Doing the impossible: Teaching Art Appreciation to a 5-year old and a 10-year old
I know it sounds impossible – but I actually pulled this off. You know how half the time, well ok for me it feels like most of the time, I feel like I strike out more often than I hit a home run. I hear myself saying more often than I care to admit “Well, that didn’t go as well as planned.” But this time? This time I hit it out of the park. It began when my mother told me about an exhibit going on in San Francisco: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and beyond at the de Young Museum. I rushed right over to my computer and bought tickets for Sam, the kids, my parents, and me before I even thought twice about it. Then of course it dawned on me that spending the afternoon in a crowded museum, looking at old pictures on the wall probably...
The Reading Game – iPhone App
The Reading Game iPhone App is free for a limited time. Go download it and check it out! Here’s some info sent to me by the developer: First of its Kind: Rewards and Tracking as Kids Read Their Books Parents Can Give Their Child the Gift of Reading Just in time for summer reading assignments! The Reading Game makes reading books more exciting and fun than ever before. With over 100 rewards to unlock, this game transforms daily reading into kids’ favorite thing. It is simple and easy to use. Students are already hooked on technology. Now they can harness that energy to prevent the summer slide that causes them to shed their academic skills. This new game encourages students to read every day, to track their reading and be rewarded every time they...
Any teachers out there?
There’s this great program that they do in Rachel’s school called “Art Through The Ages.” It’s completely run and taught by the PTA and the idea behind the program is to teach kids both history, and art history, while also giving them an art class. The time period is discussed along with what things were happening in the world and a particular region at that time, art during that time frame is shown and discussed, and then the kids get a chance to try their hands at creating similar art using similar methods from the time. Rachel loves the program. She comes home and tells me all about what she learned, and what she made. This year I offered to help. Honestly, I really didn’t think they’d need me or that they’d pick...
Writing practice and connecting with your child (a two-fer)
I met up with a some women from my moms group last night, one of whom is a Kindergarten teacher. Some of us brought a few things to work on while we chatted, she was grading some papers from school. She was laughing at a note from one of her students and I asked her about it. Apparently, as an exercise in her class, to have the kids practice writing, they write notes back and forth to her. She said sometimes she’ll ask them a question, like “what is your favorite color” and they’ll answer and write her back and ask her a question – and the back and forth goes on like this. She said she also encourages the parents to do the same – to write what she calls “pillow notes” – little notes that ask a question and...
My name is Jennifer and The Working Mom is my online journal. I'm very bad about updating it regularly. I like writing, but not as much as I 
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