What most educational systems don’t account for is the vast discrepancy between students and their individual learning styles or ‘intelligences’. Some students are great at math or reading, while others are great learning a new sport or a new song. The key to a good education is allowing for all of the intelligences to be built on.

As a homeschooling parent/teacher, I found Dr. Mercola’s simple article about ‘multiple intelligences’ did a great job of outlining each learning style in an easy-to-understand format. In fact, I could easily recognize most of my strengths as well as my daughter’s, too.

But, the fascinating thing (to me anyway) was the link to an online test to determine your percentages of each intelligence. After I took the test and had fun dissecting my own chart, I had my 7 year old take it, too. (I wouldn’t suggest it for anyone much younger unless you’re ready to re-phrase most of the questions and even answer the questions for them.) What was amazing to me, was seeing how she answered differently than I would have for her. It turns out that she’s stronger in some areas than I’ve given her credit for, and vice versa.

Of course, the next step is for me to start recognizing her most prominent intelligences and allowing her the space to do more of her school work aligned with those strengths while not neglecting the weaker areas. Should make for an interesting next few months…

What about you? Have you heard of these intelligences before? If you have, is it now easier for you (or your student) to complete necessary tasks with this information in mind? Share your stories!

I called a friend of mine who is very in touch with all things organic, natural, and homeopathic and begged her for a natural remedy to help us through the weekend. And of course, she had one! I had totally forgotten about this solution until a mutual friend of ours came to a Mom’s Night Out with her sick baby who also had an ear infection. Not only did my friend tell this mom how to take care of it, another mom in the group walked into the kitchen, prepared this solution below and took it to my friend to administer to the desperate mom’s crying baby. The mom sent an email to all of us the next day thanking our friends for helping her out and ecstatic that the solution took care of her baby’s ear infection without a doctor’s visit!

(Obviously, you’ll want to go with your gut on anything anyone recommends for treating your children – if you’re not comfortable with it, don’t do it! Research another solution and go with what gives you (and your partner) the most peace. Just my own little disclaimer here before dispensing ‘medical’ advice…)

Here’s my friend’s instructions:

For ear infection: Pour 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan with some 2-3 cloves of diced garlic. Cook it until you get most of the aroma out of the garlic. (I think she cooked it for about 5-8 minutes.) Let it cool to room temperature (obviously!) before pouring the liquid into the ear (4 to 10 drops). You can use a small spoon or even an eye dropper to administer the liquid. You can pour it inside of the ear as many times you want, depending on the severity of the infection, but I would recommend that you wait about 1 hour in between ‘doses’.

By the way, another discussion that came up that night related to ear infections was the D word. That’s right – DAIRY. It seems that there is some link between children that get multiple ear infections when they’re little and dairy products. Sometimes, the ear infections are acting as an allergic reaction to the dairy, and when you’re able to wean the child off of dairy, the ear infections decrease. Just an idea for those of you moms that are pulling your hair out trying to figure out why the ear infections keep happening.

One last idea my friend sent us to try is a natural remedy for fever. Cut a garlic clove or an onion in half. Rub the cut side of the garlic or onion on the feet. Your feet actually absorb and process things rather quickly and this natural remedy has worked for MANY years before Tylenol was invented.

Not only has my friend done these things with her own children, but a couple of the other moms in our group have also tried these natural remedies for ear infections and fever with great success. If you try either of these ideas, please leave us a comment to let us know how it worked for you!

by Leda Schubert

My review
rating: 5 of 5 stars

Winner of the 2007-2008 Texas Bluebonnet Award, this book filled with watercolor pictures of the true story of the Ballet of Elephants was captivating. When Igor Stravinsky (composer of The Nutcracker) was asked by George Balanchine (Russian Choreographer) to compose a piece of music for John Ringling North’s circus elephants to perform to, Stravinsky gladly jumped at the opportunity. My 6 year old listened to the story fascinated by the idea of elephants performing ballet, and was even more enthralled at the end when she realized this had been a TRUE story. Great book for introducing Stravinsky as a composer.

View all my reviews on goodreads.com.

by Shelley Rotner

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

My 2.5 year old loved this book and actually did quite well recognizing the objects’ parts before seeing the entire image on the next page. Great book for teaching parts to whole.

View all my reviews on goodreads.com.

by Joanne Ryder

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful pictures and poetic text lend to a great description of Earth. Particularly moving for Earth Day, this book helps a child to relate to and almost feel like Mother Earth in order to have compassion for this planet we call home.

View all my reviews on goodreads.com.

by Joy Masoff

My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

This interactive book about every kind of ‘boo boo’ is a great way for kids to learn about injuries and how to handle them. Written in a very upbeat kind of way so as not be scary, the sing-songy text still manages to convey important concepts. “Stitches itches as they heal. Tickling, tightening, a wee bit frightening! Stitches itches, but not for long. In a few short days, they will be gone.” My favorite part is the ending where the author reminds kids that injuries are only temporary and their ‘super-power bodies’ will heal from the inside out. Great book to take the fear out of everyday injuries.

View all my reviews on goodreads.com.

• Where did you come from?  Texas <THAT’S my girl!!>
• Where are you going?  (giggle) To my house
• What is dancing?  Fun
• What’s the best place in the whole world?  Home   Why?  Because my Mommy and my Daddy are here.
• What do you wish for?
• What is a giggle?  It’s a laugh.  Like what I’m doing.  (giggle)
• What do you dream about?  Mommy and Daddy
• What did you dream about last night?  Mommy hugging me.  <aw.  So sweet.>
• Do you want to be beautiful or smart?  Both.
• What is the sky made of?  Blue and white.
• What did you do today?  School.
• How fast can you run?  Very fast.
• What’s the meaning of life?  I don’t know.  <join the club, sister!>

I was rocking Karis to sleep today, when I picked up a book off her shelf I haven’t looked at in years.  It’s called A Child’s World, by Laura Straus. (Thanks, Cheri!)  The book is basically a collection of quotes from children under the age of 10.  Some are  answers to simple questions like, “what is dancing?”, “what do you dream about?”, “what is the sky made of?”, etc…

I was struck again by the simplicity, clarity, and profound wisdom that our young children possess without even realizing it.  For instance, here’s a couple of my favorites:

Do you want to be beautiful or smart?

I want to be Cella!  -Cella, age 5

What’s the meaning of life?

The earth was lonely so people were made.  -Daniel, age 9

Are you a human being?  I’m a human being.  We must be related.  -Sylvie, age 3

Reading this book made me think of what fun it would be to ask my own kids (ages almost 6, 4, and 2.5) some of the same questions. And then I thought, “What fun would it be to ask all my friends with kids if they want to do the same?”

So, here’s your chance to tell me what YOUR kids say that is so profound. Feel free to share whatever you choose, I’m just going to give you a few questions (from the book) as a starting off point.

• Where did you come from?
• Where are you going?
• What is dancing?
• What’s the best place in the whole world? Why?
• What do you wish for?
• What is a giggle?
• What do you dream about?
• What did you dream about last night?
• Do you want to be beautiful or smart?
• What is the sky made of?
• What did you do today?
• How fast can you run?
• What’s the meaning of life?

Can’t wait to read what you all hear from your brilliant kiddos. And I’ll share some of mine after they get up from rest time, too! Enjoy!

Waffles:
My husband just discovered this method and I tried it this morning and FELL. IN. LOVE.

Use a pizza wheel. I still like to follow the straight lines of the waffle pattern. Shawn likes to cut waffles up like a pie. Follow your heart on that, but definitely pick up the pizza cutter to do it!

Sandwiches:
I can’t stand having to cut the crust off of sandwiches (my kids have learned to either eat them or just eat around them), but when company comes over, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. So, I’ve learned to grab this kitchen accessory:

It’s officially called a “Bash ‘N Chop Cutter” because you’re supposed to be able to ‘bash’ the garlic and then chop it with the sharp end. But, ask me how many times I’ve actually used it to chop any vegetable, much less garlic… Works great for cutting the edges of the bread and also cutting sandwiches into squares or triangles or ‘soldiers’ (long skinny rectangles).

Apples:
Don’t know if you have one of these lying around, but I LOVE my apple corer/divider. It makes chopping apples up into slices for the kiddos super easy. This one is a little more expensive, but I think I was able to pick one up at IKEA for about a buck…

Pancakes:
You could probably use the “Bash ‘N Chop Cutter” or the Pizza Wheel to cut pancakes, but I actually prefer to just make smaller pancakes to begin with. I like to make lots of little silver dollar pancakes and tell the kids to eat them in one bite, or just pick them up with their fingers (messy when you use syrup, but worth the extra hand washing to preserve my sanity). Of course, you could always use this MeckMom tip and buy a cheap condiment dispenser too…

So, those are my tips for you. What things do you do in the kitchen to help make kid food easier??

Kate and I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving by thinking of things we are grateful for all month long. And to write these things down, we’re posting them on our “Thanksgiving Tree” on our pantry door.

We took a few pieces of newspaper and taped them together on the back, then drew a large tree trunk and some branches with crayons. Then we drew some different kinds of leaves on another piece of newspaper, cut them out as stencils, and traced and cut many more out of yellow, orange, and red construction paper.

We’ve chosen to write one thing we are thankful for per leaf and also to sign our names to each leaf so we know who wrote which thing. I tried to let Kate choose as much of the craft as possible so that she would have ownership in it all. She was so excited to tape her first leaf to the tree and couldn’t wait to have brother and sister home so they could ‘write’ one, too.

So far, we have about a dozen leaves on our tree ranging from being thankful for ‘our family’ all the way to being thankful for ‘my Groovy Doll’. She’s loving adding to it and I love that it’s perpetuating an attitude of gratefulness during this Thanksgiving season.

So, what Thanksgiving traditions do you and your family celebrate?

We finally got finished, packed it all up and drove down the street to Northwest Assistance Ministries. When we got to there, we took a few minutes to look around their resale shop so Kate would have a better understanding of where her beloved things were going. When wemade it around to the back, the volunteer who helped us unload the car was very sweet to Kate and assured her that all her toys would be put to good use.

As soon as we got back into the car, Kate burst into tears. She just knew she was really going to miss all of her things. (Mind you, most of them had been put away in a closet for months with no mention from her.  But, you know how kiddos can be.) So, we talked about how awesome it was going to be for all the boys and girls that didn’t have many toys to get to play with hers because she was so generous to share.  We talked about how maybe the little girl we saw in the resale shop would get some of Kate’s old dress up clothes to wear for Halloween.  We talked about ‘give and you shall receive’.  We talked about the sun behind every cloud as she peered out the car window at the overcast sky was and pointed out the patches of sunshine peeking through.

Then, we decided that the two of us needed a date.

at McDonald’s.

with an ice cream cone.

And then, everything was alright with the world again.

“But I’ll still miss those toys, Mommy.”

So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house. I came across several great suggestions like these:

• Put the artwork into a plastic box that fits under your child’s bed. You can always add more to the box as it starts to build up again. And, you can usually talk your child into culling through the pile that’s been in the box for a while in order to get more of the new stuff in.
• Get a clean pizza box to store artwork (even some 3D artwork will fit in these). You can even have a box per child per calendar year stored away in a closet somewhere.
• Take digital pics of the faves and then recycle it all. (Talk about NO clutter!!)
• Hang them in your playroom or child’s room from a clothes line/string.
• Then, there’s the ever-present refrigerator door. (Can you find the door or handle behind all those brilliant crayon masterpieces?)

While these are all great solutions and work for some people, the problem I had with most of these was that the artwork was stored away somewhere that no one could see them on a daily basis. Or, if they were on display, there was just TOO much volume of work to keep up with it all on ONE refrigerator door.

So, we decided to do something different. I ran across an article about making a collage of your child’s artwork on a canvas and hanging it in their room. And while the task of putting things on a canvas seemed a little daunting to me, I liked the general idea of being able to put MANY pieces of artwork together into one larger piece of art.

For Christmas, we bought Kate a simple, wood frame from IKEA. We got the poster-sized frame so that we would have plenty of room to display LOTS of artwork. And the great thing about this frame, besides how CHEAP it was, is that it uses plexiglass for the front instead of real glass. SO nice for a little kid’s room where strange things happen to things that can break.

We took that frame, painted it her favorite color, pink, and then added several decorations to it to make it truly hers. She loved getting to personalize it any way that she wanted to with little foam butterflies and wooden letters painted to match her room. And I loved that the whole project, including frame, wooden letters, paint, and foam cut-outs cost less than $10.

Then we took her PILES of artwork and started culling through them all to determine which pieces we absolutely HAD to keep and which we could cut out just a special piece of, and which ones were truly recyclable. (This process, by the way took at least an hour! She comes from a long line of pack-rats, so it was inevitable that it would take forever.)

Once we had the ‘special’ pieces ready, we started to place them on the poster sized paper that was included in the frame. We took special care to cut things out with fun edged scissors, label the things that needed it, and arranging them just right so that nothing was covered up that was really important. Then, we glued it all down. (Quick tip: using liquid glue tends to make the paper wrinkle and even make marker bleed, so we wound up changing to a glue stick half way through the project.) When everything is glued in place, I have Kate take a marker and sign her name and date to the bottom of the collage. I think this will be a fun way to not only keep her artwork from this age, but also get to see a piece of her handwriting, too.

Then, all that’s left to is pop it into the frame (might wait for the glue to dry first, though) and hang it where it can be admired by all. We have Kate’s hung in her bedroom so that everyone visiting her can see all her special pictures. It’s been a great way to personalize her room even more and she loves being able to show off all her artwork to her friends and grandparents.

UPDATE: It’s been a few months since we did the original collage and there have been plenty more ‘special’ pieces of artwork generated in that time frame. So, we bought a piece of posterboard, cut it to size and went about creating a new collage of the current artwork. Once it was done and ready to pop in the frame, we just set the new collage on top of the old one in the frame, sandwiching the old collage between the new one and the backing of the frame, and voila! a new collage for her wall with all her current artwork.

This is a photo that Kate took on Shawn’s iPhone recently.  She obviously blurred whatever she was looking at, but the resulting image was just too pretty to delete.  What’s amazing to me is that Kate’s a better artist on accident than her mommy ever is on purpose!!  :)