys–over last night for dinner, and the conversation eventually turned to toys and what our kids play with. They have just moved, and though the toys are finally unpacked again, they found that their children’s attentions were held for hours by the moving boxes. We agreed […]

As I was putting our youngest in his car seat, I discovered that a toy he loves to play with there had broken. It is an old toy (a mouse with rattling rings around his body) and has already been through two brothers, so it really isn’t a surprise–his favorite thing is to bang it […]

It has been a busy week for our family, with two of our boys returning to school. Our eldest is now in third grade, and the second has begun (finally!) kindergarten: he has been itching to go ever since his big brother first got on the bus three years ago. It’s easy to forget the […]

Although school has been out here for only two weeks, we are already thinking about September and the next school year. Our middle child will be starting kindergarten, and it is possible that he will be in a class that is not only collaborative (twice the number of students and twice the number of teachers), […]