Boots’ school operates on a color system – kids start the day at green and either move up to yellow, orange and then red or down to blue, purple and gray.
The problems with that are …

With no outward warning signs, he buried his face in his arms and started crying. These were no delicate sobs, but chest-wracking heaves.
“What’s wrong?” his teacher asked.
“It’s the end of school, and I’ll never see …

There are two gray plastic bins in the garage, each roughly 2x2x2. I bought them several years ago, to preserve the guys’ keepsakes. Important stuff such as the first outfits they wore and their first …

There is not gravity on the moon. You can flot up in the rocket. The gravity can lif you.
It is not strong gravity. The moon have a slick gravity. Gravity is not hot air. Astonots …

Dear Mom,
I love you! Happy Mothr’s Day! I love it when you clim the montin. Have a special day! I like it when we ride bikes.
Love,
Big Guy

(All misspellings are by the author. Not that the Web master does much better on any given day.)
If i had a thing I would cich it.
I would take the kite away fron him.
If the thing …

A funny thing happened on the way to the White House.
As he “researched” information for his first-ever report – one page on a historical site, with a picture from which he could create a drawing …

It’s a math drill with no flash cards!
It’s exercise without leaving the patio!
And it’s also an idea I blatantly stole from Parents Math Night at Big Guy’s school – but, hey, there’s nothing wrong with …

I’m certain it was the bright-blue goggle-eyed pug on the cover that drew Big Guy’s attention. The fact that I was trying to steer him to what I thought was more age-appropriate reading material – …

We’ve read the books, and we’ve eaten the cake at the library. That’s all old Cat in the Hat now. What else could we do to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday and Read Across America, I …

When we last left Big Guy, his big mouth was causing problems at school on a daily basis. It’s a seasonal issue for him that’s going to crop up just as sure as the teacher …

Take one over-sized wall map of the United States.
Add quick sheets filled with random information about various states.
Combine with a boy’s passion for racing, stir with a DryErase marker and marinate for 36 events over …

Big Guy had big news just before the holidays. He’d been promoted to the hot-pink dots under the school library color-coded system for deciphering reading levels, meaning he now was allowed to check out “chapter …

We got a call yesterday morning, just hours before the start of winter break, from Big Guy’s teacher. She’d wanted to know if he’d been sick the past two days – he had – and …

Used to be I thought the weirdest story assignment I’d ever tackled was in seventh grade, when the teacher told us to write about what life would be like inside a ping-pong ball.
That was before …

There are two things I like about the new voluntary reading program at Big Guy’s school, which involves his teacher sending home two books that the kids read until they can complete the text without …

If I had a pet chicken I will eat pizza with it.
I will eat hot dogs with it.
I will have a cocoa with it.
I will play with it.
I will take it to The Box.
What would …

A few weeks into spelling tests and I was tired of dancing, though at least it burned off the calories from the fruit-snack math.
Even worse: Big Guy was a little bored with the homework boogie, …

There are two types of behavior that put a kid at risk for being labeled “naughty” – a label, by the way, that can stick through a child’s school years and a reputation that can …

Parental advisory: The following trick incorporates two great evils I usually avoid at all costs – corn syrup and artificial dye. It’s an awful, awful idea. Except it happens to work.
It’s hardly an original idea …

“Red and yellow and pink and green,

Purple and orange and blue …”

I hate you.
All of you, especially pink. The rest I didn’t despise until two weeks ago, when a note from Big Guy’s teacher gave …

“Kev makes this pattern: square, rectangle, rectangle, square. He repeats the pattern 3 times. What does the pattern look like?” – Macmillan McGraw-Hill “California Mathematics,” Page 1.
I don’t know about Kev, but to me the …

For Big Guy, the only thing that could match the anticipation last year of leaving the baby school and going to kindergarten was the excitement of a potential school bus ride.
His dreams were destroyed before …

It’s a statement as obvious – at least, it is to anyone whose kid has been in kindergarten for more than a few days – as it is unfair: “To help the kid do better …

One guy bolted out of bed, strapped on his backpack and bounced out the door, eager to get started at his new school.
The other trudged, stoop-shouldered, to his classroom.
It was exactly what I expected – …