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Capital Region BOCES
Elementary
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 […]
During the recent Thanksgiving holiday break from school, my two sons and I decided to do a game night and dusted off Monopoly. I realized shortly after we started to play that Monopoly is a goldmine for practicing math and reading skills. Adding the dice to figure out how many spaces to move, counting out […]
One day last spring, as I picked my daughter up after school, she rushed to the car in breathless distress. Swinging open a rear door in a flurry of backpack straps, folders and loose homework, she pushed a slip of paper into my hands. “We have to help the animals!” I remember looking around, expecting […]
You just worked a full day, rushed home to make dinner, sit down to eat with your family and open with this showstopper: “How was school today?” A popular answer to this question is, “K,” or perhaps you’re familiar with: “It was fine,” or “Good.” Or even worse, an answer doesn’t come. Just your child, […]
There’s been a great deal of discussion in social, educational, and professional circles about the benefits and challenges of children (of all ages) using technology. I began paying more attention to the different points of view when I took a look at my children’s holiday wish lists. Written at the top were smartphones, laptops, and […]
Sometimes teens get a bad rap when they want to sleep the day away after staying up all night. But it turns out, according to science, your “lazy” teen might just be tired. “When we’re newborns, we need a lot of sleep, as much as 17 hours, in chunks spread throughout the day. But as […]
Our local community center’s winter activities catalog arrived the other day in the mail. By the look of it, you would think it was the much-coveted holiday toy catalog because of the way my children have earmarked it, tagged pages, and circled activities. They even color-coded and put their initials next to what they circled […]
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Perhaps the most famous quote from everyone’s favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers, came from a lesson from his mother, detailing empathy in action. Our […]