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Guest Post: Building Character with Nature’s Lessons
by Barbara A. Lewis, author of Building Character with True Stories from Nature and The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects Weldon lost his homework somewhere between the front door of the school and the...
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Guest Post: Back to School: Setting the Stage for Kindness
by Erin Frankel, author of the Weird series For many students, a new school year brings a mixed bag of emotions. While looking forward to new experiences, students are also nervous about new...
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Guest Post: Foundations for Early Learning Resources
by Marjorie Lisovskis, Free Spirit editorial director and author I recently had the opportunity to present Free Spirit’s 2013 early learning resources (along with a sneak peek at what’s coming for...
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Counselor’s Corner: Summer News Recap for School Counselors
This has been a big summer for school counselors! The American School Counselor Association National Conference was held June 29–July 2 in Orlando, Florida. I learned lots of new information to relay...
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Guest Post: Does Your Child Have the Emotional Vocabulary for School Success?
By Goldie Millar, Ph.D., and Lisa Berger, Ph.D., coauthors of F Is for Feelings Goldie Millar, Ph.D. With school underway, it’s a good time to check in with your kids to make sure they have what they...
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10 Things Every Student Needs to Hear from Teachers
By Barbara A. Lewis, author of Building Character with True Stories from Nature When I returned to teaching after taking a 20-year hiatus to raise my own children, I had an opportunity to take over a...
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Helping Your Child Adjust to All-Day Kindergarten
By Cheri J. Meiners, author of the Learning to Get Along® and Being the Best Me! series Has your child started all-day kindergarten this fall? Most children this age, whether or not they have attended...
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Friday Link Roundup
Educators and parents this week are faced with the difficult task of talking with children about the tragic terrorist attacks in Paris, Baghdad, and Beirut. To help, Cool Mom Picks has scoured the...
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The Best Way to Overcome Fear? Don’t.
By Allison Wedell Schumacher Have you ever looked at your child and wondered how he or she could actually be yours? I do that whenever the subject of pain comes up for my daughter or me. She and I...
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Beyond the Playdate: Practicing Social Skills at Home
By Allison Wedell Schumacher In my other, pre-parent life, I was a professional actress. And while that may sound glamorous, it usually meant long hours rehearsing plays or musicals for shockingly low...
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Little Stranger in a Strange Land: Easing the Transition to Kindergarten
By Allison Wedell Schumacher You know by now that the little strangers we’ve been entrusted with don’t come with operating manuals. This is why I found myself holding my sobbing, brand-new...
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The Plot Thickens: How to Improve Young Children’s Critical Thinking Skills...
By Allison Wedell Schumacher “That isn’t what it says. It says, ‘Scritch, scratch, scratch, scritch.’” This was the egregious error four-year-old Suzanne pointed out to her Head Start teacher, Wendie...
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A Book Is More Than a Book: Interactive Reading for Parents
By Allison Wedell Schumacher When my daughter was just learning to talk, she thought a book was called a “to read.” She would toddle toward us, board book firmly clutched in one tiny hand, saying, “To...
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Does Emotional Intelligence Matter?
By Maurice J. Elias, Ph.D., coauthor of Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students: 30 Flexible Research-Based Activities to Build EQ Skills (Grades 5–9) Our current students are living in a complex,...
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What’s Your EQ? Emotional Intelligence for People Who Work with Kids
By Steven E. Tobias, Psy.D., coauthor of Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students: 30 Flexible Research-Based Activities to Build EQ Skills (Grades 5–9) If you have children or work with them, you know...
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How Mean Behavior and Bullying Affect Academic Performance—And What to Do...
By Jonathan C. Erwin, M.A., author of The School Climate Solution: Creating a Culture of Excellence from the Classroom to the Staff Room The Problem Bullying, defined as an act of repeated physical or...
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How to Boost Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in Students: A Q&A with Drs. Maurice...
By Maurice J. Elias, Ph.D., and Steven E. Tobias, Psy.D., coauthors of Boost Emotional Intelligence in Students: 30 Flexible Research-Based Activities to Build EQ Skills (Grades 5–9) Developing...
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What Can Students Learn from Graphic Novels?
By Allison Wedell Schumacher My grandma and grandpa’s house in Oberlin, Ohio, was the stuff of childhood dreams: a nearly endless backyard leading down to a creek, a screened-in porch with a hammock so...
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Begin at the Beginning with Social-Emotional Learning
By Allison Wedell Schumacher Years ago, when I was casting about for a job, I ended up as a part-time nanny to a three-year-old boy named Logan. I got the impression that his parents, who had listed...
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Growing Strong Learners with Social-Emotional Skills
By Jonathan C. Erwin, M.A., author of The School Climate Solution: Creating a Culture of Excellence from the Classroom to the Staff Room Using a garden as a metaphor for education is nothing new....
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