How are we preparing our children for academic success? Through drills? Memorization? Worksheets? Testing? As parents we want our children to do well. Correction: We want them to do very well. In most cases the way to find out how much our children know is through drills and testing. Every day, in some form or […]
How Understanding Common Core Standards Can Help Your Child Succeed in Kindergarten
Whether homeschooling a child or simply making an effort to ensure that children are being suitably challenged in class, it is vital to learn and understand what children in each grade are expected to know. Similarly, knowing what your child will be expected to learn in kindergarten gives you valuable information about whether your child is developmentally […]
Four Powerful Reasons to Set Family Goals This Year
It happens every year. The ball drops, the new year begins, and millions of people start working on resolutions that most will abandon by mid-January. The new year offers us a clean slate to try to better ourselves. We do this in a number of ways, from setting health-related goals like working out or eating healthy […]
How to Make Mom Friends
She was as prepared for motherhood as she could be. She’d read the books. She’d taken the classes. She knew to expect the baby blues or possibly more. She knew that life as she’d always known it would be flipped on it’s head. Yet there was one thing she wasn’t expecting: The loneliness. It’s a common element […]
How to Teach Kindness in a Divided World
No one would argue that the election season we just endured was possibly the most divisive of all time. Regardless of how you feel about the outcome, it’s clear that Americans have much hard work ahead of us to heal the disunity. Although the chasm may sometimes feel too large to bridge, the truth is that […]
How to Find Balance in Your Family’s Busy Schedule
You pick your kids up from school, toss a snack to them as you pull out of the parking lot, and head for soccer practice. After soccer, it’s a quick trip across town to swim class, a stop at the grocery store, then home for dinner and bed. But wait! There’s homework to be done […]
Learning to Write: Does It Matter if a Child is Left- or Right-Handed?
Teaching children to write with their right correct hand is essential. Now that school is about to begin, I’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding hand dominance. How do you know which hand your child is supposed to write with? Can you teach your left-hander to write like a right-hander? How do you know if […]
Stop Your Kids’ ‘Blame Game’ With These Four Tips
Anyone with children over the age of five has probably heard some or all of the following phrases: “It’s her fault!” “But…” “He did it first!” “I couldn’t help it.” Parents encounter many trying situations on a daily basis, but one of the most frustrating is the Blame Game. Kids seem to have a million […]
Six Fun Ways to Help Your Children Celebrate Their Friends
Friends make our bad days bearable and our good days better. Over the past several weeks the Miss Humblebee’s blog has been all about friendship: Teaching our children interpersonal skills, teaching them how to be a good friend, and teaching them empathy. In honor of National Friendship Day on August 7th, we’re wrapping up our friendship […]
Walk in My Shoes: Teaching Our Children Empathy
We seem to live in a world gone crazy. Every day the news outlets carry stories of horror, hate, and heartbreak. When we focus on it, it’s all too easy to wonder if there is any good left in the world. However, when we shift our focus, a new picture comes into view. A picture […]
Teaching Your Child How to Be a Good Friend (with Free Printable)
We all know how important friendships are to life, but developing and maintaining friendships takes both work and practice. Some children are naturally outgoing and find it easy to make friends while others may struggle in this area, but all children need to learn the social skills necessary to be a good friend. In our […]
Seven Interpersonal Skills Your Child Needs to Know
Communication. It’s a simple word, one we often take for granted as something that children learn naturally. We know we need to teach our kids academic skills, but often forget that interpersonal skills also need to be taught. So much of life, including our personal relationships, work relationships, and political relationships to name only a few, […]
How to Be Proactive Instead of Reactive When Dealing With Difficult Behaviors in Your Children
Before you had kids, what kind of parent did you think you’d be? What did you think your kids would be like? Although no parent would claim they expected life with kids to be perfect, those pre-baby dreams are often far more idyllic than reality turns out to be. New parents quickly learn that their offspring are […]
Kindergarten Readiness: Preparing Your Child Physically
It’s easy to think about kindergarten readiness and only focus on academics. School is not the same as it was 20 or 30 years ago and children are no longer able to enter kindergarten with no expectations upon them. A basic academic foundation (knowing numbers and letters, for example) is necessary for a child to succeed in […]
Kindergarten Readiness: Preparing Your Child Socially
When you think of kindergarten readiness, does your mind immediately jump to academics? “My child knows the alphabet and can count to 100. He’s ready for school!” As important as academic readiness is for a child entering kindergarten, it’s not the only thing that matters, nor is it the only thing that should be taken […]
6 Key Critical Thinking Skills to Teach Your Child
This week’s Topic for Monday is centered on critical thinking skills. What is Critical Thinking? Why should our children be able to think critically? What Critical Thinking skills should you teach your child now? Six Key Critical Thinking Skills to Teach Your Child What is Critical Thinking? Critical Thinking has been a hot topic […]
