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Capital Region BOCES
Archive for 2018
At the beginning of the school year, my fifth-grade son’s teacher asked parents to donate spare stools or chairs to her classroom so she could offer some nontraditional seating options for her students. This was something my son, and I, were very excited about. My son has ADHD, so spending the bulk of his day […]
Mastery-based education. Competency-based learning. Personalized learning. Project-based learning. Differentiated instruction. These are some of the terms used to describe different education practices. Maybe you’ve read about them. Maybe you’ve heard them used in reference to your child’s school. The commonality amongst them is a shift away from the traditional classroom model of students seated at […]
Will your little one be five years old on or before Dec. 5, 2018? If you answered yes, then chances are pretty good that you have already begun the process with your school district to get him or her signed up for kindergarten next year. Congratulations! That’s exciting for both of you…and, yes, it can […]
Whether it’s kids twirling fidget spinners or eating Tide pods, there is never a dull moment in the world of parenting. Trends seem to spring from nowhere. Of course some of these trends, like popping a Tide pod in your mouth, aren’t as innocent as others. We’ve come a long way from when Motley Crue […]
Sometimes, for fun, I ask my kids what they want to be when they grow up. Kids, as we know, say the darndest things. Some of their answers include: Power Ranger, fast food worker, motorcycle mechanic, famous soccer player, singer, lawyer (okay, I made them say that last one.) Although my children are 7 and […]
When my mother was a little girl, she lived a poor, challenging life in Puerto Rico. But when she turned 7, my grandmother – who I call Ita – packed up their few belongings, and moved my mother and her sister to New York. They had no money and they didn’t speak English. Children of […]
When young children swipe their paintbrush up and down a blank piece of paper or canvas, scribble with crayons or markers, and cut and paste with scissors and glue, they are doing much more than creating their next masterpiece. Their brains are growing and their senses are sending messages to the brain about how things […]
It’s hard to forget Keaton Jones – the middle-schooler who tearfully recounted his experience with bullies in a video that went viral on social media. That’s probably because nearly everyone can relate in some way, whether it be a time you were bullied personally, or a time when you wiped away your own child’s tears […]
If the year 2017 was an actual person, I envision he or she would have a fidget spinner in one hand, a smart phone in another while driving a car with his or her knees. It was a wild year for parents and at times even a little scary. But there were also some lighthearted […]