Pedigreed Housewife World

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting at the kids’ school about the Kindergarten Readiness Test or KRT.  Apparently this is a mandatory test in Ohio (not sure what other states do it too) that my oldest will need to take next year in order to go into the Kindergarten program at her school.  I’m not super worried about Briana passing the test, not just because I think that Briana is a smart little girl, but also because she goes to a school that has bothered to host a parent meeting on the topic, which leads me to believe that they are doing all that they can to prepare the kids for this test.  That being said, while I don’t believe in drilling my kids, I do believe in preparing them. So after the meeting I googled the test and soaked up everything I could find out on it.  The best resources were actually on the state site: http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1366&ContentID=3930&Content=117686 ...

I usually let the kids decide what our weekly activity is, but not this week. Briana wanted to learn how a car worked, but I told her that we were doing something different today.    It’s holiday time and everywhere we go we see hot chocolate and apple cider and then the kids have a fit when we come home and I say that they have to drink water.   I decided that I was going to teach them about why we need to stay hydrated in hopes that they will then clamor for water over other options…or more realistically that they at least understand why water is a good choice. I start out by telling the kids that our bodies are made up of 60% water.   Bree laughs thinking that I am joking.    I tell her that really more than half of your body is water.   She tells me that she thinks we are mostly bone actually, and I tell her that both are true.   She needs proof that there is water inside of us so I ask her - when we’re running around or playing what ...

It’s that time of year again – the Holidays.   My family celebrates Christmas and this being the first year that the girls really seem to understand that Santa is coming, I thought that it would be a good time to make sure that they know the true Christmas story.   Both of the kids, when asked why we celebrate Christmas, will say that it is Jesus’s birthday.   Well, Abby might say “Jesus’s birthday party” but close enough, so we have a decent starting point.   I want to tell them more about Jesus’s birth day. We have unpacked all of the Christmas decorations and the kids are very much interested in the nativity sets which right now are all sitting on one table awaiting placement around the house.   I had planned to do the Christmas lesson as a storytelling/writing lesson, thinking that having Briana caption Abby’s pictures would solidify the story for both girls, but the fascination with the nativity sets gave me another idea.   I could use the nati...