Search Results for: blog quick tips for the new school year

Your Back to School Savings Strategy

The average parent spends $600 to get just one child ready for school in the fall. You can greatly reduce this cost if you follow our step-by-step back to school savings strategy. 1. Make a list Most schools post their school supply lists online to make it easy for parents to shop ahead. If yours doesn’t contact other parents to get an idea of what your child will need to bring to school in terms of pencils, notebooks, crayons, etc. Do the same with clothing. How many shirts, dresses, pants, socks, shoes and other clothing items will your child need … Continue reading →

Back-to-School Breakfast Ideas

Now that the new school year is underway, my days as a short order cook are over… at least when it comes to breakfast. This summer, I could have easily earned employee of the month honors as a flapjack flipper at IHOP, but instead chose to use my pancake-making skills to keep my 7-year-old happy and full. Kids need a healthy breakfast in order for their bodies and brains to function properly. However, during the school year, this important morning meal often gets skipped in the interest of saving time or scoring a few more minutes of sleep. Ironically, eating … Continue reading →

Preparing Your Pup for Back to School

For most of us, the last thing on our minds during the busy back to school season is the family dog. As it turns out, Fido might need you to prepare him or her for the change as well. Unless everyone was out of the home all day during the summer, just like during the school year, your dog’s gotten extra summertime company. Thus it might experience some separation anxiety when everyone goes back to their school year schedules. Pet site ZooToo has some tips for how to gage if your dog will have separation anxiety problems during the school … Continue reading →

Back to School Anxiety & Emotions

Do a Google search on this topic and you’re likely to come across a ton of news stories, blogs, opinions, etc. I thought I better throw my hat into the ring, so my readers would not be left out. The person quoted the most on these various sites is Samuel Gladding, who is a professor at Wake Forest University. He offers 6 tips for helping with back to school anxiety and is summarized by Bradenton.com. The fact that these articles keep popping up on my alerts daily was funny to me, as I think I have more anxiety than my … Continue reading →

Back-to-School Breakfast Battle

Along with fighting about what to wear, arguing about acceptable hairstyles, and nagging about homework, moms face another daily back-to-school battle with straggler kids: breakfast. My soon-to-be second grader is used to taking her sweet time at the breakfast table methodically chipping away at her favorite dishes. Her leisurely pace is not an issue on weekends and during the summer months, but once the school year starts her routine gets a serious jolt. I’ve told her a thousand times that she has two choices when it comes to back-to-school breakfasts: She can either wake-up 30 minutes earlier than normal, and … Continue reading →

Tips For a No-Bummer Summer

If the words “summer” and “productivity” seem like polar opposites to you, you are not alone. The sunny days and warm weather, paired with kids being out of school and social schedules being jam packed may cause conflicting feelings for many home-based professionals. On one hand you want to kick back and relax a little and do fun things with your family that you do not get to do in cooler weather or when school is in session. On the other hand, you have work to do and letting it sit while you take a day to go to the … Continue reading →

Home Schooling with a Toddler in Tow

Have you ever been teaching algebra and been interrupted by the sound of your toddler riffling through your bookcase? Or teaching biology and look up to see your walls decorated with Crayola markers, complements of your toddler? Or worse yet, realize you have not taught a decent day of school since your baby turned into a toddler? Home schooling is not for the faint of heart. Our families are constantly changing, growing, and living life in between fractions and Moby Dick. One of the biggest changes a home schooling family can go through is the addition of a new baby. … Continue reading →

Health at School: New Shoes

Back to school shopping was always a horrible trial for my family. I’ve never been a huge fan of clothes shopping, so it was a miserable experience just for that. Then there was the huge divide in taste between me and my mom, which eventually got settled with this rule: if I picked something she hated, then she got to pick something I hated. Shoe shopping was only slightly less of a battlefield, if only because the choices were somewhat more limited! Much of our shoe shopping (in the elementary school years, at least) was done at the little shoe … Continue reading →

Preschoolers and Car Dangers

If you needed another reason why you should never leave your preschooler in the car alone, here it is: Police in the United Kingdom are calling 5-year-old David Law a hero. What’s more, officers say the fact that the young boy is alive today is “nothing short of a miracle.” Last week, the preschooler jumped out of his mother’s moving car in order to escape a deranged lunatic, who stole it while David was still strapped in the backseat. According to reports, the boy’s mom parked her car outside of her son’s school to check on term dates for David. … Continue reading →

Baby Blog Month in Review: October 2008

If you had an October baby, congratulations! I hope that you will spend some time with us here at Families.com, as we bring you the latest news and tips for you and your family. Here is the Baby Blog month in review for October. October 1st Insect Repellent and Young Children Protecting my children is the number one priority, but one thing that I tend to avoid is insect repellent. I figure that putting additional chemicals on my kids is not the best idea, that is until now. These days, a mosquito bite is not just an annoyance, but it … Continue reading →