This fair trade holiday gifts post is sponsored by Catalyst Collections What if the products you bought for your home and gave as gifts did more? This season we can choose to support retail giants, small businesses in our community, or buy fair trade holiday gifts that support women in other countries. Personally, I love…
2021 Gift Guide: Best Gifts for Teens (ages 13+)
The links in this gifts for teens post are affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link. Parenting high schoolers while teaching middle schoolers provides an interesting perspective on ages 13+. We tend to think that teens are closed off and moody but many…
2021 Gift Guide: Best Gifts for Tweens (ages 8-12)
The links in this gifts for tweens post are affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link. As a middle school teacher, I’m around tweens a lot. This age group wants to leave childhood far behind in favor of being grown up. They feel…
2021 Gift Guide: Best Gifts for Early Elementary Ages (ages 5-8)
The links in this best gifts for early elementary ages post are affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link. Before I was a middle school teacher, the first teaching job I ever had was as a first grade teacher. As challenging as it…
2021 Gift Guide: Best Gifts for Toddlers and Preschoolers
The links in this post are affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on a link. Well before I started teaching elementary and now middle schoolers, I loved spending time with toddlers and preschoolers as an undergraduate psychology major, then through my graduate studies, and finally…
2021 Holiday Gift Guides
As 2020 drew to a close, it was hard to know what 2021 had in store for us. The availability of vaccines has provided a renewed sense of hope as we cautiously get back to a life that feels a little familiar. So many of us are looking forward to the joy of being with…
Why I’m Ok When My Teens Don’t Want to Hang Out with Me
This post is sponsored by the Center for Parent and Teen Communication “I’m heading back to school for a football game,” my 17-year-old daughter says, grabbing an apple with her free hand because the car keys are in the other. “I’ll be back around 9 pm. Unless we go out after. Then I’ll text you.”…
Looking Forward and Backwards as High School Graduation Approaches
This post is sponsored by the Center for Parent and Teen Communication When my kids were little, I looked forward to all the firsts, but as a parent of a high school senior, those milestones are dwindling. These days I find myself looking backward and forward, suffering whiplash because of how quickly time has passed….
The Best Age-Appropriate Advent Calendars for Kids
When I was little, it was a family tradition to always have advent calendars to start the month of December. Each day my brother and I would open a little door that revealed a piece of chocolate, with the final one being opened on Christmas Eve. The tradition of advent calendars continues in our house,…
7 Favorite Resources for Teaching Digital Safety to Kids
Every year I’m asked to speak to our school PTA about digital safety. Teaching digital safety to kids isn’t easy, especially when cell phones, laptops, and tablets provide convenience and connectivity that we need. We want our kids to be connected to us through their cell phones if they need us but that also means…
